CRITICAL NOTES.—
Exodus 19:1. The Wilderness of Sinai.]—Sinai is the “proper name of the granite mountain in the Arabian Veninsula, rendered famous by the Mosaic legislation. It consists of three large summits, of which the north-eastern is called Horeb, the south-western that of St. Catherine. ‘The Wilderness of Sinai’ is the wilderness about Sinai, and particularly the plain of Sebayeh, south of Gibel Mûsa.” (Fürst.)—
Exodus 19:3. Thus shalt thou say.]—There is something peculiarly beautiful in this message to Israel. (a) Its poetical form strikes the ear as well as the eye if printed, as it ought to be, in parallel lines. (b) The graciousness of its tenor goes straight to the heart: “Ye have seen what I did … now therefore.” Benefits already bestowed are urged as a motive to consecration. (c) Its position at the commencement of the Divine announcement is an introductory proposal to Israel, eliciting Israel’s first response—being, as we may term it, “the first time of asking,” prior to the ratification of the covenant (ch. Exodus 24:3; Exodus 24:7). (d) Its lofty aim, namely, that of securing a holy, obedient “people,” and consecrating them as “a kingdom of priests” on behalf of all the earth, for which Jehovah thus shows His care. Note especially, how much light is here thrown upon the meaning of the Hebrew berith in its loftiest application, as truly signifying COVENANT; and, further, the grace of Jehovah, in that, even here, where He appears in terror as Lawgiver, He makes way for His sovereignty by the most exquisite tenderness and love.
Exodus 19:5. Peculiar treasure. “Heb., çeghullah = property, possessim, i.e., that which one embraces, encloses. (Fürst.) The Sept. has periousios = “abundant, opulent; peculiar, eminent.” The language is that of one who has many valuables, but brings out one as his special delight. For all the earth is mine.]—The point of this clause is apt to be lost, until, with the proper emphasis laid on the pronoun “mine,” the contrast is carried forward by the adversative conjunction “but,” which in this case is required.
“For MINE is all the earth;
But YE shall become mine as a kingdom of priests,” &c.
The specialty of pure Hebraism and the narrowness of Pharisaic Judaism are utterly opposed to each other. Jehovah’s care for all nations is ever and anon gleaming out in the Hebrew Scriptures. Even here in Israel’s betrothal it is not forgotten.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exodus 19:1-6
GOD’S PROMISE TO THE JEWS
I. The recital of His works. The works recited are these:—What He did to the Egyptians for the sake of Israel, His people; how He bore His Church on eagles’ wings; how He bought His people to Himself. Every Christian can understand this: I defy any one else to do it. There is a spiritual import in all these expressions which none but the converted can understand. The child of God can enter into all this. God hath borne him on eagles’ wings, delivering him from worse than Egyptian bondage. “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son; in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.”
II. The proposals of His love. The two things that God Almighty, by His servant Moses, urges upon the people, are these. First, “If ye will obey My voice indeed:” do not mistake the matter, every word has its meaning:—“If ye will obey My voice indeed.” They were to follow God at all risks, heedless of consequences: determined to obey Him, though all the world should frown, or hiss, or should persecute. Israel was also to keep the covenant of God. “If ye will keep My covenant.” It may be said that it was a national covenant; and I admit that to a great extent it was a national covenant. All must admit that who examine the matter; but I must affirm that it was something more than this. Yes, it had respect to a Saviour, to an approach to God which now, through infinite mercy, is offered to you and to me. There are two grand characteristics of a Christian wherever you meet with him, that by God’s help he is willing to follow God’s voice at all risks; and that he shall lay hold on the cross as the only means whereby sinful man can approach God.
III. The promises of His grace. Now this promise contained in the text is the most remarkable in the Bible, “Then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.” Oh, what a bold word to utter! If the word had come out of other lips, it had been the greatest blasphemy ever uttered; but coming from God, it is the language of truth and soberness. “All the earth is Mine.” O Christian! do not be afraid! The very world in which you live, with all its treasure, with all upon its surface, with all beneath its surface, belongs to God. Now, though all the earth be His, He says, “Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people.” The Israelites were never great as a commercial people; they were never great as a maritime people; they were never great in war, except, indeed, in the early stage of their history, when, in fact, God fought for the people, and they had little to do but to take possession of what God had given them. But they were a peculiar treasure to God; and still that people have mercies in store for them. The Bible teems with promises of the restoration of the Jews. The poorest saint is a treasure to the Lord. We do not know how to set a value upon moral excellence, upon spiritual greatness, but God does: “They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels.”
1. What actually became the state of the Jews? How far was this promise fulfilled? The Jews were, to a certain degree, for a long time, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. While all other nations, the whole world around them, was in a state of pagan darkness, the lamp of life and truth shone forth in Israel. A succession of patriarchs, and then of prophets, and then of priests, was vouchsafed; and God’s truth was perpetuated among the people, and they were, to a great degree, a kingdom of priests, and a holy people.
2. What was it that caused it to come to pass that this promise was never completely fulfilled, that it never has yet been completely fulfilled to the Jews? Because the people left off to hear God’s voice, and left off to keep God’s covenant. They went after dumb idols. They left the God of all their mercies. Hence the promise has never been fully realised.
3. How far this promise, together with these proposals, may be considered as fairly bearing upon the state and upon the future prospects of the Christian Church. With all our improvements in science, we are a degenerate people as to the service of God. We must be more regular in the worship of God, in private devotion, in family prayer. Let us make the most of our exalted privileges.—Rev. T. Mortimer in The Pulpit.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exodus 19:1-6. Months and days from Egyptian bondage are fit to be recorded.
Days are set by God for the progress and rest of the Church.
From Rephidim to Sinai, or from trials to rest, God removes His Church.
The camp of the Church and the Word of God are sweetly joined together.
In covenant making with God there is need of a mediator.
God’s call alone can qualify or authorise a mediator between Him and sinners.
It is incumbent on the mediator to declare fully God’s mind to His people.
A due recognition of God’s gracious acts for souls against enemies is a good preparation to receive His law.
God’s securing providence as well as selecting a people to Himself prepares them to hear His covenant.
God’s covenanted people are His peculiar treasure in the world.
Royalty, near communion with God, and sanctity, are the privileges of God’s peculiar ones.
The needs of duty and privilege must be spoken and made known to the Church.
We would remark that as soon as God had erected the framework of this body politic, He gave His subjects laws—His own laws. He did not allow any man to lay down a rule for His own conduct or for His own worship. He did not allow these people to think they could be independent of Him, but He brought them to this wilderness where they had evidence in abundance that their God was the God of Providence and the God of power; and now He was about to teach them another lesson, that He was the God to whom they were amenable. “I said it was interesting to mark the order in which these events occurred. It is false doctrine, though almost universally received, that it is God’s method to bring the sinner under subjection by moulding his heart into obedience by some repenting process as it were, and afterwards, when the man becomes worthy, then to bestow upon him His choicest gifts. There never was more unsound teaching, brethren. God takes the sinner just as he is; and according to the riches and sovereignty of His own grace, makes him a recipient of mercy; and after He has brought him into His fold—alter He has taken him under the shelter of His own wing, He writes His law upon the fleshly tables of that sinner’s heart.”
—W. H. Krause, M.A.
“You will observe, in the first place, that every man is thus taught his accountability to God. Do what you will, you cannot escape that accountability. It seemed as if God brought the people of Israel into the solitude of that wilderness that each man might, in the nakedness of his own soul, stand before God and hear His law. It has been said with much solemnity by a good man, that in the present time men hide themselves in the crowd, but in the day of judgment every man must stand alone, as if he saw or knew no one and nothing but himself and his own transgressions.
Exodus 19:5. “For all the earth is Mine.”
I. God’s assertion of universal possession in the earth.
1. Nations.
2. Lands.
3. The animal and vegetable kingdoms.
II. God’s assertion excludes every other being from universal possession.
1. It is not man’s earth.
2. It is not the devil’s.
3. It does not belong to any created intelligence.
III. God’s assertion should awaken confidence in His saints and terror in sinners.
1. All forces are under His control.
2. Everything that is not of Him must fail.
3. His possession of the earth will be fully manifest in the end.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
THE REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Divine Motive! Exodus 19:1-5. Exotic flowers or foreign plants, if seeded on the mountainside, or inserted in the meadow amongst the promiscuous herbage growing there, soon become choked and disappear. Those who wish to preserve the flaming glories of the Cape, or the rich fruits of the tropic, must provide a garden enclosed—must keep out the weeds and ruffian weather. And so God, anxious to preserve “His Holy Law,” fenced in the Hebrew nationality. He secluded them, and walled them in, and made them, as it were, His own conservatory—a conservatory where Divine truth should survive uninjured until Messiah should come.
“We are a garden walled around,
Chosen and made peculiar ground;
A little spot enclosed by grace
Out of the world’s wide wilderness.”
Divine-Presence! Exodus 19:3. Greenland says that hunters once went out and found a revolving mountain, and that, attempting to cross the chasm between it and the firm land, some of these men were crushed as the mountain revolved. But they finally noticed that the gnarled, wheeling mass, had a red side and a white side. They waited till the white side came opposite them; and then, ascending the mountain, found that a king lived on its summit—made themselves loyal to him, surrendered themselves to him affectionately and irreversibly, and afterwards found themselves happy in his presence. There was but one way of approach to the “Mount of Awe,” and by that path Moses entered into Jehovah’s presence without fear. Along that “new living way” Gentile sinners pass to God. It is the King’s highway, for through Christ, who is our peace, both Jew and Gentile have access by one Spirit unto the Father. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no man cometh unto the Father but by ME.”
“Thou art the Way, the Truth, the life;
Grant us that Way to know,
That Truth to keep, that Life to win,
Whose joys eternal flow.”
—Donne.
Mountain-Eagles! Exodus 19:4. Arabia is a region of mountains and magnificent bluffs; bare of verdure and destitute of streams of living water. Amid these granite cliffs the eagles make their nest; and high above their frowning peaks these noble birds wheel in majestic flight. So that this figure, “borne on eagles’ wings,” must have been full of deepest significance. M‘Cheyne, when visiting a synagogue in Tarnopol—one of the finest towns of Austrian Poland—witnessed a procession of the law, in which he observed a standard embroidered with the Austrian eagle, and bearing these words, “I bear you on eagles’ wings.” During the eagle-like career of Alexander the Great, he had occasion to attack the Sogdians. These people dwelt amid huge mountain rocks and refused to surrender. When threatened by the Macedonian conqueror, they replied that they feared not his soldiers until they were “borne up on eagles’ wings.” The eagle soars the highest, and is the most majestic in its aerial courses. God, as it were, bears up His people on these mighty wings, so that they are above all obstacles and hindrances. As no bird can rise higher than the eagle, so none can get above God’s children when He thus enables them to mount up with wings as eagles (Isaiah 40:31).
“While on this vantage-ground the Christian stands,
His quickened eye a boundless view commands;
Discovers fair abodes not made with hands—
Abodes of peace.”
—Elliott.
Divine Republics! Exodus 19:5-9. When the freed negroes arrived on the West Coast of Africa, as the Republic of Liberia, they received certain laws and regulations. These were established amid the firing of cannon, the flaunting of flags, and the flashing of firearms. But when Jehovah constituted the legislation of Israel’s Divine Republic, the eye was arrested by darkness that defied the gaze, and by lightning and tempest that played about the summit of Sinai, while the ear was thrilled by the trumpet-blast, and appalled by the thunder. The great mountain rocked to and fro, and burned like a furnace. Then, piercing through cloud and camp, was heard the trumpet-blast pealing out above the thunder, that “the laws of the Divine Republic were about to be promulgated.” Glorious was this Divine legislation ceremony! The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them. From His right hand went a fiery law for them: Deuteronomy 33:2.
“The terrors of that awful day, though past,
Have on the tide of time some glory cast.”
—Baillie.