28. Thus did God prepare this people for the receiving of the law, by a triple intimation of him who is the Redeemer from the law, and by whom alone the law that was to be given could be made useful and profitable unto them. And all these intimations were still given them on their great and signal provocations; to declare that neither did their goodness deserve them, nor could their sins hinder the progress of the counsel of God's will and the work of his grace. Hereby, also, did God revive unto them the grace of the promise; which being given, as our apostle observes, four hundred and thirty years before the giving of the law, could not be disannulled or im- . peached thereby.
And these I call the remote preparations of the people for the
472 PREPARATIONS FOR THE [EXERO. XIX.
receiving of the law, consisting in three revelations of the grace of God in Christ, happening and granted unto them in the three months’ space which they spent between the Red Sea and their coming unto the wilderness of Sinai, or to the mountain where they received the law.
29. The immediate preparations for giving of the law are all of them expressed Exod. xix.; and these we shall briefly pass through, the most of them being insisted on or referred unto by our apostle in the places before mentioned.
First, The time of the people’s coming unto the place where they were to receive the law is related verse 1. It was "W2Wi] WIN2, “novilunio tertio,” in the third month after their coming up out of Egypt; that is, on the first day of the month, the month Sivan, on the day of the new moon. And therefore it is added, 77 BN, “ on the same day.” On which Aben Ezra observes, “Moses went up first into the mountain to receive the commands of God, and returning on that day to the people, he went up again on the third day, that is, the third day of the month, to give in their answer unto the Lord,” verses 11, 16. And this fell out, if not on the day, yet about the time of Pentecost, whereon afterwards the Holy Ghost descended on the apostles, enabling them to preach the gos- pel, and therein our deliverance from the curse of the law given at that time.
30. For the special tome of the day when God began to give out the appearances of his glory, it is said, verse 16, 1227 n'n3, “ Whilst it was yet morning.” And Jarchi observes that all Moses’ ascents into the mountain were noawna, “early in the morning ;” which he proves from chap. xxiv. 4, “And Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto Mount Sinai.” And 7P3, “ boker,” properly signifies “the first appearance of the morning,” the light that must be in- ‘quired and sought after before the rising of the sun. So David, Ps, cxxx. 6, compares the earnest expectation of his soul for mercy unto the diligent watching of men for the morning; that is, the first appearance of light. And this was the season wherein our blessed Saviour rose from the grave and from under the curse of the law, bringing with him the tidings of peace with God and deliverance. He rose between the first dawning of light and the rising of the sun, Matt. xxvill. 1, Mark xvi. 2; unto that latitude of time doth the Scripture assign it, and the first evidence of it. For whereas John says that Mary Magdalene came to the sepulchre very early, “when it was yet dark,” chap. xx. 1; Matthew, “when it began to dawn toward day,” chap. xxviii. 1; Mark, “ very early in the morning, at the rising of the sun,” chap. xvi. 2, who compriseth the utmost abode of the women at the sepulchre; Luke expresses it indefinitely, op dpov Badéos, “profundo mane,” chap. xxiv. 1, that is, 1223, “in the first
SECT. 29-32. ] | GIVING OF THE LAW. 473
appearance and dawning of light;’—at which time the preparation for the promulgation of the law began.
81. The place they came unto is called “The wilderness of Sinai,” Exod. xix. 2; and so was the mountain also itself whereon the glorious majesty of God appeared, verse 20. It was also called “Horeb:” chap, ii. 1, “He came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb,” where they were to “serve God,” verse 12; and it was on this account after- wards called “ Horeb the mount of God,” 1 Kings xix. 8. And the whole wilderness was termed “ The wilderness of Horeb,”’ Deut. i. It is therefore generally supposed that they were several names of the same places, the mountain and wilderness wherein it was being both called Sinai and Horeb. And they were both occasional names, taken from the nature of the place, *2°D, “Sinai,” from 3D, “Seneh,” “A bush,” such as the angel appeared unto Moses in, Exod. iii. 2, such whereof a multitude were in that place; and “Horeb” from its drought and barrenness, which is the signification of the word. But the opinion of Moses Gerundensis is far more probable, that Horeb was the name of the wilderness, and Sinai of the moun- tain. That Sinai was the name of the hill is expressly affirmed, chap. xix. 18, 20, “ And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lorp descended upon it in fire. And the Lorp came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount.” So Ps. Ixviii. 17. And whereas mention is made of the “ wilderness of Sinai,” it is no more but the wilderness wherein mount Sinai was. And for those places before referred to, where Horeb seems to be called “The mount of God,” the words in them all will bear to be read, “To the mount of God in Horeb.” © Strabo calls this very mount 2wvé%», lib. xvi.; and Justin says of Moses, “ Montem Sinan occupat.” The people, there- fore, abode in Horeb, at the foot of the mountain, or about it; and the law was promulgated on the top of Sinai, in the most desert solitude of that wilderness, And in this place hath the superstition of some Christians in later ages built a monastery, for the celebra- tion of their devotion by an order of monks, whose archimandrite was not many years since in England. But as the place, materially considered, is as evident an object of God’s displeasure against the lower part of the creation, upon the account of sin, as almost any place in the world, a waste and howling wilderness, a place left to solitude and barrenness, so in its allusion or relation to the worship of God, it is cast by our apostle under “bondage,” and placed in an opposition to the worship and church-state of the gospel, Gal. iv. 24, 25.