Exodus 24:18

And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.

Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount. The Hebrew legislator remained all the time he was occupied in compiling the law in that sublime elevation, which has ever since been called from him the 'mountain of Moses' (Jebel M-sa). The peak is scarcely 30 paces in compass.

Whether Joshua was permitted to enter the cloud, and go up the mount along with him, is not said. The prevalent opinion is, that he continued on the spot where Moses and he tarried during the preparatory days of trial, and consequently was the first to salute Moses on his return (Exodus 32:17). But many of the fathers were of opinion that Joshua was allowed to attend Moses as his assistant (Pearson 'On the Creed,' Art. 2:); and some of them, as Augustine, suggest that Joshua's temporary observation during the delivery of the law, and his re-appearance, together with his high office of leading the people into the promised land, might typify our Lord's being, in the earlier part of his life, hidden in the law, and afterward coming forth to do what Moses could not accomplish-introducing God's people into "the better country, that is an heavenly."

And Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights (see the note at Genesis 7:4: cf. Matthew 4:2). Whether this statement is to be taken as marking a definite period, of which the first six days formed a part (cf. Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:9), or as a popular form of speaking, to indicate a protracted season, as some infer from the frequent occurrence of the same phraseology, cannot be determined. But the stay was sufficiently long to make it evident that no human frame could sustain such a prolongation of lack of food, as well as of incessant mental occupation, unless through miraculous power. If Joshua were along with him, a miracle was equally necessary in his case. But if he remained below on the mountain's brow, he was probably sustained, like the rest of the people, by a daily supply of manna, and the water of the brook that descended from the mount (Deuteronomy 9:21).