30. The promulgation of the Divine law from Mount Sinai is described twice in the Torah, first as part of the history in the nineteenth and hventieth chapters of Exodus, and a second time, with some slight modifications, in the addresses made by Moses to •the people before his death. 1 The event was one, as Moses reminded the Israelites,11 unparalleled in the history of man ever since the creation of the world. No nation, whatever its traditions and legends may be, has ever even conceived the idea of the God of heaven and earth proclaiming his law to themselves "out of the midst of the fire,"-the light unapproachable, which hid his awful presence from tho eyes of man,-with his own voice.· At the creation "he spake and it wi.s done; he commanded and it stood fast.'' That was hie decree (Choq) operative in nature; he now speaks' words of la,v (T01·ah) to man made in his image, demanding the obedience of a raasonable creature. He was afterwards to speak to man in his only begotten Son; n yet more· perfect and Divine utterance. But as regards the outward manifestations and visible signs of the majesty, authority, and power of God, the giving of the law from Mount Sinai is an event, so far as we may conclude from Holy Scripture, such as will not again be witnessed until that great day "when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire taking vengeance on t_hem that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our LorJ Jesus Christ." 3 Of that terrible day Mount Sinai, as we inferred from the language of the Apostle Paul," was the anticipation and precursor. It is impossible for us to con- ceive a more solemn expression of the awful holiness of Almighty God, and of the certain and terrible consequences of disobedience to his law, than is contained in the simple but sublime description of the whole scene. The great mountain, before which the hosts of Israel were encamped, itself inspiring awe by its desolate grandeur and the mysterious silence of nature there,5 after a solemn W(ll'ning to the people from Jehovah to prepare themselves for this Divine revelation, on the morn- ing of the third day was covered with a thick cloud, out of which proceeded thun- deringe and lightnings, and the voice of n trumpet exceeding loud,-such as that which nt the second coming of the Lord shall awake the dead,-and Israel, trembling with fear, wns brought by Moses to the foot of the mountain, which itself quaked at the presence of tho Lord, its smoke going up to heaven like the smoke of 11 furnace. And Moses spake, nnd God answered him " out of the midst of the fire and the cloud and the darkness,' '-the very light was blackness to the oyes of man, 6-with a great voice. And the voice uttered the ten words, the ten brief commandments of the law, which were afterwards written on t~o tnhles of stone by no hunun agency,
1 Deut. v. ' Dout. iv. 32, SS, 3 2 Thoss. i 7, 8. 'Rom. i. 18 (soo § 27, supra). ~Of.Stanley's 'Syria. e.nd Pulestine,' p. 13, 14. 6 See Deut. v. 23. INTnonUCTION TO THE PENTATEUCII.