Teachers as Examples of Christian Integrity
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Then the people were bidden to prepare themselves to hear the law.
On the morning of the third day the voice of God was heard. Speaking
out of the thick darkness that enshrouded Him, as He stood upon the
mount, surrounded by a retinue of angels, the Lord made known His
law.
God accompanied the proclamation of His law with manifestations
of His power and glory, that His people might be impressed with a pro-
found veneration for the Author of the law, the Creator of heaven and
earth. He would also show to all men the sacredness, the importance,
and the permanence of His law.
The people of Israel were overwhelmed with terror. They shrank
away from the mountain in fear and awe. The multitude cried out to
Moses, “Speak thou with us, but let not God speak with us, lest we
die.”
The minds of the people, blinded and debased by slavery, were
not prepared to appreciate fully the far-reaching principles of God’s
ten precepts. That the obligations of the decalogue might be more
fully understood and enforced, additional precepts were given, illus-
trating and applying the precepts of the ten commandments. Unlike
the decalogue, these were delivered privately to Moses, who was to
communicate them to the people.
Upon descending from the mountain, Moses “came and told the
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people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments: and all the
people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the
Lord hath said will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord,
and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill,
and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent
young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, and
sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord. And Moses took half
of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled
on the altar. And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the
audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will
we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it
on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the
Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.”
Thus by a most solemn service the children of Israel were once
more set apart as a peculiar people. The sprinkling of the blood