The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 2 — Section 109

Ver. 3-6.-God's first message to the people at Sinai. The cloud goin" on hr!fom the people from Rephidim, brings them at laAt to what by pre-eminence is "called th" mount. Tlte mount, not because it was higher, but because there the turning b•1sl, appeared, 1Lnd there the people were to serve God. Moses goes up to the mou11t, probably to the very spot where a while ago he had seen the burning bush and receive,\ his great commission to Pharaoh. }'rom this BCene he had been travelling in a circle, and had now come whence he had started, but not as many travellers in a circle ,lo, returning poor and profitloss as they went. Here he is, treading once again the hallowed mountain side; the people whom he has brought are below; God, he knows, is near, for he has just had most gracious experience of him in Rephidim ; and now he waits for further revelations and commands. A great deal Moses has to listen to in Sinai from Jehovah; and therefore it is very interesting to notice the words with which Jehovah begins. Consider- !. '!'!IE TEilMS BY WHICH GoD INDICATES HIS PEOPLE. "The house of Jacob"-" the children of Israel." Thus Jehovah was ever sending the thoughts of his people far back into the past, and making them feel its important and glorious connection with the present. 'l'he house of Jacob was the house of him who had known many changes of circumstances, many disappointments and trials. It was the house of one who, born in Canaan, spent some of the best of his time at a distance with Laban, and died at Inst in Egypt. If he, the great ancestor, had thus been a man of change, what wonder that trying changes came upon the posterity! '!'hen they were also the children of Israel. '!'his was the name Divinely given; and if Israel forgets its purport and the privilege involved, Jehovah himself assuredly did not. Significant n(l.mes, that would otherwise get hidden in the past, God takes special care to preserve. II. THE WAY IN WJUCH GoD DESCRIBES BIS RECENT DEALINGS. To the Israelites all had been very confused, tedious, and trying, in spite of all the miraculous exemptions, escapes, and provisions they had enjoyed. They had not very well known what was being done with them. But now, in the compass of a sweeping verse, the whole course of affairs is presented as one rapid and decisive action. As a bird might snatch its offspring out of captivity and bear it far on high to some safe shelter, so Jehova!1 has done with Israel. He puts before them, as in ~ vision, these three things to be considered-I. The liberation. 2. The consequent journey. 3. The destination. Aud these three things he describes in a peculiar way. 1. The liberation he indicates by this signification, "what I did unto the Egyptians." He wished the people here to ponder the extent and significance of his terrible dealings in Egypt. The Israelites had gazed on a succession of varied and penetrating calamities coming on the Egyptians. But Jehovah wishes the observers to mark that these things were of his doing. J ehovah's actions are not to be buried in oblivion when once· they are past, because they are terrible actions. It is just because they are the terrible acts of a holy and just God ;hat they are to be remembered. There was in them nothing of a tyrant's caprice; they were not wild gusts of power to be ashamed of in calmer moments. '!'here had been due prediction and preparation; there was an orderly, gradual, impressive, instructive mounting to a climax: and if any of the people were inclined to forget the doer in the deeds, the liberator in the liberation, here is a warning thac things must not be so thought on. God is ever devising to make us look at events in their connection and continuity. The plagues of Egypt were only the preliminary 'JVerturning to carry on the greater plan of God. Egypt had fast hold of Israel ; wherefore Israel's God smote Egypt so that he might free his own people ~d bring r.nem to himself. 2. Tlte journey Jehovah indicates by a peculiarly beautiful and inspiring figure. " I bare you on eagles' wings." This was an appropriate fig~e for people dwelling in the wilderness. Moses had, doubtless, seen many eagles m his shepherd experiences; and the Israelites would become familiar wit~ them durmg their wanderi.n"S. Thus the ea"le's ways would be known; and after this word of Jehovah Moses wc°uld study them ~ore and more, and one result of such observation we find in Deut. xxxii. 11. When men exalt themselves as the eagle, and set their nests among the stars, God can brin" them down; but when he puts on the eagle's wings, it is to exalt himself into a place which shall be one of perfect safety for his people. Ono imagines the eaglet. thus lying on the parent's wing. It may wriggle about uneasily, wondering at the speed with which it is taken, the shaking it has to undergo and th11 EXODUS-II. 114 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. [c!t. XTX. 3-6.