they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast … Rather, "they endured not the injunction, If even a beast …" (Exodus 19:12-13). This injunction seemed to them to indicate an awful terror and sanctity in the environment of the mountain. It filled them with alarm. The Jewish Hagadah said that at the utterance of each commandment the Israelites recoiled twelve miles, and were only brought forward again by the ministering angels. St Paul, in different style, contrasts "the Mount Sinai which gendereth to bondage" with "the Jerusalem which is free and the mother of us all" (Galatians 4:24-26).

or thrust through with a dart This clause is a gloss added from Exodus 19:13. Any manwho touched the mountain was to be stoned, any beast to be transfixed (Exodus 19:13): but the quotation is here abbreviated, and the allusion is summary as in Hebrews 7:5; Acts 7:16.

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