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said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock.
And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put
thee in a cleft of the rock; and will cover thee with my hand while I
pass by. And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back
parts; but my face shall not be seen.”
Never before was fallen man thus favored of God. As he laid upon
Moses the great work of leading his people through to the promised
land, he condescended to manifest to him his glory as he never had to
any others upon the earth.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like
unto the first, and I will write upon these tables the words which were
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in the first tables which thou brakest. And be ready in the morning,
and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself
there to me in the top of the mount. And no man shall come up with
thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount, neither let
the flocks nor herds feed before that mount.”
The Lord forbade any man being seen throughout the mount, be-
cause of their recent transgression, lest his glory should consume them.
This will give all to understand how God regards the transgression of
his commandments. If the people could not look upon his glory, which
appeared upon Sinai the second time, as he again wrote his law, how
will the wicked, who have trampled upon the authority of God, bear
his burning glory as they meet the great Lawgiver over his broken law?
“And he hewed two tables of stone, like unto the first; and Moses
rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the
Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of
stone. And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there,
and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before
him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will
by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
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the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the
fourth generation.”
God did not mean in this threatening that the children should be
compelled to suffer for their parents’ sins, but that the example of the
parents would be imitated by the children. If the children of wicked
parents should serve God and do righteousness, he would reward their