Psalms 68:8-9

Psa. 68:8, 9. "The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God, even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel. Thou, O Lord, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance when it was weary." By this place, together with Judges 5:4, it is manifest that there was a great shower of rain upon the camp of Israel at mount Sinai, at the time of the giving the law there. The case seems to have been thus: on the day when the law was given, which was the day of Pentecost, there appeared a thick cloud upon mount Sinai, which was the same cloud that had gone before them and conducted them, now settled upon the mount, but only increased and gathered to a great thickness; and there were great thunders and lightnings seen and heard out of that cloud, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that were in the camp trembled. When God descended on the mount, the mount quaked greatly, and this earthquake was of great extent, so as to reach to distant countries, Haggai 2:6; Haggai 2:7, and was so great as to move mountains and throw down rocks, and great part of the mountains; hence we have those expressions of the mountains skipping like rams, and the little hills like lambs, etc. And then mount Sinai appeared altogether on fire, which burnt to the midst of heaven; and then the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder; and then the Ten Commandments were given with a voice of awful majesty out of the midst of the fire; and when this was finished, it was followed with the most amazing thunders and lightnings from the thick cloud of glory, which was on the mount, which cloud spread wider and wider until it covered the whole heavens, and there was a great shower of rain, with thunder and lightning out of it; and the storm spread abroad, so as to reach far countries, which, with exceeding thunder and lightning, terrified distant nations. Hence the apostle speaks of a tempest that was at this time, from this place, in Hebrews 12:18. Thus, when the Lord gave the word, great was the company of them that published it, verse 11. When God gave forth his voice at mount Sinai, and thundered there by the ministration of angels, the report was as it were carried into all nations round about, and there were thunders that uttered their voices in all parts of the world (or at least the adjacent countries), to answer it. Thus the prophet Habakkuk, speaking of this, Habakkuk 3:3, says, "His glory covered the heavens," (i.e. the cloud, that was called the cloud of glory), and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud, and covered the heavens in the blaze of lightnings that then streamed forth almost continually; as in the next verse, verse 4, "and his brightness was as the light." And thus it was expressed in the 6th and 7th verses, "He stood and measured the earth; he beheld and drove asunder the nations; the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow - I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble;" and thus in Hebrews 12:18, there is said to be at that time not only fire, and blackness, and darkness, but also tempest.

Corol. I. Hereby we may the more fully see how lively a representation what was done on this day was of what was done afterwards on the same day of Pentecost in the days of the gospel. Now God descended from heaven on mount Sinai; then God descended from heaven on mount Zion, or on his church met together in Jerusalem. Now God revealed the law; then God did in an extraordinary manner by his Spirit make known the mysteries of the gospel. Now God's voice was uttered from mount Sinai in thunder, and great was the company of them that published it, and the voice of his thunder went forth into all the world, and the world was enlightened with lightnings; then was God's voice in his word and in his glorious gospel uttered in the spiritual mount Zion, and the light of the glorious gospel then began to shine forth in Jerusalem, of which voice and light, thunder and lightning is a type, for the Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of the joints and marrow, and is as the fire, and as the hammer that breaketh the rocks in pieces. This thunder and lightning was out of the cloud of glory, the symbol of God's presence; so the voice of the gospel is the voice of Christ, a divine person, and the light is the light of Christ's glory. And then, or after that time, was first fulfilled what was typified by God's voice and light going forth from mount Sinai, and spreading abroad into all nations round about; for then first did the powerful voice of God's Word, and the powerful and glorious light of truth, go forth and spread abroad into Gentile nations; then was the coming of Christ in the gospel as the lightning that cometh out of the east, and shineth even to the west. The trumpet of mount Sinai was a type of the trumpet of the gospel. As in the day of Sinai there was a great earthquake; so consequent on the pouring out of the Spirit in the day of Zion, was there the greatest change and overturning of things on the face of the earth, that ever had been. Earthquakes often denote great revolutions, in Revelations and elsewhere in Scripture. God's voice in the day of Sinai, shook the heavens and earth, and shook all nations; see Hebrews 12:26; Hebrews 12:27, compared with the foregoing verses, and Haggai 2:6; Haggai 2:7, "As the earthquake then shook down towers, and palaces, and other buildings of the heathen, yea, and threw down rocks and mountains;" so God's voice in the gospel, after the gospel Pentecost, overturned the heathenish kingdom of Satan, and shook down all its magnificence, the mighty fabric that Satan had been building up for many ages; and those things were overthrown that had been established in the heathen world time out of mind, and had remained until now, immovable, like the everlasting hills and mountains. God's enemies abroad in the heathen world on the day of Sinai, were greatly terrified and scattered, and many of them destroyed; which is a type of the amazement that Satan and the powers of darkness were put into, by the sudden and wonderful spreading of the gospel, and how the enemies of God were scattered and destroyed thereby, and God's pouring down a great and plentiful rain on the camp of Israel, on the day when the law was given. The refreshing shower that fell on Israel, did well represent those divine instructions God was then giving to them. Deuteronomy 32:1-2, "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, or the showers upon the grass," was a lively type of the great and abundant pouring out of the Spirit on the Christian church, on the day of Pentecost, and on the world, in consequence of that. The pouring out of the Spirit is often compared to showers of rain: this rain was the more lively type of the effusion of the Holy Spirit, because it was a very refreshing rain to the congregation of Israel, as it is said in the 9th verse of this Psalm, "Thou didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance when it was weary;" that was a weary land wherein they then were, being an exceeding dry and parched wilderness, where there is scarcely ever any rain. Horeb, one name of mount Sinai, signifies dryness, as it is called a land of drought, and it lay far south, and it was now a hot time of the year, wherein the sun was just at the summer solstice, being about the end of May, so that the shower by its cooling and sweetening the air was very refreshing to them, and therefore was the more lively type of the sweet influences of the Spirit of God on their souls; and this shower was the more lively type of the pouring out of the Spirit still, because it was a shower out of the cloud of glory, or that cloud that was the symbol of God's presence, so that it was a refreshment from God, as the fire from heaven on the altar proceeded out of a pillar of cloud and fire. Leviticus 9:24. (Note, manna out of the pillar of cloud and fire.) Manna, their daily bread, came down on the camp, out of the pillar of cloud and fire, and so did more livelily represent the true bread from heaven, even Jesus Christ, who is a divine person, and dwells in the bosom of the Father; and as their meat, so their water: the refreshing rain, which signified also a divine person, viz. the Holy Ghost, was out of the cloud of glory.

Note, that when mention is here made of God's sending a plentiful rain, whereby he did confirm or strengthen his inheritance when it was weary, respect is also probably had to the children of Israel's being refreshed by a shower of rain that descended on them, at the same time that a destructive hail fell on their enemies, on the day that the sun and moon stood still; for as has been observed in Notes on Habakkuk 3:11. No. 208. that storm of hail did not arise until the end of the twelve hours of the sun's standing still; and the sun probably stood still near the meridian, and Joshua began the battle very early in the morning after their traveling all the night before; so that after that night's watching and traveling, they had continued in battle and pursuit about eighteen hours, and great part of the time under a very great and extreme heat of the sun, which must necessarily arise from its standing still so long at a meridian height, and shining down on their heads with a perpendicular ray. So that by that time without doubt the army of Israel were exceeding weary and faint, and the clouds that covered the heavens, sent forth no hail on them, but probably it was rain where they were, and a very great shower, which cooled and sweetened the air, and was a great refreshment to them after such toil and extreme heat. If the rain was frozen in some places, doubtless it was a very cool rain where they were, which was needed to cool the air, after such extreme heat. So that it was now with this cloud that arose, as it was with the pillar of cloud and fire at the Red sea, as that was a cloud and darkness to their enemies, and sent forth thunder and lightning to confound them, Psalms 77:16-19, but gave light to the Israelites; so now the cloud that arose, sent forth destructive hail and thunder on the Amorites, but sent a most refreshing rain on Israel, whereby they were strengthened, after they had been made faint with the heat of the sun, and the toil of battle.

Corol. II. Hence we may learn what the apostle Paul meant by 1 Corinthians 10:2, where he says that "their fathers were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud, and in the sea," he means that they were baptized in the cloud, by the cloud's showering down water abundantly upon them, as it seems to have done at two times, especially; one was while they were passing through the Red sea, for there seems to have been a remarkable storm of rain, and thunder, and lightning, out of the cloud of glory, while the children of Israel were passing through the Red sea, Psalms 77:16-19. And thus God looked through the pillar of cloud and fire about the morning watch, and troubled all their hosts; he confounded them with perpetual flashes of thunder and lightning, which greatly affrighted the horses, and made them run wild, and jostle one against another, so as to overturn and break the chariots that they drew, and many of them lost their wheels; but it was only a plentiful shower on the Israelites. And so they were baptized by the water that came out of the pillar of cloud, representing the blood that came out of Christ, and the Spirit that comes forth from him; and so God now at the time when they were coming out of Egypt (for the Red sea was the bounds of Egypt) baptized them, to wash and cleanse them from the pollutions of Egypt, and to consecrate them to himself.

Another time was at mount Sinai, when God had brought them to himself there, when he first entered into covenant with them there, whereby they became his people, and he their God; he consecrated them to him, and sealed that covenant by baptizing them by water out of the cloud.

Hence we prove an argument for baptism by sprinkling or affusion, for the apostle calls this affusion or sprinkling, baptism, comparing it to Christian baptism; and when God himself immediately baptized his people by a baptism, by which he intended to signify the same thing that Christian baptism signifies, he baptized by affusion and sprinkling.