The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 2 — Section 126

F.Xl'O~lTION. " voice" and the " finger of God" WBll an CHAPTER XX. enormous 11dvantage, being impernti..-ely Vers.1-17.-TIIE DELIVERY OF THE MORAL needed to satisfy doubt, and silence that per• LAW. E,-ery necessary preparation had now verse casuistry which is always re""4.y to ques- been made. The priest!!, BS well e.s the peo- tion the off-hand decisions of the moral ple, had "sanctified themseh•es." A whole- consciousn c.ss, and to invent a more refined some dread of "breaking " through the fence, system, wherein "bitter is put for sweet, and Bild " touching " the mount, had spread ib!elf sweet for bitter.• Altogether the Decalogue among the people. M°"es hRd returned from Atands on a moral eminence, elevated above the camp to the summit of the mount; and and beyond all other moral systems-1':gyptian, both he nnd the people were attent to hear Indian, Chinese, or Greek, unequalled for the wor& of the" covenant," which had been simplicity, for comprehensiveness, for solem- announced to them (eh. xix. 5). Then, amid nity. Its precepts were, according to the the. thunderings, Bild the lightnings, and the Jewish tradition," the pillar., of the Jaw and noise of the trumpet, and the smoke, and the ibl roots." They formed to the nation to earthquake throbs which shook the ground, a which they were given " fons omnis publici ,·oice like that of a man, distinctly a.rticuls.te, privatique juris." They constitute for o.11 pronounced the words of that "moral law," time a condensed summary of human duty which hBS been from that day to this the which bears divinity upon ib face, which is guide of life to thoosa.nds upon thousands, the suited for every form of human society, and only guide to some, a very valuable and help- which, so Jong as the world endures, cannot ful guide to all who have known of it. It is become antiquated. The retention of the well said by Kalisch, that the delivery of the Decalogne as the best summary of the moral Decalogue on Sinai " formed a decisive epoch law by Christian communities is justified on in the history of the hnman race," and was these grounds, and itself furnishes emphatic even perhaps " the greatest and most im- testimony to the excellency of the com- portant event in hnman history," up to the pendium. time of its occurrence. Considering the Ver. 1.-Gocl spe.ke all these words. It weakness, imperfection, and moral obliquity h11S been suggested that Moses derived the of man, it was to the last degree important Decalogue from Egypt, by summarising the that an authoritative code should be pnt forth, chief points of the Egyptian teaching as to L..ying down with u.nmi.sta.k..e.ble clearness the the duty of man. But neither the second, chief heads of duty, and denouncing the chief nor the fourth, nor the tenth comm11,11dment came within the Egyptian ide11S of moral cLisses of sins. It may be true that the duty ; nor was any such compendious form educated moral sense of mankind in civilised as the Decalogue known in Egypt. More- commo.nities is sufficient to teach them ell, over, Egyptian morality was minute and or nearly all, of what the Decalogue forbids complex, rather than grand and simple /t'orty- and enjoins ; but this is the effect produced two kinds of sin were denied by the departed soul before Osiris and his assessors. The up0n the internal constitution of our nature noble utterances of Sinai are wholly unlike by long centuries of moral training ; and no- anything to be found in the entire range oi thing like it existed in primitive times. Then Egyptian literature. the moral sense was much duller; men's per- Ver. 2.-I am the Lord thy God. The ceptions of right and wrong were confused., ten precepts were prefaced by this distinct announcement of who it was that ntiercd uncertain, and not nnfrequently perverted and them. God would have the Israelites clearly depraved. Even in Egypt, where a priest nndersta.nd, that he himself gave them the class, established e.s the spiritual guides of the commandments. It is only possible to re- nation for a thousand years or more, ha.d concile the declarations of the New Testament, elahorated a moral system of considerable that the law was given by the ministration of angels (Acts vii. 53; Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2) merit, such a code as that of the Decalogue with this and other plain statements, by re- would have been a lll&l'ked improvement upon garding God the Son IIS the actual speaker. aaything that they had worked out for them- .Ai; aeut by his father, he too was, in a certain selves. And the authoritative s11,11ction by the sense, ao 11,11gel (i.e., a messenger). Which ('IT. XX :J-:i.] Trrn P,OOK ()[i' F,XODUS.