Beginning of the End: God Gives His Law on Mount Sinai

This chapter is based on Exodus 19 to 24.

Soon after setting up camp at Sinai, Moses was called up into the mountain to meet with God. Israel was now to be taken into a close and special relationship to the Most High—to be organized as a church and a nation under the government of God. “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

Moses returned to the camp, and he repeated the divine message to the elders of Israel. Their answer was, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” In this way they entered into a solemn covenant with God, pledging themselves to accept Him as their ruler, becoming in a special sense the subjects of His authority.

God intended to make the event of speaking His law a scene of awe-inspiring grandeur. Everything connected with the service of God must be thought of with the greatest reverence. The Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes. ... For on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.” Everyone was to spend the time in solemn preparation to appear before God. Their bodies and their clothing must be free from impurity. They were to devote themselves to searching their hearts for any wrong, 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 shrouded in darkness and mystery. Then a sound like a trumpet was heard, calling the people to meet with God. From the thick darkness lightnings flashed, while peals of thunder echoed among the surrounding heights. “Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire ... and the whole mountain quaked greatly.” All of Israel shook with fear and fell on their  faces before the Lord. Even Moses exclaimed, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling” (Hebrews 12:21).

Now the thunder stopped, the trumpet was no longer heard, and the earth was still. There was a period of solemn silence; then the voice of God was heard. Speaking out of the thick darkness as He stood on the mountain, surrounded by angels, the Lord made known His law.

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” The One who had brought them out of Egypt, making a way for them through the sea, and overthrowing Pharaoh and his army—He was the One who now spoke His law.

God honored the Hebrews by making them the guardians and keepers of His law, but they were to hold it as a sacred trust for the whole world. The laws of the Ten Commandments are adapted to people everywhere, and they were given for the instruction and government of all. Ten commandments, brief, comprehensive, and authoritative, cover our duty to God and to other people, and all are based on the great fundamental principle of love. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). In the Ten Commandments these principles are applied to our lives.

(1) “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Whatever we cherish that tends to lessen our love for God or to interfere with the service that is rightfully His—of that we make a god.

(2) “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.”