Exodus 24:12, commentary and pictures

God called Moses to go up into Mount Sinai and remain there until He placed in his hands the tables of stone with the law and commandments He Himself had written. Moses waited six days in searching of heart, meditation and prayer, and then entered the cloud on the seventh day to stay forty days and nights while the glory of the Lord rested on the mount like devouring fire. What he received there was the Ten Commandments engraved by God's own hand on two tablets, together with further instruction including the pattern for the sanctuary and tabernacle and the laws for Israel's service and life. The writings were given so that Moses as messenger of the covenant might first receive them and then teach them to Israel, a work of careful instruction that still remains needed without making the messenger a mediator. That call to come up and be with God still invites His people to draw near in entire consecration and earnest prayer to receive His instruction, be prepared for His commission, and speak words made pure and weighty by the Holy Spirit.

Moses Called Up Sinai

The call came after Israel had pledged in Exodus 24:3 to do all the words of the Lord, promising to govern every word and action by His law, by which they were set apart to God at Horeb where the Lord talked with them face to face out of the fiery cloud. The principles of what obedience to the covenant required had been proclaimed and explained, then written in a book with the people's pledge and read aloud before the covenant was ratified. This followed the people's request that Moses speak with them rather than hear God speak to them directly. In that setting God summoned Moses to come up into the mount and remain there to receive tables of stone bearing the law and commandments written by God Himself, that Moses might teach them to Israel.

Moses obeyed and went up into the mount of God, taking Joshua his minister with him. He left Aaron and Hur with the elders in charge of the people, entrusted to bear responsibility for them and to decide their matters while he was away. He was also commanded to bring Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu with seventy of the most influential elders of Israel to a place where they could behold the majesty of the divine presence while the people worshiped below at the foot of the mount. They did not see the person of God but only the inexpressible glory surrounding Him, which He veiled in thick cloud so it could be endured.

They could endure the sight because displays of God's power had filled them with fear that worked repentance for past transgressions, and because they loved and reverenced God and had purified themselves while contemplating His glory, purity, and mercy until they could draw nearer. The elders were brought up because their office was to aid Moses in leading Israel to the promised land, a work of such magnitude that God put His Spirit upon them and honored them with a nearer view of the glory about Him to give them a clear sense of His greatness, majesty, and power and thus prepare them with wisdom to act their part. The word to be there meant waiting without weariness and without leaving his post, spending six days consecrating his thoughts through searching of heart, meditation, and prayer in preparation for direct communion with God and to endure the revelation of His glory. On the seventh day God called him from the cloud, and he entered the cloud and remained on the mountain forty days and nights while Israel below saw the Lord's glory as devouring fire.

The long stay in the mount exposed the discontent and unbelief of the people when they saw he did not come down. Their time without Moses tested whether they could be trusted to rely on God and act faithfully on the covenant He had established, which required faithfulness and perfect obedience. Instead they forgot their covenant and their fear of God while His glory still rested on the mountain, became self-important, and pride led to rivalry and strife and to demand for a visible representation of God. While Moses spent those forty days and nights with God receiving the Ten Commandments with further laws and details of Israel's service and obligations, the people should have reflected on the commandments and taught their children about the covenant, keeping faith that Moses would return and remaining obedient to God.

Law Given to Teach

On the mountain God Himself gave Moses tables of stone bearing the written law and commandments, the Ten Commandments engraved by His own hand as the Decalogue on two stone tablets to be taught. The call was to come up into the mount and remain there to receive what God had written, so that Moses could teach it to Israel. Receiving them belonged to his long meeting with God on Sinai, when he entered the cloud of divine glory for forty days and nights.

With the tablets God also gave further instruction, including directions and the pattern for building the sanctuary and the ark. The specifications for the tabernacle were continued through the following chapters, with additional laws and details of Israel's service and obligations given during the forty days and nights with God. It was Christ who called Moses and gave the directions in the mount, enshrouded in a veil of cloud so His glory would not extinguish the human instrument who was to voice His words. Those directions are the same principles of His government over the multitude brought from slavery that He presented in His own teaching, plainly specified truth for all relations of life by which character is formed for the family of God in heaven, to be represented in all work, practice, and teaching apart from corrupting worldly sentiments.

Paul repeated those chapters about the tabernacle word by word to fellow workers while laboring with his hands at tentmaking, for his own benefit and theirs. He did so to teach that supreme honor belongs to God and that the skill, genius, and wisdom used in building the tabernacle were given by God to be used for His glory. The stone tablets, law, and commandments were given so Moses could teach them to Israel, and that written instruction to be taught and obeyed remains needed in later generations. Because Israel failed the covenant, Moses in mercy was given opportunity to repeat the Decalogue to the whole encampment in Deuteronomy 5.

Moses first received God's words as messenger of the covenant and then conveyed them. God's messengers must in the same way learn from God's Word and teach carefully what they received without becoming mediators, pointing instead to Christ as the all-sufficient Mediator. Israel's access to God's presence and glory was a great privilege calling for corresponding holiness and zealous obedience rather than carelessness or permission to sin. The laws given under the cloud belong to the truths of the Jewish economy whose full meaning will be unfolded in the future life.

Invitation to Meet God

The opening summons to come up into the mount and remain there stands as God's invitation to His people to draw near to Him, and to receive instruction from Him. It was given to Moses that he might be brought into communion with God and be told the principles intended for the people. Before Moses as Israel's representative could receive the law, he was called into the mount to meet with God and there beheld His glory. That communion prepared him to receive his commission and to carry it out, fitting him to serve as God's instrument for giving the law to the people.

The same call applies to believers as an invitation to come more directly into God's presence and to give themselves fully to Him. Such coming demands the entire consecration of every faculty of the mind and every power of the being from all who have named the name of Christ. This is especially urgent because a coming crisis greater than any since the world began will require it. When by faith people go up the mount to meet with God and behold Him who is invisible, their communion transforms their utterance. Their speech and pen come under the control of the Holy Spirit, so that their words are no longer cheap and common but pure, weighty with eternal interests, and free from chaff and stubble. Thus fitted to teach and strengthen others, their words can bring life and strength to those who hear.

The mountain where Moses received God's written law and commandments to teach, together with the pattern for the work, is a model for leaders seeking God's presence and following His instruction. Like Moses, leaders who seek God's presence and glory are to follow the pattern God gives them. Those managing God's institutions are to seek His direction from the mount and make plans worthy of the sacred work rather than cheapening it. To come up into the mount is to meet God in earnest prayer and to make His Word the guide, asking what is written and what God has said instead of receiving the spirit and sentiments of men. It is the pattern of those who trust in God rather than trusting in men. Those who do this are kept by the power of God calm and composed above boisterous accusations and shocks that ruffle other minds, steady and unmoved by human opinions. No word from men, even ministers in the highest position, can sway them from right principles into questionable paths, for God's Word is the standard by which all human opinions must be tested.