Exodus 20:18-21

CRITICAL NOTES.—

Exodus 20:19. We will hear.] Kalisch happily remarks that “in the word v‘nishma‘AH, with the he paragogicum, lies the readiness and willingness: ‘we will eagerly and gladly hear.’ ”

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 20:18

THE SUPERFICIAL AND THE PROFOUND

The law was given under circumstances of great solemnity. Nature assumed her sternest aspect; and spoke in tones of thunder. All was calculated to impart deep and striking emphasis to every enactment given forth by the world’s great legislator. The whole scene was so appalling that the people were filled with terror. When we think of our own emotions as we listen to the thunder’s deep base, or watch the lightning’s vivid flash, we are not surprised that these people were alarmed. Let us, however, seek to get a correct view of Divine proceedings, and thus gain confidence.

I. Superficial views of Divine proceedings induce fear. Superficial views are always dangerous, though they may not always lead to fear. The superficial man is bold through his very shallowness. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Ignorant men are not troubled with doubts. They sometimes speak with repellant fluency and painful dogmatism upon subjects they have never thoroughly studied and much less mastered. Nevertheless, superficial views are dangerous, and lead to great mistakes. They did so in this case. The people said unto Moses, “Speak thou with us and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” Their fear led them to prefer the human and to reject the Divine. This is the history of fearing and deluded humanity. Human voices are followed through a mistaken sense of safety. Divine voices are rejected through baseless terror. The world follows the teaching of the priests, instead of listening to the still small voice of the Infinite. And the world is thus led fearfully astray; for earthly priests are not constituted after the Mosaic type. Our fears are the result of our sins; for conscience doth make cowards of us all. Earthly and self-seeking priests take advantage of our fears; but not so Moses, he was the world’s sublime prophet.

II. Profound views of Divine proceedings encourage confidence. The voice of the earthly priest is fear; but the exhortation of the Heavenly Priest is, Fear not. The former carries on his trade by increasing the fears of the people; but the latter, with Divine benevolence, seeks to encourage a legitimate confidence. Moses had profound views of Divine proceedings, therefore his exhortation. A correct understanding will remove terror; it often does so in things temporal. The lions produce terror, until we get a further revelation and find that they are chained. It must do so in things moral. God is to be feared in the assembly of His saints, but He is not to be regarded with terror. Fear not, is the exhortation of Moses; Fear not, is the exhortation of Jesus Christ, of whom Moses was an eminent type. If men were to fear not in the presence of the mount that might not be touched, how much more may we say, Fear not, to men who see the mount which is bright with the light of Divine love?

III. Profound views of Divine proceedings lead to a correct understanding of Divine purposes. “For God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.” Shallow views lead to disastrous mistakes. The religion of mere sentiment will be a religion of terror. We must think upon the Divine ways, and then shall we turn our feet unto the Divine testimonies, and understand more correctly the deep things of God. Here is a seeming paradox, fear not and yet fear. Fear not with slavish terror; but fear as loving children. Fear not with that terror which makes you shrink from the Divine voice; but fear so as to shrink from that which the Divine voice forbids. The purpose of Divine proceedings is that His people may be proved. Nature herself tests man’s powers. His power of labour and of endurance are tested. The phenomena of nature may become great moral tests. The thunder’s peal and the lightning’s flash may develop a true manhood. God comes to prove His people, not always by the thunder and the lightning and the smoking mountain, but by the common events of our daily life. Disappointments in business, defeats in ambitious projects, a new and seemingly unpromising opening in life, disorders in the family or in the nation, sickness, and bereavement, are the pathways along which God travels to prove His beloved. The ultimate purpose of all Divine methods is that His people sin not. The terrors of the Jewish economy were to keep people from transgression. The love and grace of the Gospel are intended to promote holiness. Jesus came to save people from their sins, to deliver them from moral bondage and corruption.

IV. The unenlightened and the fearing stand afar off. “And the people stood afar off.” There is no reason to keep away from God. He invites and welcomes to Himself the children of men. We do not get to ourselves the true knowledge of the Divine Fatherhood, and therefore we keep at a distance. The prodigal felt himself unworthy to be called his father’s son, until he understood the greatness of the father’s love. Let us pray for more light. Let us consider that God is our Father in heaven, bending down with loving gaze and deep interest to us His children upon the earth. And why should we keep away from a Father’s love? Why should we shut out the light of a Father’s compassion? Why should we stand afar off, when we may be embraced by the arms of the Eternal?

V. But the heaven-taught are taken into the thick darkness where the true light appears. Moses drew near, or, more correctly, was made to draw near, unto the thick darkness where God was. The rabbis suppose that God called unto Moses, and encouraged him, and sent an angel to take him by the hand, and to lead him up. This may be a mere fancy, but it has its foundation in fact. God’s encouraging call is heard in the hearts of the faithful. God’s guiding angels lead by the hand God’s faithful ones into the thick darkness where the true light appears. The pure in heart shall see God. At first the vision may seem only like thick darkness, but soon it will be one of celestial splendours. This is often the Divine method through the thick darkness into the Divine celestial splendour. Through the thick darkness of earlier formations into the light, and glory of the finished creation. Through the thick darkness of the law into the light of the Gospel. Through the darkness of repentance into the light of pardon. Through the darkness of this world, and through the deeper darkness of death, into the land of unclouded light and unsullied glory.

—W. Burrows, B.A.

GOD’S REVELATION OF HIMSELF.—Exodus 20:18

God’s revelation of His law was accompanied by a revelation of Himself. What was this but a symbolic promise that He would be with them and enable them to keep His law. Cf. Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:20; Luke 14:4. We have dealt with this subject under other aspects before, (see on Exodus 19:14). Here we have the mode, the reception, the comfort. Notice—

I. That the mode of this revelation was striking. Exodus 20:18.

1. Such a mode was necessary

(1.) to reveal God’s majesty to men familiar with the puerilities of heathen worship;
(2.) to show that God was not to be trifled with and His laws broken with impunity;
(3.) to meet the case of those—and the Israelites in general were such—who are open only to impression which can be made upon their fear.
2. Such a mode served some of the most important functions of the old dispensation.

(1.) Galatians 3:24, cf. John 1:17. It was preparatory to the mild and beneficent grace of Jesus Christ that by contrast with it the latter might be the more welcome. It was the storm before the calm, the night before the day. See also Hebrews 12:18.

(2.) It was a symbol of the workings of the law in an awakened conscience before the blessing and liberty of the Gospel of Christ (Romans 7:8).

3. Such a mode was appropriate as accompanying judicial proceedings. It was the same

(1) at the flood;
(2) at the destruction of the cities of the plain;

(3) it will be so at the last day (2 Thessalonians 1:7; Revelation 20.) &c. &c.

II. That the reception of this revelation was what God intended it should be.

1. It was intelligent. “All the people saw it.”

(1.) Revelation is not an appeal to credulity, but to reasonable faith. Its evidences and credentials all appeal to the intelligence of man.

(2.) The people saw what God intended them to see, not merely a spectacle which it would be difficult to forget, but the manifestation of Himself in it. So many painful providences tax our energies to see the meaning of them; but if our eyes are opened we shall see Him there (2 Kings 6:14).

2. It was reverent. “They removed and stood afar off.”

(1.) This was reasonable; undue familiarity would have been shocking.
(2.) This was exemplary. Many Christians in their references to the person, words, or works of God, may learn a profitable lesson from it.

(3.) This should be usual (Exodus 3:5; Ecclesiastes 6).

3. It was prayerful. Exodus 20:9.

(1.) This shows the natural and reasonable yearning of man’s heart for a mediator.
(2.) This shows how desirable it is that the mediator should be man.
(3.) This shows that the benefit of mediation is mercifully accepted by God.

III. That the comfort of that revelation disarmed it of all its terrors.

1. God had spoken. The God of their fathers. Their Redeemer. The God who had promised to bless them if they would keep His law.
2. God had spoken for their encouragement, “Fear not.” The fire should not burn, the lightning should not strike them. These were but manifestations of the power which was on their side.

3. God had spoken but to prove their loyalty to Him. If they could stand the test, what could harm them? (Romans 8:39).

4. God had spoken for their moral elevation.
(1.) “That His fear may be before your faces.”

(2.) “That ye sin not” (1 John 2:1), especial in earnest with Exodus 20:21. Learn—

I. Not to dread God’s revelation. “Ye fearful souls, fresh courage take.” II. To approach God through the one new and living way which is ever open. III. To keep all God’s laws in the strength of the comfort which His presence brings—J. W. Burn.

ILLUSTRATIONS

BY
THE REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON

Law and Love! Exodus 20:18. The prodigal’s father was no Eli, chiding with bated breath. Faithful and monitory were his counsels; urgent and expostulatory were his warnings. Did he love the wayward child less when thus he chided sternly than when he gently seated him at the festive board with its fatted calf? We trow not. The same deep, tender love was there in both; only it differed in expression. When I warn one dear to me from entering on some desperate plunge that must end in peril if not death, is my affection less than when I plunge in to save him! No. And so there is the same love in the law as in the gospel. In the law of Moses, love warns; in the gospel of Messiah, love wins. Both are the true mirror of Him who thus defines His own character, “God is love.”

“The Law brought forth her precepts ten,
And then dissolved in grace.”

—Erskine.

Divine Discernment! Exodus 20:20. The law was in one sense God’s “odometer.” It reminded men that He could tell when they had gone beyond the boundaries of righteousness. The odometer is a machine something like a clock which can be fastened on to a carriage, and in some way is connected with the motion of the wheels. It is so arranged that it marks off the number of miles travelled over. Two young men hired such a conveyance, not knowing that it had an odometer fastened to it. Having gone ten miles more than the hire, they returned to the stableyard, where the postmaster asked them how many miles they had been? “Twenty” was the reply. He touched the spring, the cover opened, and there on the face of the instrument the thirty miles were found recorded. The moral law is the odometer divinely fastened to the conscience, and when the journey of life is over, its face will tell how far the conscience has deviated from the way of holiness.

“Law of the Lord most perfect!

And traced in burning light!

How can a fallen rebel

Survive the dreadful sight!”

Divine Design! Exodus 20:20. The tidal river, below the banks of which a pretty rural village stood, suddenly overflowed with an unusual spring-tide, and sweeping away the low banks for hundreds of yards, poured its rushing waters over the whole district for miles round. Nancy’s cottage was one of the first to be surrounded by the roaring torrents, and but for the land sloping behind, it must at once have been swept away as a frail leaf. As it was, the rushing waters made it tremble and almost totter, and to save herself from the fast-rising water within the cottage, she retreated up her little staircase. As step by step the waters rose, she retreated still higher, “wondering what the end would be.” Her husband was away in the fields a mile or two distant, and no human help was at hand. “And how did you feel then, Nancy!” I inquired, as we talked together in the evening of that memorable day. “O miss, it was dreadful to hear the rushing of the water come so sudden. But I thought, ‘Well, the Lord’s here too;’ and SO I sat on the stairs and sang that verse—

“ ‘This awful God is ours,

Our Father and our Love;

He will send down His heavenly powers

To carry us above.’ ”