Exodus 20:1

THE COMMANDMENTS. -- Exodus 20:1-11.

GOLDEN TEXT. -- Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. -- Matthew 22:37. TIME. --B. C. 1491, Pentecost, fifty days after the Passover. PLACE. --Mt. Sinai in Arabia. CONNECTING LINKS. --1. Water from the Rock (Exodus 17:1-7); 2. The Amalekites (Exodus 17:8-16); 3. Encampment before Sinai; 4. The Glory of the Lord on the Mount (Exodus 19:16-25). HELPFUL READINGS. -- Exodus 17:1-16; Exodus 19:1-25; Psalms 1:1-6; Psalms 19:7-14; Matthew 22:34-40. LESSON ANALYSIS. --1. The Lord thy God; 2. The Lord. Zealous God; 3. Hallowing God's Name and the Sabbath Day.

INTRODUCTION.

No fewer than five mountains in different parts of the peninsula have been identified, or at least suggested, by various writers as the true Sinai, although the claims of three out of the five were so slight as to have attracted but little notice; the other two, namely, Jebel Musa (the Mountain of Moses), situated at about the center of the peninsula, and Jebel Serbal, some twenty miles further west (jebel being the Arabic for mountain), had divided between them, though with. preponderance in favor of the former, the support of the great majority of travelers and authorities of eminence in our own and past times.. spacious plain, El Rahah, confronts. precipitous cliff 2,000 feet in height, which forms the northwestern extremity or front of that great mountain block called Jebel Musa, which Bedouin and monastic tradition alike point to as the mountain of the law. The appearance of this locality is extremely impressive and grand, so majestic, indeed, that its natural scenery at once rivets the attention, apart altogether from the sacred associations. No one who examines it with special reference to the Bible account of the proclamation of the law can fail to be struck with its entire accordance with the details of the narrative. The plain derives its name, Rahah, from its level character; it is flat as the palm (rahah) of the open hand. It has been stated that this plain is not large enough to have hold the vast hosts of the Israelites, but we have surveyed it, and our answer is that it is large enough, not only to have held them as spectators, but, if needs be, to encamp them all. However, we are not necessarily confined to El Rahah in considering the site for the encampment. They may have, and probably did, spread into the wide lateral valleys which extend right and left from the base of the cliff, and have encamped before or in the presence of the Ras Sufsafeh, though the plain would have been the obvious place of assembly to witness any spectacle on the summit of the mountain. There are fully 400 acres of the plain proper, exactly facing the mount, and sloping down to it with just such. gentle inclination as would best enable. large number of people to see at once. The area of 400 acres would accommodate with ease about two millions of spectators, at the ample allowance of. square yard each, and besides this there is. considerable further open space, extending northwestward from the water-shed or crest of the plain, but still in sight of the mount--the very spot, it may be, to which the trembling Israelites "removed and stood afar off," when they feared to come nigh unto the cloud and the thick darkness, when they said unto Moses, "Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die."-- E. H. Palmer.

The words were "written by the finger of God," but the tables were not less surely fragments hewn out of the rock of Horeb. Hard, stiff, abrupt as the cliffs from which they were taken, they remain as the firm, unyielding basis on which all true spiritual religion has been built up and sustained. Sinai is not Palestine--the law is not the Gospel; but the ten commandments, in letter and in spirit, remain to us as the relic of that time. They represent us, both in fact and in idea, the granite foundation, the immovable mountain on which the world is built up, without which all theories of religion are but as shifting and fleeting clouds; they give us the two homely, fundamental laws, which all subsequent revelation has but confirmed and sanctified--the law of our duty toward God and the law of our duty toward our neighbor.-- A. P. Stanley.

I. THE LORD THY GOD.

1. God spake all these words.

Whatever media, whether elementary or angelic, God was pleased to employ on this occasion, it is manifest that the speech was his own, not merely as to the words spoken, but as to the articulate sounds actually perceived by the ear. We are aware that vibrations of the air are the usual medium for affecting the sense of hearing, and we have no reason to doubt that these were employed on the present occasion. It appears from the Old and New Testament (Deuteronomy 33:2-3; Acts 7:53; Galatians 3:19; Hebrews 2:2), that angels were present and active at the promulgation of the law. How this was effected, what was the arranging or dispensing part of the angels in this great drama, as it is not revealed, we do not pretend to say. But as the performer is the source of the music, notwithstanding the concurrence of the bellows-blower, the organ pipes, and the air, so we can understand that God was the real speaker of the ten words, notwithstanding the intervention of the dispensing angels and the vocal atmosphere.