Exodus 20:21

_AND THE PEOPLE STOOD AFAR OFF, AND MOSES DREW NEAR UNTO THE THICK DARKNESS WHERE GOD WAS._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

18-21 This law, which is so extensive that we cannot measure it, so spiritual that we cannot evade it, and so reasonable that we cannot find fault with it, will be the rule of the future judgment of God, as it is for the present conduct of man. If tried by this rule, we shall find our lives have been passed in transgressions. And with this holy law and an awful judgment before us, who can despise the gospel of Christ? And the knowledge of the law shows our need of repentance. In every believer's heart sin is dethroned and crucified, the law of God is written, and the image of God renewed. The Holy Spirit enables him to hate sin and flee from it, to love and keep this law in sincerity and truth; nor will he cease to repent....

Compare Deuteronomy 5:22. Aaron Exodus 19:24 on this occasion accompanied Moses in drawing near to the thick darkness. Exodus 20:22 to Exodus 23:33 is a series of laws which we may identify with what was written by Moses in the book called the book of the covenant, and read by him in the audience of the people Exodus 24:7. The document cannot be regarded as a strictly systematic whole. Portions of it were probably traditional rules handed down from the patr

EXPOSITION WITHDRAWAL OF THE PEOPLE, AND NEARER APPROACH OF MOSES TO GOD. The effect produced upon the people by the accumulated terrors of Sinai—"the thunderings and the lightnings, the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking"—the cloud, and the voice out of the cloud—was an awful and terrible fear. They could not bear the manifestation of the near presence of God; and therefore "they removed and stood afar off." It seemed to them as if, on hearing the voice of God, speaking out of the thick darkness, they must die (Exodus 20:19). Moses, upon their expressing these feelings, comforted them with an assurance that God had shown his terrors, not for their injury, but to p

AND THE PEOPLE STOOD AFAR OFF,.... Still kept their distance in their camp and tents; or the heads and elders of the people having had this conversation with Moses, returned to their tents as they were bid, Deuteronomy 5:30 and to the people in the camp, and there they continued while Moses went up to God with their request: AND MOSES DREW NEAR TO THE THICK DARKNESS WHERE GOD WAS; the thick cloud, Exodus 19:9 as Jarchi interprets it, and who observes from their doctors that there were three enclosures about the divine Majesty, darkness, a cloud, and thick darkness; and so Moses passed through the darkness, and the cloud, to the thick darkness where Jehovah was, and where he is said to dwell when the temple was built,...

CHAPTER 20 THE COVENANT REVEALED _ 1. The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1)_ 2. Jehovah's gracious provision (Exodus 20:18) This law covenant is now stated. It was given three times. First orally here, when God spake all these words. Then in Exodus 31 Moses received the tables of stone, “written with the finger of God,” the same finger which later wrote on earth in the sand (John 8). The first tables were broken and Moses was commanded to hew two tables of stone upon which Jehovah again wrote the Ten Commandments (Exodus 34:1). This law was given to Israel exclu

EXODUS 20:18 E. ALARM OF THE PEOPLE. This resumes Exodus 19:17 or Exodus 19:19), and describes how the frightened people (read in Exodus 20:18_ b_ and the people were afraid and trembled) asked that Moses and not God should speak to them. Then Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was (Exodus 20:21). This idea, afterwards much developed by the mystics, is reflected in the windowless Holy of Holies in the Temple (_cf._ 1 Kings 6:16;...

MOSES DREW NEAR. Of his own motion Moses would scarcely have durst to venture into the thick darkness from which ever and anon the appalling gleams of lightning burst forth; but being specially called and encouraged of God, he was virtually taken by the hand and lead up into the precincts of the divine presence. The incident plainly pointed to their and our need of. mediator in all our attempts to deal with. God of immaculate purity and inflexible justice.--_ Bush._ PRACTICAL AND SUGGESTIVE. God demands reverence toward parents, as the foundation of an orderly and permanent organization of society. Ver. 12. God demands respect for human life, as his gift, which no man has the right to take from another. Ver. 13. God demands purity of morals, as the great protection of the family Ver. 15. God demands respect for property, as an encouragement to honest labor and the enjoyment of hones...

AFAR OFF. Note the difference between law and grace. (Ephesians 2:13). DREW NEAR. Moses' fourth ascent. See note on Exodus 19:3....

The people, alarmed by the terrible accompaniments of the theophany, express a desire that in future Moses may speak to them instead of God. Their wish is implicitly granted. Cf. Deuteronomy 5:22-31....