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4 lines
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<p>Here is, I. The date of that great charter by which Israel was incorporated. 1. The time when it bears date (<a class="bibleref" title="Exod.19.1" href="/passage/?search=Exod.19.1">Exod. 19:1</a>)--<i>in the third month</i> after they came out of Egypt. It is computed that the law was given just fifty days after their coming out of Egypt, in remembrance of which the feast of Pentecost was observed the fiftieth day after the passover, and in compliance with which the Spirit was poured out upon the apostles at the feast of pentecost, fifty days after the death of Christ. In Egypt they had spoken of a three days’ journey into the wilderness to the place of their sacrifice (<a class="bibleref" title="Exod.5.3" href="/passage/?search=Exod.5.3">Exod. 5:3</a>), but it proved to be almost a two months’ journey; so often are we out in the calculation of times, and things prove longer in the doing than we expected. 2. The place whence it bears date—from <i>Mount Sinai</i>, a place which nature, not art, had made eminent and conspicuous, for it was the highest in all that range of mountains. Thus God put contempt upon cities, and palaces, and magnificent structures, setting up his pavilion on the top of a high mountain, in a waste and barren desert, there to carry on this treaty. It is called <i>Sinai</i>, from the multitude of thorny bushes that overspread it.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">II. The charter itself. Moses was called up the mountain (on the top of which God had pitched his tent, and at the foot of which Israel had pitched theirs), and was employed as the mediator, or rather no more than the messenger of the covenant: <i>Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Exod.19.3" href="/passage/?search=Exod.19.3">Exod. 19:3</a>. Here the learned bishop Patrick observes that the people are called by the names both of <i>Jacob</i> and <i>Israel</i>, to remind them that those who had lately been as low as Jacob when he went to Padan-aram had now grown as great as God made him when he came thence (justly enriched with the spoils of him that had oppressed him) and was called <i>Israel</i>. Now observe, 1. That the maker, and first mover, of the covenant, is God himself. Nothing was said nor done by this stupid unthinking people themselves towards this settlement; no motion made, no petition put up for God’s favour, but this blessed charter was granted <i>ex mero motu—purely out of God’s own good-will</i>. Note, In all our dealings with God, free grace anticipates us with the blessings of goodness, and all our comfort is owing, not to our knowing God, but rather to our being <i>known of him</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Gal.4.9" href="/passage/?search=Gal.4.9">Gal. 4:9</a>. <i>We love him</i>, visit him, and covenant with him, <i>because he first loved us</i>, visited us, and covenanted with us. God is the Alpha, and therefore must be the Omega. 2. That the matter of the covenant is not only just and unexceptionable, and such as puts no hardship upon them, but kind and gracious, and such as gives them the greatest privileges and advantages imaginable. (1.) He reminds them of what he had done for them, <a class="bibleref" title="Exod.19.4" href="/passage/?search=Exod.19.4">Exod. 19:4</a>. He had righted them, and avenged them upon their persecutors and oppressors: “<i>You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians</i>, how many lives were sacrificed to Israel’s honour and interests:” He had given them unparalleled instances of his favour to them, and his care of them: <i>I bore you on eagles’ wings</i>, a high expression of the wonderful tenderness God had shown for them. It is explained, <a class="bibleref" title="Deut.32.11,Deut.32.12" href="/passage/?search=Deut.32.11,Deut.32.12"><span class="bibleref" title="Deut.32.11">Deut. 32:11</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Deut.32.12">12</span></a>. It denotes great speed. God not only came upon the wing for their deliverance (when the set time was come, he rode on a cherub, and did fly), but he hastened them out, as it were, upon the wing. He did it also with great ease, with the strength as well as with the swiftness of an eagle: those that faint not, nor are weary, are said to <i>mount up with wings as eagles</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Isa.40.31" href="/passage/?search=Isa.40.31">Isa. 40:31</a>. Especially, it denotes God’s particular care of them and affection to them. Even Egypt, that iron furnace, was the nest in which these young ones were hatched, where they were first formed as the embryo of a nation; when, by the increase of their numbers, they grew to some maturity, they were carried out of that nest. Other birds carry their young in their talons, but the eagle (they say) upon her wings, so that even those archers who shoot flying cannot hurt the young ones, unless they first shoot through the old one. Thus, in the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud and fire, the token of God’s presence, interposed itself between the Israelites and their pursuers (lines of defence which could not be forced, a wall which could not be penetrated): yet this was not all; their way so paved, so guarded, was glorious, but their end much more so: <i>I brought you unto myself</i>. They were brought not only into a state of liberty and honour, but into covenant and communion with God. This, this was the glory of their deliverance, as it is of ours by Christ, that he died, <i>
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<p class="tab-1">III. Israel’s acceptance of this charter, and consent to the conditions of it. 1. Moses faithfully delivered God’s message to them (<a class="bibleref" title="Exod.19.7" href="/passage/?search=Exod.19.7">Exod. 19:7</a>): He <i>laid before their faces all those words</i>; he not only explained to them what God had given him in charge, but he put it to their choice whether they would accept these promises upon these terms or no. His laying it to their faces denotes his laying it to their consciences. 2. They readily agreed to the covenant proposed. They would oblige themselves to obey the voice of God, and take it as a great favour to be made a kingdom of priests to him. They answered together as one man, <i>nemine contradicente—without a dissentient voice</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Exod.19.8" href="/passage/?search=Exod.19.8">Exod. 19:8</a>): <i>All that the Lord hath spoken we will do</i>. Thus they strike the bargain, accepting the Lord to be to them a God, and giving up themselves to be to him a people. O that there had been such a heart in them! 3. Moses, as a mediator, returned the words of the people to God, <a class="bibleref" title="Exod.19.8" href="/passage/?search=Exod.19.8">Exod. 19:8</a>. Thus Christ, the Mediator between us and God, as a prophet reveals God’s will to us, his precepts and promises, and then as a priest offers up to God our spiritual sacrifices, not only of prayer and praise, but of devout affections and pious resolutions, the work of his own Spirit in us. Thus he is that blessed <i>days-man who lays his hand upon us both</i>.</p>
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