Exodus 19:16

_AND IT CAME TO PASS ON THE THIRD DAY IN THE MORNING, THAT THERE WERE THUNDERS AND LIGHTNINGS, AND A THICK CLOUD UPON THE MOUNT, AND THE VOICE OF THE TRUMPET EXCEEDING LOUD; SO THAT ALL THE PEOPLE THAT WAS IN THE CAMP TREMBLED._ On the third day ... The descent of God was signalized by every object imagination can conceive connected with the ideas of grandeur and of awe. Although the Divine Being was animated with feelings of the tenderest consideration for His people, and this new dispensation was itself an eminent display of kindness and love, yet 'the law being added because of transgressions,' its inauguration was all in keeping with the economy about to be introduced. Since the mountain burned with fire, God was exhibited as a consuming fire to the transgressors of His law. The thunder and lightning, more awful amid the deep stillness of the region, and reverberating with terrific...

16._And it came to pass on the third day. _We must bear in mind what I have already adverted to, that this terrible spectacle was partly to set the presence of God before their eyes, that His majesty might urge the beholders to obedience, and vindicate His doctrine from contempt, and partly to express the nature of the Law, which in itself produces nothing but mere terror. The air was disturbed by thunder and lightning’s, and the sound of the trumpet; the mountain was wrapped in smoke and darkness, that the people might humbly prostrate themselves before God, and solemnly embrace the covenant proposed to them; since religion never penetrates the mind so that it seriously receives God’s word until its vices are cleansed and corrected, and it is really subdued. And this fear is common also to the Gospel; for as in the promulgation of the Law God shook the earth, so when He speaks by the Pr...

16-25 Never was there such a sermon preached, before or since, as this which was preached to the church in the wilderness. It might be supposed that the terrors would have checked presumption and curiosity in the people; but the hard heart of an unawakened sinner can trifle with the most terrible threatenings and judgments. In drawing near to God, we must never forget his holiness and greatness, nor our own meanness and pollution. We cannot stand in judgment before him according to his righteous law. The convinced transgressor asks, What must I do to be saved? and he hears the voice, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. The Holy Ghost, who made the law to convince of sin, now takes of the things of Christ, and shows them to us. In the gospel we read, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. We have redemption through his blood,...

Verse Exodus 19:16. _THUNDERS AND LIGHTNINGS, AND A THICK CLOUD - AND THE_ _VOICE OF THE TRUMPET_] The _thunders, lightnings_, c., announced the coming, as they proclaimed the majesty, of God. Of the thunders and lightnings, and the _deep, dark, dismal, electric_ _cloud_, from which the thunders and lightnings proceeded, we can form a tolerable apprehension but of the _loud, longsounding_ _trumpet_, we can scarcely form a conjecture. Such were the appearances and the noise that all the people in the camp trembled, and Moses himself was constrained to say, "I exceedingly fear and quake," Hebrews 12:21. Probably the sound of the _trumpet_ was something similar to that which shall be blown by the angel when he sweareth, by Him that liveth for ever,...

EXPOSITION THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD UPON SINAI. All was ready. The fence had been made (Exodus 19:23); the people had purified themselves—at least so far as externals went. The third day was come—there was a breathless hush of expectation. Then suddenly, in the morning, the presence manifested itself. "There were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud" (Exodus 19:16); "and Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace and the whole mount quaked greatly" (Exod

AND IT CAME TO PASS ON THE THIRD DAY IN THE MORNING, c:] The sixth of the month, according to the Targum of Jonathan, and so Jarchi on which day, as the Jews generally say t, the law was given, and which, they also observe, was a sabbath day: yea, they are sometimes so very particular as to fix the hour of the day, and say u, it was the sixth hour of the day, or twelve o'clock at noon, that Israel received the decalogue, and at the ninth hour, at three o'clock in the afternoon, returned to their stations: THERE WERE THUNDERS, AND LIGHTNINGS, AND A THICK CLOUD UPON THE MOUNT; which were to awaken the attention of the people to what they were to hear and receive, and to strike their minds with an awe of the divine Being; and to add to the solemnity of the day, and the service of it; and to signify the obscurity and terror of the legal dispensation, and the wrath and curse that the transgr...

EXODUS 19. AWFUL REVELATION OF GOD IN FIRE AND CLOUD. Exodus 19:1 a P, Exodus 19:2 b - Exodus 19:3 a E, Exodus 19:3 b - Exodus 19:6 Rd, Exodus 19:7 a E, Exodus 19:11 b - Exodus 19:13 J, Exodus 19:14 E,...

THERE WERE THUNDERS AND LIGHTNINGS— The most formidable agents in nature, _air, fire,_ and _light,_ in their most dreadful exertions, attended the Divinity on this solemn occasion: a retinue of glorious angels, bright as the living flame, surrounded him, Deuteronomy 32:2. All nature expressed the most extraordinary commotion at his presence; and a sound, like that of a trumpet, was sent forth by his angelic ministers, as the summons to appear before him. No circumstances can be more truly awful, than these mentioned by the sacred historian; as, perhaps, there never was upon earth so solemn and majestic a display of the Divine glory. See Psalms 68:8. Joshua 5:4 and...

THE TEXT OF EXODUS TRANSLATION 19 IN THE THIRD MONTH AFTER THE CHILDREN OF IS-RA-EL WERE GONE FORTH OUT OF THE LAND OF E-GYPT, THE SAME DAY CAME THEY INTO THE WILDERNESS OF SI-NAI. (2) AND WHEN THEY WERE DEPARTED FROM REPH-I-DIM, AND WERE COME TO THE WILDERNESS OF SI-NAI, THEY ENCAMPED IN THE WILDERNESS; AND THERE IS-RA-EL ENCAMPED BEFORE THE MOUNT. (3) AND MO-SES WENT UP UNTO GOD, AND JE-HO-VAH CALLED UNTO HIM OUT OF THE MOUNTAIN, SAYING, THUS SHALT THOU SAY TO THE HOUSE OF JACOB, AND TELL THE CHILDREN OF IS-RA-EL: (4) YE HAVE SEEN WHAT I DID UNTO THE E-GYP-TIANS, AND HOW I BARE YOU ON EAGLES-' WINGS, AND BROUGHT YOU UNTO MYSELF. (5) NOW THEREFORE, IF YE WILL OBEY MY VOICE INDEED, AND KEEP MY COVENANT, THEN YE SHALL BE MINE OWN POSSESSION FROM AMONG ALL PEOPLES: FOR ALL THE EARTH IS MINE: (6) AND YE SHALL BE UNTO ME A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS, AND A HOLY NATION. THESE ARE THE WORDS WHICH THO...

19:16 thunders (c-17) Lit. 'voices.'...