Exodus 34

[Note explanatory of De. 10:1-3.] When Moses interceded, God commanded him to prepare two new tables of stone, and to construct an ark in which to keep them (cf. Ex. 34:1). Directions had been given for the construction of the ark before the apostasy of the people, and it was not made till after the tabernacle had been erected, nor were the tables placed in it till the tabernacle had been consecrated. But as the things themselves were closely connected, Moses mentions them here together, without regard to chronological order. W. L. A.

Ex. 34:1-3. Moses must attend again on the top of Mount Sinai, and present himself to God there. Though the absence of Moses, and his continuing so long on the mount, had lately occasioned their making the golden calf, yet God did not therefore alter his measures, but he shall come up and tarry as long as he had done, to try whether they had learned to wait. To strike an awe upon the people, they are bid to keep their distance, none must come up with him. They had said (ch. 32:1), We know not what is become of him, and God will not let them know.

4. Moses did, accordingly, hew out the tables of stone, or slate, for they were so slight and thin that Moses carried them both in his hand; and their dimensions must have been somewhat less than the ark in which they were deposited, which was a yard and a quarter long, and three quarters broad. It should seem there was nothing particularly curious in the framing of them, for there was no great time taken: Moses had them ready presently to take up with him next morning. They were to receive their beauty not from the art of man, but from the finger of God. H.

There may be no literal mountain which man ascends; there may be no outward manifestations which strike the senses of beholders; but there is a communion between God and the soul, a conscious sense of the Divine Presence, as real and as effective now as that which belonged to Moses, when, at the bidding of God, he went up into the mountain. To deny it, is to rob the religion of the Gospel of all its spirituality; to be ignorant of it, is to be destitute of the very first elements of Christian experience. Mason.

Moses, in obedience to the command of God, went up to Mount Sinai, and presented himself before God. He only could do so; he was a typical mediator, a representative, a figurative symbol of Jesus Christ, the only mediator, who has passed into the true holy place, and appears in the presence of God for us. But it is very beautiful to see that on that very mount which burned with fire, and was shrouded with blackness, that very mount whose antecedents had been so dark and terrific, God revealed the most beautiful and comforting description of himself recorded in the whole Bible; to show that Israel was not to be under mere law; but while they saw and learned what the Law was, they were also to have a foretaste of what the Gospel was also. We associate with Sinai everything that is terrific; the contact and the presence of a sovereign, a legislator, a judge. But we should not forget that on Sinai also was revealed this beautiful portrait of Deity. J. C.

5. Now that God is about to publish a second edition of the Law, he prefaces it with this proclamation; for it is God’s grace and goodness that gives the Law, especially the remedial law. The pardon of Israel’s sin, in worshipping the calf, was now to pass the seals; and God, by this declaration, would let them know that he pardoned merely out of his own good pleasure, not for their merit’s sake, but from his own inclination to forgive. The proclaiming of it denotes the universal extent of God’s mercy; he is not only good to Israel, but good to all; let all take notice of it. H.

Moses had asked to look with his bodily eyes upon the unveiled face of God; but it is only in the mirror of the Word, with the inward spiritual eye of faith, that a man can look upon the Divine Being, whose features, as manifested outwardly, are called his face. In the word, therefore, Jehovah permitted him to behold his essence; but it was in a word of such comprehensiveness, such depth and fulness, as had never fallen upon human ears before. As he passed by Moses, he proclaimed to him who and what he was. What was here declared to Moses was a far deeper, fuller, and more comprehensive explanation of the name Jehovah, a commentary on the words “I am that I am” (Ex. 3:14), by which he had previously given to his servant, and through him to his people, a deeper insight into the meaning of his name. It was quite in its right place here; for what it expressed in words was immediately afterward confirmed in a gracious deed—viz., in the renewal of the covenant. K.

What he saw is nowhere told us; only what he heard, when Jehovah “proclaimed” before him what Luther aptly designates as “the sermon about the name of God.” It unfolded his inmost being, as that of love unspeakable—the cumulation of terms being intended to present that love in all its aspects. And, in the words of a recent German writer: “Such as Jehovah here proclaimed, he also manifested it among Israel at all times, from Mount Sinai till he brought them into the land of Canaan; and thence till he cast them out among the heathen. Nay, even now in their banishment, he is ‘keeping mercy for thousands, who turn to the Redeemer that has come out of Zion.’” A. E.

6,7. And the Lord passed by, and proclaimed. It is a wonderful proclamation. You can apprehend its beauty and significance, as an exposition of what Moses wanted to know, by observing how each successive title and description rises in beautiful gradation to the climax—each strengthening and making more wonderful what has preceded. First are declared the natural attributes as the ground and guarantee to man for his infinite moral attributes. “Jehovah, Jehovah God.” S. R.—The proper reading is the following, “And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed Jehovah, Jehovah: God, merciful and gracious,” etc. The august title “Jehovah” is reduplicated by way of emphasis, as that pre-eminent designation which was designed to come home to the soul with the utmost fulness of import. To this the name “God” (ēl) is subjoined, of which the leading idea is that of strength, might, potency, and which in this connection would convey the idea of all-sufficient protection to all his people and of formidableness to all their enemies. This proclamation of his name as almighty would serve as a suitable preface to the announcement of his moral attributes just about to follow; for his mercies are the mercies of a God of infinite resources; and they are on this account unspeakably endeared to the subjects of them. Bush.—His greatness and goodness illustrate and set off each other. That the terror of his greatness may not make us afraid, we are told how good he is; and that we may not presume upon his goodness, we are told how great he is. H.

The Divine attributes here proclaimed constitute the Divine nature, and so the preaching of mercy and forgiveness already resounds on Sinai, the place from which emanates the Law, and thence runs through the whole Bible, until it reaches its fulfilment and perfect realization in Christ. C. G. B.—The properties here mentioned, as his mercy, his grace, his long-suffering, his abundance in goodness or bounty, and truth, his keeping mercy for thousands, his forgiving iniquities, transgression, and sin, have all respect to mankind in a particular manner. And by the last—namely, his “forgiving,” or, as the word signifies, his taking away “iniquity, transgression, and sin,” he intimates his special love to them, in sending his Son, “the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.” Bp. Beveridge.—In the most solemn moment of the highest revelation, the mediator of the Old Testament beholds God as Love, who, without having first received anything, is full of the desire to communicate his holy and blessed nature to sinners, in order to make them partakers of his perfections: he is not only ready to forgive, but he also waits for their repentance and remits the punishment. At this moment he wishes especially to show how and why he will again turn his grace to the stiffnecked people. Gert.

Full of compassion. This is that perfection of Jehovah’s nature with which we as sinners have the most immediate and intimate concern, and therefore it stands first in this enumeration. It is this that constitutes the moving spring in the great scheme of redemption.

Gracious. From the root hanan, signifying to be kindly or graciously affectioned toward a person. In Scripture usage this term as applied to God and as denoting his dispositions and dealings toward men, carries with it the leading import of unmerited favor or kindness. Slow to anger. The first-fruit of His grace. He bears long with sinners; he delays the execution of justice; he waits to be gracious in despite of their iniquities. Nothing is more wonderful than the patience of God when we consider the provocations which he continually receives at the hands of the ungodly. Plenteous in mercy and truth. Much in goodness, or benignity, and truth. The idea is that of exuberant benevolence. And not only does his goodness abound above our deserts and above our powers of acknowledgment, but being a God of truth, who will not and cannot deceive, we are assured that every promise of further and future good will be strictly fulfilled, and that nothing will prevent the realization of those eternal blessings which he has reserved for them that put their trust in him. Keeping mercy for thousands. The original term mercy is precisely the same with that in the preceding clause. In the former passage reference is had to the plenitude of the Divine mercy, in the present to its perpetuity. Chal. “Keeping goodness to a thousand generations.” God keeps or preserves mercy by continually showing it in all its various exercises to thousands of sinners in all ages and to the end of time. He keeps it notwithstanding the crying provocations which might move him to cast it away. He reserves it for his chosen people through all the days of their unregeneracy. Bush.

And now, as the moral nature in man asks in amazement, how can all this be true and Jehovah still be holy and of purer eyes than to behold iniquity? This revelation proceeds a step further to explain and justify all the foregoing: “Forgiving” (Heb.)—“Taking away INIQUITY and TRANSGRESSION and SIN! All this boundless exercise of mercy shall be without violence to the sense of truth and right in the soul I do all—not by passing over sin, or being blind to sin, or by pardon without a reason. I take away the iniquity. I arrange for the mercy to flow as though no sin had been done by the sinner. And now more wonderful than all, and the fitting capstone to this glorious manifestation, all shall be done without the least shadow of stain upon my eternal and infinite justice. For I WILL BY NO MEANS CLEAR THE GUILTY. This overflow of the infinite mercy and grace shall never sweep away the throne of justice, or efface or mar or blur for a moment, in the mind of any intelligent creature in the universe, the eternal distinction between truth and falsehood, right and wrong. For the grace and mercy shall flow out to man for a reason that shall satisfy the highest justice and render Jehovah just in the very act of justifying the sinner. Such is this wonderful evangel to Moses of the mercy of God. It needs nothing more than this simple analysis to make it plain to the apprehension, and then it carries with it its own argument and demonstration to the conscience. Here the teachings of Nature in all her works of his goodness, and of Providence in all its mysterious signs, and of human consciousness, and of “God manifest in the flesh,” and of God manifest in human consciousness, all have their clear and distinct utterance. S. R.

Here, in these hopeful, inspiring, soul satisfying words, words whose scope and substance anticipate as they most fully express the very pith and marrow of the Gospel—words uttered, too, be it remembered, by the very Being whose after life and suffering in the flesh make up that Gospel—in these words which unveil that which neither the heavens nor the earth could declare—the inner nature of the Godhead, the loftier moral elements of the Divine character, his holiness and love, his justice and his grace—here, in these sublimely attractive and comforting words, have we God’s own declaration of that in which consists his chiefest glory. Here himself distinctly avers that he is supremely adorable, he is supremely to be magnified and loved, not for his stupendous visible creations of sphered systems and firmaments, nor for his equally wondrous demonstrations of limitless energy in the continuous upholding and onward harmonious march of these unnumbered worlds, nor yet for his ample beneficent providences, everywhere and at every instant calling for the gratitude of man, but for his vaster, more wonderful, infinitely more beneficent grace in man’s forgiveness and redemption. In this disclosure of the very heart of God, his ineffable compassion, tenderness, love blending with high regard to that Law of Holiness exactly responded to by himself and demanded of his intelligent creatures—in this disclosure made by Jehovah Jesus, foreshadowing the great transaction which should prove its truth by his own after deed of inconceivable sacrifice, in this disclosure which met and satisfied the spiritual longing of Moses, may we too behold the most excellent glory of the living God. And this vision of his highest glory, as a just God and yet a Saviour, this simple, full, explicit proclamation of his name, that by which he delights to be chiefly known—“Merciful and Gracious”—this revelation to Moses, amplified, illustrated, convincingly impressed by the whole incarnate life and death of Jesus, this it is which every darkened, sinning, disquieted human soul supremely needs. This inshining of God into our hearts to give the light of the glory of God in the person and sacrifice of Christ, as Paul expansively enunciates the desire of Moses, this vision of God in Christ, as merciful and gracious, long-suffering, forgiving iniquity and transgression, is that which every human soul imperatively needs, which each must desire, must seek and receive for himself, if he would find peace and rest of spirit. B.

Even though every other voice were hushed, surely each follower of Christ must sing aloud, repeating from his heart the words, “Merciful, gracious, long-suffering!” How well has God dealt with each one of us—ineffably beyond what we can ask or think! There is no heart without its sore, but neither is there any sore without its heavenly cure. There is no life without its doubts and its unanswered questionings, but neither is there any doubt that does not sometime yield to grateful astonishment. The God of everlasting mercy ever finds out ways of showing his compassion for us men. The God of boundless patience bears with imperfection in his servants. How clear becomes the dark life-path, when with a Moses’s eye we everywhere behold the rays fall from the revelation of God’s glory, and with a Moses’s ear hear from each dark, impenetrable cloud above our path the voice from heaven repeated constantly, “Merciful, gracious, abundant in goodness!” And this revelation of God’s holy love is destined to be ever going on, ever becoming clearer, and never adequately praised. What matters it although you do not in the body stand next Moses on Mount Sinai? Is not the voice out of the cloud sealed by the voice from your heart? Van O.

The character of God was known, in all its important features, by the Old Testament saints. They knew and adored his infinite holiness, his unalterable truth, his unbending justice, his immeasurable compassions. So God revealed himself here to Moses. This is clearly God’s glory (a just God and a Saviour), as it is revealed in Christ, who on this occasion made himself known to Moses. If we would see these glorious attributes of God in all their heights and depths, and length and breadth, we must contemplate them as they are revealed at Calvary. They who never witnessed that amazing spectacle—God-Man crucified for sinners—know comparatively nothing of God. Upon the cross of Jesus is inscribed, “They shall know me.” Goode.—In the person of his Son Jesus Christ God has so revealed himself, that, without at all lowering his dignity or lessening his glory, he may yet be steadily gazed upon. “We beheld his glory,” said his disciples, “the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Who could have supposed that “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords,” would ever have been seen by mortal eye? Who could ever have hoped that the source and centre of all excellence and perfection would ever stoop to exhibit himself to his creatures? But that which we could not have supposed, and which it would have been presumption to have desired, has actually taken place! “The Word was made flesh, and did dwell among men.” R. Hall.

The scheme of redemption, in its conception and evolution, is a sublime commentary upon the sacredness and supremacy of right, which, while it reveals the ineffable enormity of sin, presents the character of God in such an aspect of venerable grandeur that Holiness becomes awful and majestic, and we insensibly adore under the moral impression which it makes. He that stands beneath the cross and understands the scene dares not sin; not because there is a hell beneath him or an angry God above him, but because Holiness is felt to reign there—the ground on which he treads is sacred, the glory of the Lord encircles him. God never appears to be so truly great, so intensely holy, as when, from the pure energy of principle, he gives himself, in the person of his Son, to die, rather than that his character should be impugned. Who, at the foot of Cavalry, can pronounce sin to be a slight matter? Here, then, lies the most impressive sanction of revelation. Not content to promulgate the Law with absolute certainty, to put under tribute the whole resources of the invisible world, to lay its hand upon eternity and make heaven and hell its ministers, it rises yet higher and seeks to impress us with a subduing sense of the sacredness of right—to make us feel how awful goodness is; it reveals its inherent greatness, unveils its ineffable glory. It does not describe it, but shows it; and we return from the cross with emotions similar to those of Moses when the name of the Lord was proclaimed, and the goodness of the Lord passed before him in the cleft of the rock. It is the scheme of redemption which crowns the ethical teachings of the Bible. The lesson is sealed at the cross; there, and there only, do we shudder at sin for its own sake, and reverence right for itself. Thornwell.

Moses Pleads for Israel’s Pardon and Restoration to Favor (Ex. 34:9; De. 9:18-20, 25-29). And Jehovah Hearkens unto him (De. 10:10).

When Moses thus fully understood the character of Jehovah, he could once more plead for Israel, now converting into a plea for forgiveness even the reason which had seemed to make the presence of Jehovah among Israel dangerous—that they were a stiffnecked people. In the same manner had the Lord, in speaking to Noah, made the sin of man, which had erst provoked judgment, the ground for future forbearance. A. E.—It is a strange plea he urges; for it is a stiffnecked people. God had given this as a reason why he would not go along with them (ch. 33:3); “Yea,” says Moses, “the rather go along with us; for the worse they are, the more need they have of thy presence and grace to make them better.” Moses sees them so stiffnecked, that, for his part, he has neither patience nor power enough to deal with them; “Therefore, Lord, do thou go among us, else they will never be kept in awe. Thou wilt spare, and bear with them, for thou art God, and not man” (Hos. 11:9). H.

Now Moses is relieved of his perplexities, at least so far as to see that mercy will be secured to some in all generations though others may reject it and perish. He may rest in tranquil confidence upon the purpose of him who keeps mercy for thousands. He does not tell us, for he could not, what he saw when the Lord passed by. Filled with wonder and solemn awe, he made haste to bow his head and prostrate himself in profound reverence. But still true to his work as intercessor, his first cry after this amazing exhibition, is the same long-urged petition: “Let my Lord I pray thee go among us and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.” And Moses is victorious. For Jehovah said, “Behold, I make a covenant.” The sinners are saved and restored to God as his people. S. R.

De. 9:25-29. On a comparison of this passage with Nu. 14:5, the subject and language of this prayer show that only the second act of intercession (verse 18) is now described in fuller detail. Jamieson.

De. 10:10. Moses here sums up the general result of his intercession. As at the first, he was on the mount the second time forty days and forty nights; and in response to his pleading the Lord willed not to destroy Israel, and commanded him to resume his place as leader of the people, and conduct them to the promised land. “This commandment and promise was a testimony that God now was reconciled unto them by the intercession of Moses.” W. L. A.

On Sinai, at the Bush, Moses was taught to view Jehovah as the Infinite; at the giving of the Law, as the God of spotless holiness; but here, as the God of everlasting mercy. What he now hears is the grandest revelation ever made by God under the Old Economy; the only scene we can compare with that before us now—viz., the revelation granted to Elijah on this very Horeb, only showed that man of God, in sacred symbols, the same truths here audibly proclaimed to Moses by the voice of God. Van O.

Among the greatest lessons of this history are those that relate to prayer. The whole character of Moses as seen in this transaction is wonderfully pure and true. How unselfishly he casts away, as not to be thought of, the Divine suggestion—“I will make of thee a great nation!” With what solid grasp and singular tenacity did he hold fast to the great ideas of God’s covenant with Abraham—to make this nation his own peculiar people; to abide among them; to manifest himself in works of power and grace, and get himself a great name in all the earth! Shall God forget this covenant; abandon this people: drop them midway from Egypt to Canaan, and leave all the nations to exult in their ruin and to put it to the caprice or the impotence of Israel’s God? Never! It is wonderful how Moses holds on upon these strong points in his case and the case of Israel; how thoroughly he proves himself to have been raised up of God for the great mission of Israel’s leader and advocate with God. With what boldness does he debate the case before the Lord and set forth his strong reasons—reasons, not of selfish sort, not looking so much to the human side as to the Divine; reasons that entered deeply into the greatest of all considerations—the honor of God before all the nations, and the success of his plans in making Israel his chosen people. As we search the annals of human history in vain to find a stronger case of power with God in prayer, so we must look far to find a case more instructive in regard to the proper attitude for praying souls before God, and the proper arguments to use in prayer. Moses seemed not so much pleading for himself or for his people, as for God. Therefore it was that his pleas, based on the revealed counsels of the Almighty and fully in sympathy with his designs and with his glory, took hold of the heart of Jehovah and could not be denied. H. C.

Ye who are much concerned about your sins, pray, “Show me thy glory!” until the Lord make you understand that everything is finished that concerns your good. Ye who are feeble in the fight of faith, repeat each day the prayer, “Show me thy glory!” that ye may be

“strengthened with might in the inner man.” Ye who are bent beneath the weight of life’s burdens and crosses, ask that God may show his glory unto you, whether by the removal of the burden you bear, or by its continuance, or, if it must be so, by even increasing it. Van O.

JEHOVAH RENEWS THE COVENANT WITH ISRAEL. BRIEF SUMMARY OF ORDINANCES PREVIOUSLY GIVEN. SECOND WRITING UPON THE TABLES OF STONE OF THE TEN WORDS. TRANSFIGURATION OF MOSES’S FACE.

Ex. 34 10 And he said, Behold, I make a covenant : before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth, nor in any nation : and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the LORD, for it is a terrible thing that I do with thee. 11 Observe thou that which I command thee this day : behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, 12 and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, 13 lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee : but ye shall break down their altars, and dash in 14 pieces their pillars, and ye shall cut down their Asherim : for thou shalt worship no other god : 15 for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God : lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, 16 and one call thee and thou eat of his sacrifice ; and thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after 17 their gods. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou 18 keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, at the time appointed 19 in the month Abib : for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt. All that openeth the 20 womb is mine ; and all thy cattle that is male, the firstlings of ox and sheep. And the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb : and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break its neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before 21 me empty. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest : in plowing time 22 and in harvest thou shalt rest. And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the firstfruits 23 of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end. Three times in the year shall 24 all thy males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders : neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou goest up to 25 appear before the LORD thy God three times in the year. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread ; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left 26 unto the morning. The first of the firstfruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house 27 of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk. And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words : for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant 28 with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights ; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

De. 10 4 And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the 5 assembly : and the LORD gave them unto me. And I turned and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made ; and there they be, as the LORD commanded me.

Ex. 34 29 And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of the testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not 30 that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone ; and they were afraid to 31 come nigh him. And Moses called unto them ; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation 32 returned unto him : and Moses spake to them. And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh : and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him in mount 33 Sinai. And when Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. But when 34 Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out ; 35 and he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded ; and the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone : and Moses put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

This section contains : First, the announcement by Jehovah of the re-establishment of his covenant with Israel, with a general declaration of his purposed intervention in their behalf (verse 10). Second, an abridged repetition and still briefer compendium of “the words and judgments” recited (Ex 20 : 22-23 : 19) in connection with the previously ratified covenant. This is comprised in verses 11-26. Third, the instruction to Moses to “write these words” also as a permanent record of the conditions “after the tenor of which,” God says, “I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel” (verse 27). Then follow the second forty days with Jehovah, the second Divine writing of “the Ten Commandments,” and Israel’s fear because of the transfiguration of Moses’s face. B.

The Lord now graciously confirmed once more his covenant with Israel. In so doing he reminded them of its two conditions, the one negative, the other positive, but both strictly connected, and both applying to the time when Moses should be no more, and Israel had entered on possession of the promised land. These two conditions were always to be observed, if the covenant was to be maintained. The one was avoidance of all contact with the Canaanites and their idolatry (verses 11-16) ; the other, observance of the service of Jehovah in the manner prescribed by him (verses 17-26). A. E.

10. Behold, I make a covenant.** When the covenant was broken, it was Israel that brake it ; now that it comes to be renewed, it is God that makes it. If there be quarrels, we must bear all the blame ; if there be peace, God must have all the glory. H. — I will do wonders. Before reciting the conditions of the covenant on the part of the people, God briefly repeats the substance of his own engagement (verse 10) as a motive to stimulate them to the performance of theirs, to wit, that he would drive out before them the devoted nations and put them in triumphant possession of the promised land. As if he should say, “You see what I have pledged myself to do ; now let me see that you will not be wanting in what I require of you.” Bush.

Verses 11-26.

As Jehovah now renews the covenant, he again rehearses in still briefer compass the summary of ordinances previously given (Ex. 20 : 22-23 : 19). He thus, a second time, outlines the essential conditions upon whose fulfilment by them depends his fulfilment of the promises contained in the covenant now renewed. B.

The book which Moses was commanded (in verse 27) to write as the basis of the covenant, is called the little book of the covenant, to distinguish it from the book which Moses wrote as the basis of the original covenant at Sinai (Ex. 24 : 4), which is called the greater book of the covenant, on account of its much greater extent. This little book of the covenant is included in verses 11-26, and is scarcely larger than the tables of the covenant (Ex. 20 : 1-17). It is now the common opinion of critics that we have here another Decalogue. In the arrangement of the commands (verses 14-26) we present the following scheme as the one most satisfactory. First command, verses 14-16. Second, verse 17. Third, verses 18-20. Fourth, verse 21. Fifth, verse 22. Sixth, verses 22-24. Seventh and Eighth, verse 25. Ninth and Tenth, verse 26. These commands may be divided into three groups : (1) The two laws of worship in general (verses 14-17). (2) The laws of holy days (verses 18-24). (3) The laws of offerings. It is therefore a Decalogue of worship as compared with the Decalogue of the tables, which is a Decalogue of holy conduct. They may well have been each in its way at the root of the covenant of Jehovah with Israel. The one was written by Jehovah himself upon two tables as the tables of the covenant, the other was written by Moses in a writing as a book of the covenant.

The Introduction (verses 11-13).

“Keep thou that which I am commanding thee to-day. Behold, I am about to drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Take heed to thyself lest thou conclude a covenant with the inhabitants of the land upon which thou art about to come, lest it become a snare in thy midst. Nay their altars ye shall tear down and their Mazzeboth ye shall break down and their Asherim ye shall cut in pieces.” This introduction mentions the six chief nations of Canaan, the same as those given in the larger book of the covenant (23 : 23), and also in the Deuteronomic code (De. 20 : 17), but in each case they are in a different order. The altars were the places of sacrifice to other gods. They were unfit for the sacrifices to Jehovah. The Mazebooth (verse 13) were stone pillars used in the worship of Bual, the Sun god. The Asherim were evergreens, or pillars of evergreen wood, used in the worship of Ashera, the goddess of life and fertility. These were to be destroyed by tearing down, breaking down, cutting in pieces. Briggs.

11. Behold, I drive out the Canaanite, etc.** When God drove out those nations, he acted as a judge. They were criminals, proved criminals. Their sins had risen to heaven; they indulged in the most abominable, the most depraved and revolting practices; and when God drove them out, it was not simply to make room for the Israelites, but it was punishing justly and righteously a guilty race, and giving their empty land to a people not innocent, for they were a stiffnecked people, but a people that he had chosen to make by his grace what they should be—kings and priests unto God and unto his Christ. There was nothing unjust in this expulsion of these nations, in order to make room for the children of Israel. The expression “God is a jealous God,” and the warning to Moses not to make any covenant with the Canaanites, but to destroy their altars, must suggest itself the reason for it. J. C.

12. The ashera was a symbol of the goddess, probably in some one of her characters, wrought in wood in some conventional form. If we suppose it to have symbolized her as a goddess of nature, its form may have resembled that of the sacred tree of the Assyrians, with which we have become familiar from the monuments of Nineveh. It has been conjectured from the sculptured figures that this was an upright stock which was adorned at festive seasons with boughs, flowers, and ribbons. Such might have been the ashera. Clark.

14. For the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.** That is, whose nature is jealous; who can bear no rival. The covenant made with Israel was virtually a marriage-covenant, and consequently idolatry was adultery. Every approach to this sin, therefore, would be sure to provoke him to jealousy. Bush.—15, 16. The Scriptures frequently speak of idolatrous worship as uncleanness—partly in compliance with the Jewish idiom, which calls anything that is detestable filthy and unclean: the persons of that people being rendered unholy by bodily pollutions—partly by reason of the very unchaste actions and rites by which many of the heathen idols were served; but especially, because it was an alienation of the hearts and bodies of his chosen people from him. Patrick.

17. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.** This corresponds with the second command of the tables, but without the reasons which are here associated with the previous command. There we have the specification of the graven or carved image of wood, here we have the molten image of metal. Neither mention the image of stone. But in neither case are we to conclude that other images were allowed than those specified. It is in accordance with the concrete character of these early laws, that they mention a specimen of a class and do not generalize. Briggs.

19. All that openeth the womb is mine.** They should redeem their children as well as the unclean animals at a price; but they should bring into the tabernacle whatsoever could be offered in sacrifice. 20. God would not have their own sons consecrated to him, because he had chosen the tribe of Levi; they were therefore to remain free after a pecuniary compensation. In the same way, unclean animals might be applied to domestic purposes after God’s price had been paid, since to him they belonged, and he claimed them for himself. But if any should not put so high a value on an ass or other unclean animal, the Law commanded that its neck should be broken; for it would have been sacrilege to reap profit from God’s property or to transfer to their private use what God had adjudged to himself. Calv.

21. This command gives an additional feature in the last sentence “In ploughing and reaping"—that is, in the busiest seasons of the year when the temptation to work would be strongest, they were yet to observe the Sabbath. Briggs.—No necessity must interrupt this sacred observance. Else it might have seemed a just pretext, if, on account of continued rains or other ungenial weather, ploughing should be difficult, husbandmen were to be released from the obligation of the Law. God allows of no dispensation; the Sabbath is to be observed though at the risk of loss. Calv.

23,24. God wonderfully preserved that people when all the males went up three times in the year to the place where God’s ark was. The people of Israel were generally surrounded with enemies that sought all opportunities to destroy them and dispossess them of their land; and till David’s time there were great numbers in the land of the Canaanites and other former inhabitants that were bitter enemies to the people of Israel: and these had from year to year, three times in the year, a fair opportunity of overrunning their country and getting possession of their cities when all the males were gone, and only the women and those who were not able to go up were left behind. And yet they were remarkably preserved throughout all generations at such seasons, agreeable to the promise that God here made. Ellcards.—Thrice every year did God work an especial miracle for the protection of his people; controlling even the very desires of their enemies, that they might not so much as meditate evil against them. They who have God for their protector have a sure refuge; and how true is the proverb, The path of duty is the way of safety. While these people went up to Jerusalem to keep the Lord’s ordinances, he kept their families in peace and their land in safety. A. C.—We read in the after history of no instance where the enemies of the Israelites made use of these feasts as a time for assailing them. It was only when the people was destined by the Lord to destruction, when the Romans had got possession of a large portion of their country, that the occurrence of the feast of the Passover served to heighten the famine of the besieged in Jerusalem. Gerl.

26. “Thou shalt not seethe a kid (which is still) with its mother’s milk.” This last command is most difficult of all. The older Protestant interpreters, Luther, Calvin, Piscator, et al., thought of a limitation of the age of an animal for purpose of sacrifice. This is most suited to the context, for we have had three laws of offerings prior to it. We follow this interpretation and class this law with the three preceding as laws of offerings. Briggs.

27. Write thou these words.** Moses was commanded to write the summary of judicial and ceremonial precepts comprised in the preceding fourteen verses, which were an appendage to the moral Law and the conditions of the national covenant on the part of the nation. Moses had before written in a book the precepts contained in ch. 21-23. As by their recent transgressions they had broken both the Law on the tables of stone and the Law in the book, Jehovah may have commanded this rewriting of the substance of the previous covenant, together with his own writing on the stones, to betoken to the people that the former covenant was now fully restored. S. R.

After the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. This is a covenant transaction, and this law, so-called, constitutes simply the stipulations of that covenant. So it is expressly declared of it, “The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.” It was ratified formally as a covenant, when first received, the people being called upon solemnly to swear to it, after it had been written down in a book. To give it still more solemn and venerable form the fundamental truths of it were engrossed upon stone by the hand of Jehovah himself. When, after this, the people violated all its solemn stipulations, by the idolatry of the golden calf, Moses understood the covenant to be annulled, and therefore destroyed the Divine autograph of it. When they were pardoned and their relations to Jehovah were restored, it was again divinely written and deposited in the chest or ark, upon the cover of which the throne of Jehovah’s visible presence was placed, hence called the ark of the covenant; and thus it was preserved to after generations as the perpetual reminder that they were in covenant with Jehovah.

It was a covenant with this body of people as a church, the body organized by the covenant with Abraham, and its redemption guaranteed in the passover covenant. In speaking of the body as the Church we are but repeating the words of the martyr Stephen in Acts 7:38, “This is he that was in the Church in the wilderness, with the angel that spake to him in Mount Sinai with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give unto us.” And that this is no mere figure of speech is plain enough from the reference of this covenant back to the covenants with Abraham and the passover covenant, as fulfilled and further carried out by this covenant. It was a covenant with this church as a representative body, standing for the Church of all succeeding ages. Moses, forty years after, when this generation that stood before Sinai had all perished, expressly says to the next generation, “The Lord made this covenant not with our fathers but with us, even us who are all here alive this day.” By parity of reasoning the Church that stood at Sinai, thus representing one, represented all succeeding generations. And accordingly thenceforth in the succeeding ages, including that of the apostles, the inspired teachers regarded the Church as still under this covenant. And you will observe how, under the New Testament dispensation, Stephen expressly says, “Our fathers received the lively oracles to give unto us.” That is, they stood there as representing us. It was a covenant wholly spiritual in its significance. Moses, just as Jesus afterward, sums up its provisions in the generalization, “Love the Lord thy God with all thy mind, soul, and strength.” And the apostle expressly argues that, so far from disannulling the previous covenant of spiritual blessings with Abraham, as the representative father of all who believe and who thus constitute the true circumcision, it is intended to include that covenant, and both confirm and develop more fully its provisions of spiritual blessing.

As to the end and purpose of this Sinai Law covenant, the Apostle Paul not only leaves no room for uncertainty or further need of exposition after his clear and elaborate exposition in the epistles to the Romans, the Galatians, and the Hebrews, but expressly answers the question, “Wherefore then serveth the Law?” in these explicit terms—“It was added because of transgression until the seed (promised in the Eden and Abrahamic covenants) should come. Wherefore the Law was our school-master to bring us to Christ—that we might be justified by faith.” The substance of the whole matter, therefore, is this: that as the covenant with Adam, for the blessing of a Divine-human Redeemer to restore a part of the race through vicarious atonement, was more distinctly developed in the covenant with Noah, establishing the blessing in the line of Shem; and both these, again, more fully developed in the covenant with Abraham establishing the blessing in the line of Isaac, and organizing the redeemed body as a church settled in a promised inheritance; and all three of these, again, more fully developed in the passover covenant, bringing out more distinctly the engagement to redeem this Church by faith in atoning blood; so now this Sinai covenant is a still further development, in detail, of all the preceding covenants, intended to teach and produce a conscious conviction of the need of a vicarious atonement; the method of applying its benefits by faith for the pardon of sin and purification of the nature; and the relation of the believers to their Redeemer, as king and head of an organized commonwealth. S. R.

28. And he was there with the Lord forty days.** The number of forty days is repeated that the second tables might have no less credit than the first. If he had only been kept a few days in the mount, his authority would not have been ratified by so conspicuous a miracle; but the forty days obtained full credit for his mission, so that the people might know that he was sent by God. And that the majesty of the Law might be indubitable, its minister was invested with angelic glory; and hence he expressly records that “he did neither eat bread, nor drink water,” since it was requisite that he should be distinguished from other mortals. This instance of abstinence was never alleged as an example by the prophets, nor did any one attempt to imitate it except Elijah, who being sent to revive the Law when it was almost lost, like a second Moses, abstained also from eating and drinking for forty days. Calv.—In De. 9: 18 this second sojourn is thus alluded to: “And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.” If we inquire into the design of this second forty days’ withdrawn and seclusion, the passage now cited seems to disclose one at least of the grand ends which were to be answered by it—viz., to convey to the people a deeper impression of their recent iniquity. Bush.—I see Moses the receiver of the Law, Elias the restorer of the Law, Christ the fulfiller of the old Law and author of the new, all fasting forty days; and these three great fasters I find together glorious in the holy mount. Bp. H.

Ex. 34: 28. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. That the pronoun HE refers to the LORD, and not to Moses, is sufficiently proved by De. 10: 1-3. At that time the Lord said unto me, How thee two tables of stone like unto the first—and I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables—and I hewed two tables of stone, as at the first—And HE wrote on the tables according to the first writing. This proves that God wrote the second as well as the first tables. A. C.

The Ten Commandments were twice written by the finger of the Lord himself, and upon enduring tables of stone, to show how deeply and permanently they were to be engraved upon the heart of man. Twice written, once upon a broken and once upon an unbroken tablet, symbolically setting forth the truth that they were once written upon the nature before the fall, and are to be inscribed a second time upon that nature, which inscription is made at his regeneration. Also, as they were once written upon stone, they were to be engraved a second time upon the heart, as the Prophet Jeremiah predicted would be, and as the apostle asserted had been done (Heb. 8: 10). Then by special command they were afterward deposited for safe keep- ing in the ark of the covenant, upon which rested the Shekinah of the Lord, the most inviolably sacred place outside the courts of heaven, and by special designation were ever afterward known as the “Tables of the Testimony.” Sacy.

De. 10:5. These two tables, thus engraven, were faithfully laid up in the ark. And there they be, said Moses, pointing, it is probable, toward the sanctuary (verse 5). That good thing which was committed to him he transmitted to them, and left it pure and entire in their hands; now let them look to it at their peril. Thus we may say to the living generation, “God has intrusted us with Bibles, Sabbaths, sacraments, as tokens of his presence and favor, and there they be.” H.—There they be, as the Lord commanded me. Here is another minute but important circumstance, the public mention of which at the time attests the veracity of the sacred historian. Jamieson.

The Law, if written on stone, was written by a hand of love, if set forth in letters that seem to burn in the intensity of their purity, yet do those very letters light us into inner meanings, into the very hidden sanctuary of God. The Christian position is that the whole scheme of righteousness is revealed: whatever is right, true, pure, good, lovely, honest, and of heavenly savor has been given by God. One who knows the universe because he made it, and all eternity because he inhabits it, has condescended to tell us what is good, what is true, what is pure, what is right. Let us ask that we may have eyes to see the innermost meaning of the Law, and hearts trained, disciplined, and sanctified to accept and obey it, and express it in noble behavior. J. P.

The Shining Face of Moses (Ex. 34:29-35).

29. His face shone. This was an honor never vouchsafed to mortal before; nor afterward till Christ, the Prophet like Moses, in his transfiguration also: when Moses again beheld the glory of the Lord, ministering thereto in a glorified form himself. Hales.—A double signification was conveyed by this: In the first place, it was signified that the Law proceeded from a higher world of light (of knowledge and of holiness), since its very gleams were to be seen outwardly on the minister of the Law; in the next place, since the people could not bear the shining of light, it represented how fearful, condemnatory, and fatal the Law was for a sinful people. For this cause Moses was obliged to put a veil over the lustre of light (a type of the veil which in the Old Testament lies over the full revelation of the Divine truths of salvation), until the light again gradually vanished (2 Cor. 3). Gerl.

From this circumstance, almost all the nations of the world who have heard of this transaction have agreed in representing those men to whom they attributed extraordinary sanctity, and whom they supposed to have had familiar intercourse with the Deity, with a lucid nimbus or glory round their heads. This has prevailed both in the East and in the West. A. C.

Wist not. They who have grown most in grace, have gained most richly of the glory and the goodness of God by contact and communion with him, will themselves least be exalted by the knowledge of what they have. And therefore it is beautifully said that Moses wist not. J. C.—Nor is it ever found that those who bear much of the Divine image are conscious of the moral glory which has passed upon them. Their minds are so fixed upon their own defects; they are so deeply convinced of the corruption of their nature; they are so profoundly penetrated with the sense of their ill-desert, that instead of realizing the possession of distinguished graces, they still count themselves as “less than the least of all saints.” Bush.

The face of Moses shone when he came down from the mount; the reflected rays of the Divine Majesty lingered on it; the people saw that he had been with God. It is ever thus. No man leaves the presence of Christ without carrying with him that which will distinguish him from other men; a mind less preyed on by worldly cares; affections elevated above worldly vanities; a holy abhorrence of all that is polluting and base; a soaring of the thoughts and desires to heaven; an humble professing and sustaining of this character—a pilgrim and a stranger on the earth, a native of heaven in a foreign land. The world around him will “take knowledge of him that he has been with Jesus;” for “the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon him.” Bradley.—Moses was full of the Holy Ghost. The lustre without was but the index of the light within. He had gone in unto God to plead for others, and he was rewarded openly, by bringing down from the mount a radiance that told with whom he had been! If our faces were oftener directed toward God in intercessory prayer, they would certainly beam with new light, and men would take knowledge of us that we had been with Jesus. The Apostle Paul understood the blessedness of intercessory prayer. He himself rose to a glorious height in this sublime act, and yet he declares his own dependence on and appreciation of the prayers of the saints. Nor do we at all understand the priesthood of believers, till we regard this as one of its special privileges, functions, and duties. Let those who “profess and call themselves Christians” rise to this high and holy service. C. C.

The Christian favored with near approaches to God in prayer, as he comes down from the mount will show the brightness that his soul has borrowed from the light of God’s countenance shining upon him. His very countenance will show the effects of his communion in the serenity of his look, the benignity of his eye, in the gentleness of his speech, and the grace of his deportment. S. R.—Consciously and unconsciously, by direct efforts and by insensible influences on our lives, the true secret of our being ought to come, and will come forth to light. The convictions which we hold, the emotions that are dominant in our hearts, will mould and shape our being. If we have any deep living perception of Christ, bystanders, looking into our faces, will be able to tell what it is that up yonder is making them like the faces of the angels—even the vision of the opened heavens and of the exalted Lord. And we may be quite sure that if little light comes from a Christian character, little light comes into it; and if it be swathed in thick veils from men, there will be no less thick veils between it and God. A. M.

30. Aaron and all the children of Israel were afraid to come nigh him.** The awe struck multitude had here a conspicuous sign before their eyes that Moses was the veritable servant of the Most High God, the prime-minister of the Old Covenant. M.—They that did but stand still to see anger in his face, ran away to see glory in it: before, they had desired that God would not speak to them any more but by Moses; and now that God doth but look upon them in Moses, they are afraid. Yea, Aaron himself, that before went up into the mount to see and speak with God, now is afraid to see him that had seen God: such a fear there is in guiltiness, such confidence in innocency. Bp. H.

32. When Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.** Verses 34 and 35 describe syntactically a general practice in harmony with the special case described in verse 33, thus: “On Moses’s entering in before Jehovah to speak with him, he removes the veil (and keeps it off) until his going forth; and he goes forth and speaks to the children of Israel whatsoever is commanded; and the children of Israel see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’s face is shining; and Moses returns the veil over his face until his entering in to speak with God.” Thus the order of occurrences is each time as follows: (1) Moses enters the presence of God; (2) Moses removes the veil; (3) Moses goes forth and reports; (4) At the conclusion of the report, he returns the veil to his face; (5) He removes it again only when he enters Jehovah’s presence again. At first the people were afraid. But Moses succeeded in reassuring them, so that thereafter they locked fearlessly upon his shining face (verse 35). The veil was drawn over his face after his report of the messages of the Lord, in order that the people might not see the vanishing away of that glory (see 2 Cor. 3: 13). Paul uses that circumstance to show how Israel missed the transition from the Old Covenant into the New. The fact that the Old had vanished was concealed from them by that veil. S. S. T.

35. Paul, in the New Testament, makes large use of this narrative of the glory that shone on Moses’s face as he came down with the renewed covenant. Thus he employs it as in a typical sense an emblem of the relative glories of the old legal and the new evangelical dispensation (2 Cor. 3: 16, 18). Even as a rhetorical figure, how beautiful is this application of the narrative of Moses to the purpose of setting before Jewish Christians the relation of the new to the old dispensation. Moses, with his veil, stands as a symbol of his own dispensation, which was, in fact, the Gospel under a veil. And the symbol is represented as having a threefold significance, when contemplated in its different parts. First, the symbol points out the intrinsic excellence and glory of the old dispensation, even though far less glorious than the new. But as the glory of Moses’s face was absorbed and lost when he entered “the tent of meeting” to commune with God, so the brightness of the old dispensation of Moses is eclipsed in the transcendent brightness of the Gospel. Again, the narration of the veiled Moses, in the apostle’s view, symbolizes the comparative obscurity of the old exhibition of the way of salvation. The veil represents the indistinct view which the Israelites had through the ritual teachings of the Law; the brightness of the Gospel light was covered up by rites that their minds did not penetrate. Nor will many of them now lift the veil, as the new dispensation invites them to do. Hence, again, this veil typified the blindness and ignorance under which the Jewish mind labored, even in the time of the apostle. They had so long looked at Moses veiled that they now seemed to think the very veil an essential part of the system of salvation. S. R.

Age after age the inveterate prejudice of the Jewish heart has prevented them from discerning the true sense of their own law, of its figures, types, and institutions, just as effectually as the veil on the face of Moses prevented them from beholding the beauty of his countenance. They read the books of their lawgiver, but in the sacrifices and services there prescribed they see no intimation of that Lamb of richer blood and that Priest of higher name, whom we are taught to recognize as foreshadowed by them. They read the predictions of the prophets, but they do not see them pointing to the Saviour Christ, the true Messiah, in whom all their oracles are fulfilled. The thick veil of error and unbelief is upon their minds, and until that is taken away, as we learn it eventually shall be, the light of the glory of God in the Gospel of his Son will not shine into them. Bush.

The apostle says in his just and beautiful commentary upon the whole of this incident, that the Jews still see Christ through a veil—that is, the whole Old Testament dispensation of the Gospel is seen by the Jews dimly, darkly, and obscurely, as through a veil. Every doctrine is seen through a type; every sacrifice is revealed under a symbol, as a mirror of the sanctuary; every hope is embosomed in a promise; every restoration nestles in the midst of a prophecy. The Jew—the spiritual Jew, for he is not a Jew who is one outwardly—sees the veil, catches some stray beams of the inner glory that are stricken through, but he cannot behold in all his naked splendor Him who is the end and the substance of all—Jesus Christ, the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of his person. The Jew, in the synagogue, sees the high priest still stand in the holy of holies and gaze upon the glory between the cherubim, and bear upon his breastplate, engraved on sparkling gems, the names of the tribes of Jacob; but he cannot see the True High-Priest who has entered into the true holy place, and amid the glory of the inner sanctuary is making intercession for his people. The Jew can see the passover lamb; he can read its history; he can regret that he is not restored to the only place where he can offer it—Jerusalem and its temple; but he cannot see through the veil the true and the only Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. They have not the light of the Sun of Righteousness shining on them. And when one evening I went into their synagogue, and worshipped with them—for they sang some precious Psalms, and there was something beautiful in joining with a child of Israel in those Divine hymns which, alas! to his ear are only prophecies—it was melancholy to see inscribed over the porch of that synagogue a prayer, that God would send the Messiah to Israel. J. C.

While the apostle’s words throw light on the rejection of Jesus by the Jews, they also remind us that the time is coming when Israel shall turn unto the Lord, and the veil shall be taken away. One cannot study this old Hebrew literature and discover how much the world has learned from it, without having his heart drawn toward the Jewish race. That religion which is at the root of our prosperity as a people, which is the source of our individual happiness in time, and the inspiration of our hope for eternity, is the outcome and development of theirs. The Lord we love and trust and worship was “made of the seed of Abraham;” and it is unutterably sad to think that as a race the Jews have turned against him to whom all their prophets gave witness, and in whom all the shadows of their Law had their true substance. Truly, to this day, when Moses is read among them, the veil is upon their heart. But it shall not always be thus; for when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in, then the Jews shall return to their allegiance; and their conversion will be as a new Pentecost to the Christian Church. W. M. T.

And let us remember that this veil of darkness and unbelief is not confined to the apostolic age or to the Jewish people. With many—in our time—the veil over the dispensation of Moses seems to have become the natural countenance of Moses; they see not nor conceive of the Gospel glory that is hid behind the veil. To them Moses is no longer a part of the Gospel. Others, again, under the prevailing power of a worldly spirit, find not only the glory of Moses’s face hid by the veil, but the veil unlifted even in the Gospel. The Gospel is hid to them; and the reason is, saith the apostle, “The God of this world hath blinded their minds lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine into them.” The effect of a worldly spirit is ever thus to Judaize the minds of men. Thus we may see from the apostle’s reasoning how the Old Testament and the New mutually explain each other. What is dark in one is made luminous by the other. It is the same dispensation of grace in both—only the people in the old dispensation could not yet gaze upon the full glory of the plan. A veil had to be hung over it. The Gospel of Jesus lifts the veil and shows the glory that all the while belonged intrinsically to the Gospel according to Moses. Hence, no sentiment can be more injurious to Gospel truth than that the Old Testament is superseded by the New, and that it is not the Gospel, nor any important part of the rule of faith for a Christian life. S. R.—The Old and the New Testament form one continuous system of revelation, the latter being merely the development of the interior sense, and the substantiation of the typical shadows, of the former. Bush.

If the flesh of Moses so shined by conversing with God forty days in Sinai, what shall our glory be, when, clothed with incorruptible bodies, we shall converse with him forever in the highest heaven! Now his face only shone; afterward the three disciples saw all his body shining. The nature of a glorified body, the clearer vision, the immediate presence of that fountain of glory, challenge a far greater resplendence to our faces than his. Bp. H.—If we belong to the true Israel of God we shall not always see through a glass darkly. The glimpses of the heavenly glory which we catch here below from time to time are indeed refreshing and precious to the soul. But the time is at hand when the beatific vision will be at once perfect and perpetual. In what lustre and glory will the children of the kingdom shine forth, when they shall each of them appear in a splendor not like that which invested Moses at Mount Sinai, but like that which enrobed Christ as a garment of light at the transfiguration-scene of Mount Tabor! What then will be their glory, who shall enjoy a communion with the Jehovah of Sinai as uninterrupted as the flowings of his love, as endless as the days of eternity! Bush.—And what do we think of the ravishing aspects of his love when it shall be open-faced and have laid aside its veil; when goodness, which is love issuing into benefaction or doing good; grace, which adds freeness unto goodness; mercy, which is grace toward the miserable, shall conspire in their distinct and variegated appearances to set off each other, and enhance the pleasure of the admiring soul; when doubts shall all cease, and the difficulty vanish of reconciling fatherly severity with love; when the full sense shall be unfolded to the life of that description of the Divine nature, “God is love,” and the soul be no longer put to read the love of God in his name (as Moses was when the sight of his face could not yet be obtained), shall not need to spell it by letters and syllables, but behold it in his very nature itself, and see how ultimately essential it is to the Divine Being! How glorious will this appearance of God be (we now hear something of the glory of his grace, Eph. 1:6), and how satisfying the tuition of that glory! He hath got the prospect at last of that heart where the great thoughts of love were lodged from everlasting, and where all its counsels and designs were formed. He sees what made God become a man; what clothed a Deity with human flesh; what made eternity become the birth of time; what moved the heart of the Son of God to pitch his tabernacle among men; what engaged him to the enterprise of redeeming sinners; what moved him so earnestly to contest with a perishing world, led him at last to the cross, made him content to become a sacrifice to God, a spectacle to angels and men, in a bitter reproachful death, inflicted by the sacrilegious hands of those whom he was all this while designing to save. Howe.

Thus ends this sudden outbreak of idolatry and sad interruption of spiritual prosperity in a new and unexpected display of the Divine mercy vouchsafed on the intercession of Moses to the chastened and repentant people. The breach being healed, and the covenant restored with even additional splendor, the construction of the tabernacle will now proceed. M.

THE CEREMONIAL LAW, ITS DESIGN AND USE. CLASSIFICATION OF ITS INSTITUTES OFFERINGS FOR THE SANCTUARY: MATERIALS; SPIRIT DESIRED AND REALIZED IN THE OFFERERS; THE WORKMEN QUALIFIED AND CHOSEN; LIBERALITY RESTRAINED; SUM CONTRIBUTED.