‘For you are not come to what might be touched, and which burned with fire, and to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words.'
The situation of those of old is first dealt with vividly. He is trying to establish for his readers, by negatives, a sense of the holiness and awesomeness of God. For the new covenant and the new realities have not changed the nature of God. Let them not forget that. He is still a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29). What they have changed is the situation for those who are truly responsive to Christ, and His approachability.
When the first covenant was given it was on an earthly mountain, one that was tangible and of this world. And yet it had with His presence become so holy that it could not be touched, because God was there. It was a mountain which burned with awesome fire. It was a mountain of blackness and pitch darkness (gnopho and zopho) and tempest. See for this general picture Deuteronomy 4:11 LXX, ‘the mountain burned with fire up to heaven, with darkness, cloud and the great sound of a tempest'. Note the repetitions in order to bring out its dark and mysterious nature and the reference to tempest which indicates the thunder and savagery of nature that accompanied it. It was a mountain from which came a blaring sound as of a trumpet and the voice of words. There was no closeness of relationship here, no sense of ease and calm, no easy approach, but a sense of fear, and terror before the glory of the Lord that shook the very being, and an awareness that God was revealed and yet hidden, local and yet could not be approached. (See Exodus 19:16; Exodus 20:18-19; Deuteronomy 4:11-12).
‘What might be touched.' This stresses that Mount Sinai could in fact normally be touched because it was of the earth and therefore attainable by man when God was not there. It was of this world. For with all its manifestations at that time it was in the end but an earthly mountain, in total contrast with the heavenly Mount Zion. However, because God was there it could not be touched at that time, for even an animal straying onto it would immediately become ‘holy' and had to be slaughtered by stone or arrow (it could not itself now be touched) - Hebrews 12:20. Thus it was both earthly and heavenly at the same time.
‘And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words.' The sound of a trumpet is regularly the indication that God is approaching to act, and here He acted with the voice of words in giving the covenant in terms of being their sovereign Lord in a way that would never be forgotten. And yet even so it failed because of the sinfulness of their hearts. The background may have been powerful thunder, or it may have been some unearthly noise which gave the impression of the blaring tones of a trumpet, but it alerted them to the seriousness of what God was about to say.