Chapter 27—God Gives His Law on Mount Sinai
This chapter is based on
Exodus 19
to 24.
Soon after the encampment at Sinai, Moses was called up into the
mountain to meet with God. Israel was now to be taken into a close
and peculiar relation to the Most High—to be incorporated as a church
and a nation under the government of God. “Ye have seen what I did
unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought
you unto Myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed,
and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me
above all people: for all the earth is Mine: and ye shall be unto Me a
kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.”
Moses returned to the camp, and to the elders of Israel he repeated
the divine message. Their answer was, “All that the Lord hath spoken
we will do.” Thus they entered into a solemn covenant with God, pledg-
ing themselves to accept Him as their ruler, by which they became, in
a special sense, the subjects of His authority.
God purposed to make the occasion of speaking His law a scene of
awful grandeur. Everything connected with the service of God must
be regarded with the greatest reverence. The Lord said to Moses, “Go
unto the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them
wash their clothes, ... for the third day the Lord will come down in the
sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai.” All were to occupy the time
in solemn preparation to appear before God. Their person and their
clothing must be freed from impurity. They were to devote themselves
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to humiliation, fasting, and prayer that their hearts might be cleansed
from iniquity.
On the morning of the third day, Sinai’s summit was covered with
a thick cloud, black and dense, sweeping downward until the entire
mountain was wrapped in darkness and mystery. Then a sound as of a
trumpet was heard, summoning the people to meet with God. From the
thick darkness flashed lightnings, while peals of thunder echoed among
the surrounding heights. “And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke,
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