feh--a
"natural altar," before which the nation had room to congregate,
awed by the stern magnificence of the approach, and by the intense
loneliness and desolation of the surrounding scene, and thus
prepared for the unparalleled revelation which awaited them.
It is the manner of God to speak through nature and the senses to
the soul. We cannot imagine the youth of the Baptist spent in
Nazareth, nor of Jesus in the desert. Elijah, too, was led into the
wilderness to receive the vision of God, and the agony of Jesus was
endured at night, and secluded by the olives from the paschal moon.
It is by another application of the same principle that the settled
Jewish worship was bright with music and splendid with gold and
purple; and the notion that the sublime and beautiful in nature and
art cannot awaken the feelings to which religion appeals, is as
shallow as the notion that when these feelings are awakened all is
won.
What happens next is a protest against this latter extreme. Awe
is one thing: the submission of the will is another. And therefore
Moses was stopped when about to ascend the mountain, there to keep
the solemn appointment that was made when God said, "This shall be
the token unto thee that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought
forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this
mountain" (Exo 3:12). His own sense of the greatness of the crisis
perhaps needed to be deepened. Certainly the nation had to be
pledged, induced to make a deliberate choice, now first, as often
again, under Joshua and Samuel, and when Elijah invoked Jehovah upon
Carmel. (Jos 24:24; 1Sa 12:14; 1Ki 18:21, 1Ki 18:39.)
It is easy to speak of pledges and formal declarations lightly,
but they have their warrant in many such Scriptural analogies, nor
should we easily find a church, careful to deal with souls, which
has not employed them in some form, whether after the Anglican and
Lutheran fashion, by confirmation, or in the less formal methods of
other Protestant communions, or even by delaying baptism itself
until it becomes, for the adult in Christian lands, what it is to
the convert from false creeds.
Therefore the Lord called to Moses as he climbed the steep, and
offered through him a formal covenant to the people.
"Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob,[33]
and tell the children of Israel: Ye have seen what I did unto the
Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto
Myself."
The appeal is to their personal experience and their gratitude:
will this be enough? will they accept His yoke, as every convert
must, not knowing what it may involve, not yet having His demands
specified and His commandments before their eyes, content to believe
that whatever is required of them will be good, because the
requirement is from God? Thus did Abraham, who went forth, not
knowing whither, but knowing that he was divinely guided. "Now,
therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed and keep My covenant,
then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me from among all peoples;
for all the earth is Mine, and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of
priests and a holy nation."
Thus God conveys to them, more explicitly than hitherto, the fact
that He is the universal Lord, not ruling one land or nation only,
nor, as the Pentateuch is charged with teaching, their tutelary
deity among many others. Thus also the seeds are sown in them of a
wholesome and rational self-respect, such as the Psalmist felt, who
asked "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?" yet realised that
such mindfulness gave to man a real dignity, made him but little
lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honour.
Abolish religion, and mankind will divide into two classes,--one
in which vanity, unchecked by any spiritual superior, will obey no
restraints of law, and another of which the conscious pettiness will
aspire to no dignity of holiness, and shrink from no dishonour of
sin. It is only the presence of a loving God which can unite in us
the sense of humility and greatness, as having nothing and yet
possessing all things, and valued by God as His "peculiar treasure."[34]
And with a reasonable self-respect should come a noble and yet
sober dignity--"Ye shall be a kingdom of priests," a dynasty (for
such is the meaning) of persons invested with royal and also with
priestly rank. This was spoken just before the law gave the
priesthood into the hands of one tribe; and thus we learn that Levi
and Aaron were not to supplant the nation, but to represent it.
Now, this double rank is the property of redeemed humanity: we
are "a kingdom and priests unto God." Yet the laity of the
Corinthian Church were rebuked for a self-asserting and mutinous
enjoyment of their rank: "Ye have reigned as kings without us"; and
others there were in this Christian dispensation who "perished in
the gainsaying of Korah" (1Co 4:8; Jud 1:11).
If the words "He hath made us a kingdom and priests" furnish any
argument against the existence of an ordained ministry now, then
there should have been no Jewish priesthood, for the same words are
here. And is it supposed that this assertion only began to be true
when the apostles died? Certainly there is a kind of self-assertion
in the ministry which they condemn. But if they are opposed to its
existence, alas for the Pastoral Epistles! It was because the
function belonged to all, that no man might arrogate it who was not
commissioned to act on behalf of all.
But while the individual may not assert himself to the unsettling
of church order, the privilege is still common property. All
believers have boldness to enter into the holiest place of all. All
are called upon to rule for God "over a few things," to establish a
kingdom of God within, and thus to receive a crown of life, and to
sit with Jesus upon His throne. The very honours by which Israel was
drawn to God are offered to us all, as it is written, "We are the
circumcision," "We are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the
promise" (Php 3:3; Gal 3:29).
To this appeal the nation responded gladly. They could feel that
indeed they had been sustained by God as the eagle bears her
young--not grasping them in her claws, like other birds, but as if
enthroned between her wings, and sheltered by her body, which
interposed between the young and any arrow of the hunter. Thus, say
the Rabbinical interpreters, did the pillar of cloud intervene
between Israel and the Egyptians. If the image were to be pressed so
far, we could now find a much closer analogy for the eagle
"preferring itself to be pierced rather than to witness the death of
its young" (Kalisch). But far more tender, and very touching in its
domestic homeliness, is the metaphor of Him Whose discourses teem
with allusions to the Old Testament, yet Who preferred to compare
Himself to a hen gathering her chickens under her wing.
With the adhesion of Israel to the covenant, Moses returned to
God. And the Lord said, "Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that
the people may hear when I speak with thee, and may also believe
thee for ever."
The design was to deepen their reverence for the Lawgiver Whose
law they should now receive; to express by lessons, not more
dreadful than the plagues of Egypt, but more vivid and sublime, the
tremendous grandeur of Him Who was making a covenant with them, Who
had borne them on His wings and called them His firstborn Son, Whom
therefore they might be tempted to approach with undue familiarity,
were it not for the mountain that burned up to heaven, the voice of
the trumpet waxing louder and louder, and the Appearance so fearful
that Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake" (to phantazomenon--
Heb 12:21).
When thus the Deity became terrible, the envoy would be honoured
also.
But it is important to observe that these terrible manifestations
were to cease. Like the impressions produced by sickness, by sudden
deaths, by our own imminent danger, the emotion would subside, but
the conviction should remain: they should believe Moses for ever.
Emotions are like the swellings of the Nile: they subside again; but
they ought to leave a fertilising deposit behind.
That the impression might not be altogether passive, and
therefore ephemeral, the people were bidden to "sanctify
themselves"; all that is common and secular must be suspended for
awhile; and it is worth notice that, as when the family of Jacob put
away their strange gods, so now the Israelites must wash their
clothes (cf. Gen 35:2). For one's vestment is a kind of outer self,
and has been with the man in the old occupations from which he
desires to purify himself. It was therefore that when Jehu was made
king, and when Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph, men put their
garments under their chief to express their own subjection (2Ki
9:13; Mat 21:7). Much of the philosophy of Carlyle is latent in
these ancient laws and usages.
Moreover, the mountain was to be fenced from the risk of
profanation by any sudden impulsive movement of the crowd, and even
a beast that touched it should be slain by such weapons as men could
hurl without themselves pursuing it. Only when the trumpet blew a
long summons might the appointed ones come up to the mount (Exo
19:13).
On the third day, after a soul-searching interval, there were
thunders and lightnings, and a cloud, and the trumpet blast; and
while all the people trembled, Moses led them forth to meet with
God. Again the narrative reverts to the terrible phenomena--the fire
like the smoke of a furnace (called by an Egyptian name which only
occurs in the Pentateuch), and the whole mountain quaking. Then,
since his commission was now to be established, Moses spake, and the
Lord answered him with a voice. And when he again climbed the
mountain, it became necessary to send him back with yet another
warning, whether his example was in danger of emboldening others to
exercise their newly given priesthood, or the very excess of terror
exercised its well-known fascinating power, as men in a burning ship
have been seen to leap into the flames.
And the priests also, who come near to God, should sanctify
themselves. It has been asked who these were, since the Levitical
institutions were still non-existent (Exo 19:22-24). But it is
certain that the heads of houses exercised priestly functions; and
it is not impossible that the elders of Israel who came to eat
before God with Jethro (Exo 18:12) had begun to perform religious
functions for the people. Is it supposed that the nation had gone
without religious services for three months?
It has been remarked by many that the law of Moses appealed for
acceptance to popular and even democratic sanctions. The covenant
was ratified by a pl
biscite.
The tremendous evidence was offered equally to all. For, said St.
Augustine, "as it was fit that the law which was given, not to one
man or a few enlightened people, but to the whole of a populous
nation, should be accompanied by awe-inspiring signs, great marvels
were wrought ... before the people" (De Civ. Dei, x. 13).
We have also to observe the contrast between the appearance of
God on Sinai and His manifestation in Jesus. And this also was
strongly wrought out by an ancient father, who represented the
Virgin Mary, in the act of giving Jesus into the hands of Simeon, as
saying, "The blast of the trumpet does not now terrify those who
approach, nor a second time does the mountain, all on fire, cause
terror to those who come nigh, nor does the law punish relentlessly
those who would boldly touch. What is present here speaks of love to
man; what is apparent, of the Divine compassion." (Methodius De
Sym. et Anna, vii.)
But we must remember that the Epistle to the Hebrews regards the
second manifestation as the more solemn of the two, for this very
reason: that we have not come to a burning mountain, or to mortal
penalties for carnal irreverence, but to the spiritual mountain
Zion, to countless angels, to God the Judge, to the spirits of just
men made perfect, and to Jesus Christ. If they escaped not, when
they refused Him Who warned on earth, much more we, who turn away
from Him Who warneth from heaven (Heb 12:18-25).
There is a question, lying far behind all these, which demands
attention.
It is said that legends of wonderful appearances of the gods are
common to all religions; that there is no reason for giving credit
to this one and rejecting all the rest; and, more than this, that
God absolutely could not reveal Himself by sensuous appearances,
being Himself a Spirit. In what sense and to what extent God can be
said to have really revealed Himself, we shall examine hereafter. At
present it is enough to ask whether human love and hatred, joy and
sorrow, homage and scorn can manifest themselves by looks and tones,
by the open palm and the clenched fist, by laughter and tears, by a
bent neck and by a curled lip. For if what is most immaterial in our
own soul can find sensuous expression, it is somewhat bold to deny
that a majesty and power beyond anything human may at least be
conceived as finding utterance, through a mountain burning to the
summit and reeling to the base, and the blast of a trumpet which the
people could not hear and live.
But when it is argued that wondrous theophanies are common to all
faiths, two replies present themselves. If all the races of mankind
agree in believing that there is a God, and that He manifests
Himself wonderfully, does that really prove that there is no God, or
even that He never manifested Himself wondrously? We should
certainly be derided if we insisted that such a universal belief
proved the truth of the story of Mount Sinai, and perhaps we should
deserve our fate. But it is more absurd by far to pretend that this
instinct, this intuition, this universal expectation that God would
some day, somewhere, rend the veil which hides Him, does actually
refute the narrative.
We have also to ask for the production of those other narratives,
sublime in their conception and in the vast audience which they
challenged, sublimely pure alike from taint of idolatrous
superstition and of moral evil, profound and far-reaching in their
practical effect upon humanity, which deserve to be so closely
associated with the giving of the Mosaic law that in their collapse
it also must be destroyed, as the fall of one tree sometimes breaks
the next. But this narrative stands out so far in the open, and
lifts its head so high, that no other even touches a bough of it
when overturned.
Is it seriously meant to compare the alleged disappearance of
Romulus, or the secret interviews of Numa with his Egeria, to a
history like this? Surely one similar story should be produced,
before it is asserted that such stories are everywhere.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] This phrase is not found
elsewhere in the Pentateuch. Is it fancy which detects in it a
desire to remind them of their connection with the least worthy
rather than the noblest of the Patriarchs? One would not expect, for
instance, to read, Fear not, thou worm Abraham, or even Israel; but
the name of Jacob at once calls up humble associations.
[34] This word is the same which
occurs in the verse so beautifully but erroneously rendered "They
shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up My
jewels" (Mal 3:17, A.V.). "They shall be Mine ... in the day that I
do make, even a peculiar treasure" (R.V.).