The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 20:18-21

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

EXPOSITION

WITHDRAWAL OF THE PEOPLE, AND NEARER APPROACH OF MOSES TO GOD. The effect produced upon the people by the accumulated terrors of Sinai—"the thunderings and the lightnings, the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking"—the cloud, and the voice out of the cloud—was an awful and terrible fear. They could not bear the manifestation of the near presence of God; and therefore "they removed and stood afar off." It seemed to them as if, on hearing the voice of God, speaking out of the thick darkness, they must die (Exodus 20:19). Moses, upon their expressing these feelings, comforted them with an assurance that God had shown his terrors, not for their injury, but to put his fear in their hearts (Exodus 20:20), and allowed them to retire to a distance from the mount, while he himself "drew near unto the thick darkness where God was" (Exodus 20:21).

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