Section IV: The Manner of the Promulgation, § 27.
SECTION IV: THE MANNER OF THE PROMULGATION
What preceded the solemn promulgation.
§ 27. With regard to that proclamation, we must consider two points: first, the manner of the promulgation; and, second, the tablets on which the finger of God wrote and which God gave Moses in that promulgation. That we might consider in greater depth the manner of proclamation, we must chiefly note what preceded it (τὰ πρoηγoύμενα). God Himself sends us back to consider this in the Decalogue when He says at the outset: “I am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt” [Exod. 20:2]. Therefore [the following] preceded that promulgation of the Decalogue: the long slavery of the Israelites in Egypt, the ten horrifying plagues with which God struck the Egyptians. (There is a certain book in vol. 9 of the works of Augustine, not far from the end, and Sermon 95 de temp. in vol. 10 comparing these plagues with the Ten Commandments like wounds with their remedies.) Also: the miraculous and astounding exodus out of Egypt by God’s strong hand and outstretched arm; the separating of the Red Sea, providing a crossing for the children of Israel; the column of smoke and fire as their guide along the way; the drowning of Pharaoh and his entire army when they pursued them into the Red Sea; the sweetening of the waters at Marah; the miraculous supply of quail; the quick destruction of those who murmured; the falling of manna like dew; water brought from the rock; the glorious victory won over the Amalekites. God wanted these many great wonders to stir up the hearts of the Israelites to receive the teaching of the Ten Commandments. The memory of their former slavery and their current freedom ought to have stirred them up to love so beneficent a Lawgiver. Memory of the plagues against the Egyptians, the drowning of Pharaoh, and the destruction of the complainers should have struck them with fear, lest they set themselves against the divine commands.
The circumstances during the promulgation of the Decalogue.
§ 28. Furthermore, we must consider the circumstances which occurred during the promulgation of the Decalogue. There is a careful and accurate description of them in Exodus 19 and 20. The people are ordered to sanctify themselves for three days before it, to abstain from conjugal intercourse, and to wash their clothes. On the third day, Moses led the people out to the foot of Mount Sinai, on which they were commanded not to lay a hand under threat of death. From the top of the mountain they heard thunder and a very powerful blast of the trumpet. They saw lightning and very thick clouds above the mountain. The mountain itself seemed to smoke entirely because Jehovah had descended upon it in fire. Consequently, the whole mountain quaked greatly, as did all who were present, in great fear and terror. Moses alone went to the summit of the mountain and held converse with God. God spoke to him in return in a voice which was so loud that the 600,000 people standing at the foot of the mountain could hear it. Josephus (Antiq. Judaic., bk. 3, ch. 4) reports: “Mount Sinai is the highest of all mountains of that region, and because of its great height and precipitous crags, it tires both those who climb it and even those who gaze upon it.” Therefore it was a great and shocking miracle that so great a crowd of people who occupied the complete area at the foot of the mountain could clearly hear God’s voice when He spoke. Not only was God’s voice loud but also terrifying, as He recited the Ten Commandments. Consequently, the frightened people moved far back and said to Moses: “Let not God speak to us, lest we die. You speak to us, and we will obey” [Exod. 20:19]. Also pertaining to this consideration of the circumstances is the fact that God Himself recited the Ten Commandments before all the people, but the rest of the judicial and ceremonial laws He gave to Moses under the cover of the cloud to be given to the people (Deut. 5:22ff.). Josephus (loc. cit.) describes the circumstances of the promulgation of the Law as follows:
In accord with the prophet’s command, the Hebrews had broken camp and now came up to the foot of the mountain, hoping in their minds for something good, as the prophet had promised that he would bring them back from God. Meanwhile, as they waited for their leader, they celebrated their feast days, preserving their chastity both over against others and also from their wives for three days, just as they had been commanded, and addressing God with their zealous prayers, etc. Meanwhile, they were enjoying quite rich foods and were wearing very beautiful clothes, as were their wives and children. In this way they spent two days in feasting. Now, as the third day dawned, first an unusual cloud hung on high above the entire encampment of the Hebrews, covering the tents, which stretched over a broad area. A bright calm held the rest of the sky all around. Then storms boiled up with a violent downpour. Simultaneously, lightning with constant flashes began to frighten the people. The thunder and lightning indicated that Moses had met favorably with God, according to his wish. When the Hebrews saw the unusual storm and had the terrible noise beat against their ears, they were terrified beyond measure. The strangeness of the situation frightened them, and the report spread about how God visited the mountain frequently. Sad, they therefore kept to their tents, thinking that something had happened as regards Moses’ safety.
This description of Josephus seems not to accord with Moses’ in every respect, for the cloud that Josephus says hung over the entire camp Moses places only above the mountain (Exod. 19:16). What Josephus adds about the more sumptuous food and clothing does not seem to make sense in the wilderness; besides, what sumptuous food could they have had at hand when shortly before they had complained bitterly about the scarcity of their food and drink?
§ 29. However, let us return to Moses’ description. (1) The people were ordered to sanctify themselves for two days, to wash their clothing, to abstain from conjugal intercourse, and, finally, on the third day to await the promulgation of the Law. The sanctification required a pious and devout preparation for listening to the Law inasmuch as their external sanctification was the symbol of their internal sanctification. Three days were allotted for this sanctification either because the number three is sacred to the Trinity or, as some Scholastics believe, because they indicated the three faculties of the soul which were to be sanctified. The external washing of clothing was the symbol of an inner washing away of sins. Respectable dress suggested the solemnity of the feast. The command about abstinence from marital1 intercourse was also supposed to arouse a greater reverence and attention in the minds of the Israelites, just as the apostle advises spouses who intend to pray and fast more zealously to abstain temporarily from intercourse (1 Cor. 7:5).
(2) On the third day, Jehovah, the true God, descended onto Mount Sinai before the eyes of all the people. He descended not by changing His place but by showing His presence with external signs. He is the author and promulgator of His own Law. The same God who originally engrafted the knowledge of the Law onto people’s minds solemnly and publicly repeated His Law on Mount Sinai. In Num. 12:6 God says that He “reveals His Word to the prophets in a vision or in a dream or through the secret inspiration” of the Holy Spirit. However, when He published the Ten Commandments, He employed none of these methods. Instead, He Himself recited them with His own voice before all the people.
(3) In the promulgation of the Law, God also used the ministry of the angels. Acts 7:53: “You received the Law by the disposition of angels.” Gal. 3:19: “The Law was put in place by angels.” However, in this action the angels were not authors but messengers, witnesses, and assistants. Not only were angels present on Mount Horeb, but also the trumpet fanfare was sounded by an angel. Therefore just as the ministry of angels and trumpet calls were used in that promulgation of the Law, so also on the Last Day, when the prosecution of the Law will commence, “the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thess. 4:16).
(4) The mediator in that activity was Moses. Gal. 3:19: “The Law was put in place by angels in the hand of a mediator.” How Moses carried out this responsibility is described in Exod. 19:3: “Moses went up to God, and Jehovah called him from the mountain, saying, ‘Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob,’ ” etc. Verses 7–8: “So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words. Moses reported the words of the people to Jehovah.” Verse 14: “He went down and sanctified the people.” Verse 17: “Moses brought the people out of the camp to the mountain to meet God.” Exod. 20:19: “The people said to Moses: ‘You speak to us, and we will obey, but let not God speak to us, lest we die.’ ” Verse 21: “The people stood afar off while Moses drew near to the darkness, where God was.” Exod. 24:12: “Jehovah said to Moses: ‘Come up to Me on the mountain and wait there, and I will give you tablets of stone with the Law and the commandment which I have written to teach them.’” Deut. 5:4–5: Moses told the people: “ ‘Jehovah spoke with you face-to-face at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between Jehovah and you at that time to declare to you the word of Jehovah, for you were afraid because of the face of Jehovah, and you did not go up into the mountain.’ ” Therefore Moses was the mediator in this act first by declaring the promulgation of the Law, by reporting the people’s promise to God, by sanctifying the people, by taking them to meet God, by climbing the mountain and receiving the tablets of the Law, by reporting the ceremonial and judicial laws from the mouth of God, etc.
** The efficient cause2 of the divine Law is either principal or administering. The former is God Himself (Exod. 19:9; 20:1; James 4:12; Deut. 5:22). The administering cause is either inferior or superior. The angels are the superior administering cause (Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2), not as authors but as messengers, servants, executors in the promulgation of the Law; for the preposition δι [“through”] appears twice, in διαταγείς and in δι’ ἁγγέλων, which is a very clear indication of ministry and instrumentality. The inferior administering cause is Moses (John 1:18). Gal. 3:19: “The Law was put in place by angels in the hand of a mediator.” Athanasius, Chrysostom, and some modern authors take the mediator to mean Christ Himself, but Epiphanius, Theodoret, and Luther take it more correctly to refer to Moses, the mediator of the Old Testament, since he was the intermediary trustee between God and the Israelites with regard to announcing [God’s Law] (Deut. 5:5, 27). The expression “in the hand” is a formula of speaking which generally means work and ministry such that this messenger, being inferior to the angels, received from them the laws and brought them down to the Jews. The very account of the promulgation of the Law shows that Moses is meant here (Deut. 5:5, 27; Exod. 32:15; 34:29). (Backmeister)
The question arises: “Why was the Law not repeated before then?” We respond. Because [God] did not will it. We can adduce two reasons for His will: first, because God, especially after the fall, generally advances from the imperfect toward the more perfect. For instance, first He promised the Messiah, and then later He revealed the Messiah in types, and, finally, He revealed Him in the flesh. In the same way He first gave the law of nature, then His Word without writing, and, finally, the same Word written down clearly. Second, because the perfected Law was destined for the people who would be born of the seed of Abraham, but they were not a people nor free before that time to have their own laws. **
(5) Why were the thunder, lightning, blare of trumpet, fire, smoke, torches, etc., used in the promulgation? This is explained by Moses in Exod. 20:20: “God has come to test you, that the fear of Him may be before you, that you may not sin.” “The Law works wrath in this corrupt nature” (Rom. 4:15). Those frightening and terrifying signs were used to signify this. The old law was “the law of fear,” and the Scholastics call the new law “the law of love.” The comparison of Pentecost in the Old and New Testaments is related to this, as Ps. 68:8ff. shows. Chemnitz (Harm., ch. 51, p. 288): “In the Old Testament, the promulgation of the Law was so terrible that the people could not climb up the mountain. Instead, they shouted: ‘We cannot bear to hear His voice’ [Exod. 20:19]. But in the New Testament, when Christ explains the Law and adds His own fulfillment of it, or when the Gospel uses the ministry of the Law and adds its own mitigation [ἐπιείκειαν] to it, then the crowds ascend the very mountain where Christ explains the Law and marvel at the efficacy of His teaching.” Some take that blare of the trumpet as the thunder imitating the noise of the horn with its continuous roar. To this they relate what the apostle writes about the last trumpet (1 Cor. 15:52; 1 Thess. 4:16). However, since Moses distinctly mentions thunder and its noise and also reports that the sound of the horn became louder and louder, it is better to take this noise literally, which occurred by the ministry of angels. The Jews propose the silly tale that this noise was made on a horn taken from the ram that was once sacrificed in Isaac’s place. In Exod. 19:13 we read: “When the trumpet begins to sound, then they shall come up upon the mountain.” This seems to contradict what was said earlier, when they were forbidden to come up onto the mountain and, in fact, were even commanded to refrain from touching it. Therefore some people take this as a synecdoche here, that is, “they shall come up to the mountain,” meaning “to the foot of the mountain.” The rabbinic scholar Salomon explains this as follows: “There was a way of elongating the blare, and that was the sign that God was leaving the mountain. Because of this, they were given the power to hurry over the boundaries which had been established and to climb up the mountain.” However, on the basis of the text itself, a very simple explanation can be found. “When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain (
),” but not “onto the mountain.” Therefore we would concede some sort of approaching to the mountain as the sound of the trumpet was extended. Mystically this means that, when the voice of the Gospel, spread and lengthened, sounds forth into the whole world, we have a closer approach to God.
(6) Fire appeared on the very top of the mountain, in which Jehovah came down (Exod. 19:18). God spoke with the Israelites from the midst of it (Deut. 5:4). This appears to conflict in some way with the fact that God says that He will come in the thickness of the cloud (Exod. 19:9) and that Moses, it says, “drew near to the thick darkness where God was” (Exod. 20:21). It must be said, then, that in the middle of that thick and dark cloud was the fire, a symbol of the divine presence. From its midst it says that God spoke (Exod. 24:16–17). Bede (on Exodus 24): “The Law was given on a mountain so that, from the height of that place, we might conclude how lofty or how hidden from human teachings is the Law that Moses received.” The smoke is the destruction of the wicked who rebel against the Law, while the quaking of the mountain denotes the trembling of the conscience. That thick, dark cloud on the mountain was a type of the ministry of the Old Testament, in which God hid in shadowy wrappings the mystery of salvation by Christ. It can also be a general reminder that in this life “we see through a mirror dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12). God wraps Himself in the cloud of the Word and Sacraments. The fire signified that God is a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29). “He who destroys what opposes Him with avenging flames remains the only rule of righteousness” (cf. Deut. 4:36). That fire is called “great.” Its purity and splendor shaded partly the great perfection and sanctity of God and partly His zeal, for it is described as a “smoking fire” which kindles the mountain, causes lightning, and throws people into terror. At Pentecost in the New Testament, however, fire appears without smoke, since the wrath of God has been removed through Christ’s sacrifice. That fire sharpened the tongues of the apostles to penetrate people’s hearts with the preaching of the Gospel (Acts 2:3). This fire illumines hearts, fires them with a love for God, inflames spirits with zeal, cleanses them from the impurities of sin, frees them from their inborn hardness, and prepares them to scatter the rays of good works. Here I leave pious minds to consider whether or not that column of fire and smoke leading the Israelites through the wilderness was a permanent reminder of this promulgation of the Law when God had likewise appeared in cloud and fire.
(7) Finally, the people were forbidden to touch the mountain, much less climb it. Exod. 19:12–13: “And you shall set bounds for the people round about the mountain, saying to them: ‘Take heed that you do not go up onto the mountain nor touch the border of it. Whoever touches the mountain will be put to death.’” (What a great punishment such rashness incurs!) “‘No hand of man shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or pierced through by javelins at a distance. Whether beast or man, he shall not live.’” Verse 21: “Warn the people” (that is, “forbid them gravely”), “lest they desire to cross the borders to look, and many of them perish.” This prohibition was also designed to stir up reverence in the minds of the Israelites and, on the other hand, to repress their rashness. However, we should be content in this life with the limits of Scripture, lest we follow the lead of blind reason and try to break into the inner sanctuary of the divine Majesty. That would be a case of leaping over the fences [τὰ ἐσκαμμένα πηδᾷν] and going beyond the prescribed limits.
The things that followed.
§ 30. In regard to the manner of the promulgation, there remains yet to be considered the things that followed [τὰ έπόμενα]. Certain miraculous occurrences followed the promulgation of the Law, as, for instance, the fact that Moses climbed the mountain again and stayed on it for forty days and forty nights without eating food or drinking water (Exod. 24:18; Deut. 9:9); the fact that God led the children of Israel around in the wilderness for forty whole years to test them and to learn what was in their hearts, as to whether or not they wanted to observe His commandments (Deut. [8]:2); that their clothing did not wear out that entire time, their shoes did not fall apart with age, nor did their feet swell with their constant travels (v. 4); and that the Israelites finally were led into the Promised Land which flowed with milk and honey (v. 7). With each and every one of these things, God wanted to give a witness to His people of His goodness, power, and majesty and to invite them to observe His Law.
1 Read maritali with Cotta instead of materiali.
2 That which brings about an effect.