II. The two methods of giving and preserving the laws given from Mt. Sinai.
(a) The announcement of the ten commandments from Mt. Sinai as the fundamental law of God's moral government was not entrusted to the mediation of either men or angels; but such was its importance , such the force with which God would impress it upon the people, and so would he honor it, that he himself personally enunciated it in a loud, articulate voice, from the mount, in the hearing of all the people; and then himself with his own hand engraved those precepts upon enduring tablets of stone. Not so was any other law of God ever given or honored.
In Ex. 19:9, we read, “Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee [Moses], and believe thee forever.” And in chap. 20:1–3, we read, “And God spake all these words, saying, . . . Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” &c., speaking all the words of the ten commandments. Moses testifies, while subsequently rehearsing the wonderful mercies of God to the Israelites (Deut. 4:12, 13), “And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.” And in Deut. 5:22, Moses declares, after having repeated the decalogue, “These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.”
Thus we see it is clear that God honored the moral law while rehearsing it to the people, by speaking it himself “unto all the assembly” of the people, with a great voice. And thus he distinguished it from the other laws given; for as we have seen in the passage above quoted (Deut. 5:22), when he had thus spoken these ten commandments, “he added no more.” He spoke no more in the audience of the people.
Again, as an additional and distinguishing honor to the moral law, and as indicating (I think) its permanent, enduring character, and for its better preservation, God wrote that law upon tables of enduring stone and delivered those tables to Moses for permanent preservation. Nor did he entrust the engrossment of those holy fundamental precepts to the hands of either men or angels; but he engraved them with his own finger.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there; and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written, that thou mayest teach them.” Ex. 24:12. “And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mt. Sinai [at the close of the first forty days’ interview], two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” Ex. 31:18; 32:15, 16. Moses in his excitement, broke those tables. Ex. 32:19. (Perhaps this act was prophetic of the breaking of the law which they contained, afterward, by the people.) The Lord then ordered Moses to prepare other tables like the first, and promised to write the same words upon them that were written upon the first. Ex. 34:1, 2. Moses obeyed; and God “wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” Ex. 34:28. Further testimony to the same effect was quoted above from Deut. 4:12, 13; 5:22.
God not only distinguished the ten-commandment moral law by thus heralding it and engraving it himself personally, but he directed that an ark should be built at great cost, after a pattern and directions that he gave (Ex. 25:10–15), to be its sacred and holy receptacle and safe repository, and directed that the tables of the law should be put therein. Verse 16. Moses obeyed (chap. 40:20); and therein was the engraven law preserved for about nine hundred and seven years thereafter, and until the destruction of Jerusalem by the Assyrians.
Thus was the moral law
1. Spoken to the people by God himself, personally.
2. By God himself it was engraven on stone; and
3. By God’s special directions, it was preserved in an ark built expressly for it under his personal supervision.
(b) Now, how were the national, civil statutes and judgments and the typical laws given, written, and preserved?
1. Certainly these were not spoken by God personally with that great voice when the moral law was thus rehearsed from Mt. Sinai; for, as already quoted from Deut. 5:22, Moses testified that when God had thus spoken the ten commandments “he added no more.” Besides this, the account131as given in Ex. 21:1; 24:3, 13–18; 31:1, &c., including the entire account from chapter 21 through, indicates clearly that those laws were given to Moses individually and through him as mediator to the people. Ex. 24:3, 7; Deut. 4:14. Moreover, Paul’s testimony upon this subject is conclusive that the typical law, which he terms “the law of carnal commandment,” “which stood only in meats and drinks, and diverse washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation,” which he declared, “was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made,” and which he hence termed, “our school-master to bring us unto Christ,” because of their services “having a shadow of good things to come,” was “ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.” Heb. 7:16; 9:10; 10:1; Gal. 3:19, 24. See also Acts 7:53.
2. Again, in Ex. 24:4, it is declared, that “Moses wrote all the words of the Lord,” the “statutes and judgments,” in a book, which book was thereafter termed “the book of the covenant.” Verse 3. Though it is not declared in Exodus that Moses wrote the typical law in the same book with the civil statutes immediately after it was given to Moses by the angels, yet it is declared in Deut. 31:9, that Moses wrote it.
3. Finally, “when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book,” Moses commanded the Levites, saying, “Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.” Deut. 31:24–26. That was its place of deposit. It was not put into the ark, but in a pocket “in the side of the ark”—on the outside of the ark. That the “book of the law” was not put into the ark is evident from 1 Kings 8:9, 21; 2 Chron. 5:10; Heb. 9:4.
III. The three distinct and separate periods of time in which these laws were respectively given.
We have already seen that when God completed the announcement of the ten commandments to the people “he added no more,” and that closed that interview. Subsequently, whether on that day or some other one, is not stated, but probably on that same day, Moses “drew near unto the thick darkness where God was” (Ex. 20:21), and God especially forbade idolatry, and gave directions in respect to the worship of the people. Chapters 22–26. At some time subsequent to that interview, Moses was called up into the mountain (chap. 24:1, 2, 9–11) and received the civil code “by the disposition of angels.” Chapters 21, 22, 23. Then he came down, rehearsed all to the people, obtained their covenant to keep the law, wrote it in a book, read it to the people, confirmed the covenant by the sprinkling of blood on the book and on the people (chap. 24:3–8), and evidently fully instructed the people in respect to the law, and worshiped God in honor thereof, “offering burnt offerings,” and “sacrificing peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord.” All this required time; but how much we are not informed.
Subsequent to this, Moses was called up with Joshua into the mountain (chap. 24:12–15), and after seven days Moses was admitted “into the midst of the cloud” where God was, and was there “in the mount forty days and forty nights” (verses 16–18); during which time he was instructed in respect to the earthly sanctuary, the typical code, and the typical, ceremonial services and appointments, chapters 25 to 31, inclusive. This was a fourth interview between God and Moses on the mount, and at a third or fourth distinct and separate period of time. And yet there was another interview of forty days and forty nights’ duration, to complete the instructions to Moses. Chap. 34.
It is probable that several days intervened between the brief interview at the time the ten commandments were spoken and that at which the civil statutes were given; and certainly there must have been several days required between this latter interview and the next, for the rehearsal of those laws and the covenant, and then for their engrossment in a book, re-reading to the people, the repetition of the covenant, the sacrifices and the confirmation, and needed instructions, besides the seven days preceding the commencement of the first forty days’ interview. But it matters little how long this intervening time was, or that between the first forty days’ tarry on the mount and the second forty days’ interview, as the object has been accomplished when it is seen that there were distinct and separate periods of time occupied in giving the different laws.
Finally, the whole object of this article will have been accomplished if it shall clearly appear to the reader from the above, as it certainly does to the writer hereof.
1. That there were two distinct laws given from Mt. Sinai (a), the moral ten-commandment law spoken in a loud, articulate voice to all the people, personally, by God himself, without the mediation of men or angels, then written on tables of stone by the finger of God, and afterward distinguishingly preserved in the ark of God, by itself, at God’s special direction; and (b) the civil and typical code given by “the disposition of angels” in the hands of Moses as mediator, written by him in the book of the law, or “book of the covenant,” and kept and conveyed simply on the outside of the ark; and,
2. That the moral law, called “the law of God,” “the law of the Lord,” “the royal law,” &c., is as different in character, purpose, application, and perpetuity, from the “law of Moses” (Heb. 10:28), or “law of carnal commandment” (chap. 7:16) (as the other law is termed), as are the different and distinguishing modes and times of their enactment and the different and distinguishing methods of engrossing and preserving their record. A. C. SPICER.