Lecture VII: Sinai and the Law (part 1)

by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.    

   REPHIDIM was but the threshold of Sinai.  "In the        
third month they departed from Rephidim,      
and pitched in the wilderness of Sinai."  On-       
wards and upwards, after their long halt, exulting in       
their first victory, they advanced deeper and deeper        
into the mountain-ranges, they knew not whither.        
They knew only that it was for some great end, for       
some mighty sacrifice, for some solemn disclosure, such       
as they had never before witnessed.  Onwards they       
went, and the mountains closed around them; upwards      
through the winding valley, and under high cliff, and over         
rugged pass, and through gigantic forms, on which the       
marks of creation even now seem fresh and powerful;       
and at last, through all the different valleys, the whole       
body of the people were assembled.  On their right      
hand and on their left rose long successions of lofty       
rocks, forming a vast avenue, like the approaches        
which they had seen leading to the Egyptian tem-      
ples between colossal figures of men and of gods.  At      
the end of this broad avenue, rising immediately out       
of the level plain on which they were encamped, tow-         
ered he massive cliffs of Sinai, like the huge altar     
of some natural temple; encircled by peaks of every      
shape and height, the natural pyramids of the desert.         
In this sanctuary, secluded from all earthly things,      
raised high above even the wilderness itself, arrived,        
as it must have seemed to them, at the very end of      
the world — they waited for the Revelation of God.       
How would He make Himself known to them?  Would      
it be, as they had seen in those ancient temples of       
Egypt, under the similitude of any figure, "the like-        
ness of male or female, the likeness of any beast        
that is upon the earth, or the likeness of any fowl       
that flieth in the air, or the likeness of any fish       
that is in the waters under the earth?"  Would it       
be any, or all of these forms, under which they would      
at last see Him, who, with a mighty hand, had brought       
them out of the land of Egypt?         
   These questions, or like to these, are what must        
have occurred to the Israelites on the morning of the        
mighty day when they stood beneath the Mount.      
   The outward scene might indeed prepare them for       
what was to come.  They stood, as I have       
described, in a vast sanctuary, not made with hands,       
— a sanctuary where every outward shape of life, ani-       
mal or vegetable, such as in Egypt had attracted their       
wonder and admiration, was withdrawn.  Bare and un-      
clothed, the mountains rose around them; their very       
shapes and colors were such as to carry their thoughts         
back to the days of old creation, "from everlasting to      
everlasting, before the mountains were brought forth,       
or ever the earth and the world were made."  At last,   
the morning broke, and every eye was fixed on the       
summit of the height.  was it any earthly form, was      
it any distinct shape, that unveiled itself? . . . .          
There were thunders, there were lightnings, there was         
the voice of a trumpet exceedingly loud; but on the        
Mount itself there was a thick cloud — darkness, and        
clouds, and thick darkness.  It was "the secret place         
of thunder."  On the summit of the mountain,       
on the skirts of the dark cloud, or within it,       
was Moses himself withdrawn from view.  It is this        
which represents to us the seclusion so essential to        
the Eastern idea — within certain limits, so essential to        
any idea — of the Prophet; that,     

         "Separate from the world, his breast      
            Might deeply take and strongly keep        
          The print of Heaven."       

   I.  This was the first and the chief impression, which      
the Israelites and their leader alike were in-      
tended to receive at Mount Sinai.  They saw        
not God; and yet they were to believe that He was       
there.  They were no make no sign or likeness of God,       
and yet they were to believe that He was then and       
always their one and only Lord.      
   How hard it was for them to receive and act on       
this, may be imagined from what has been said of        
their previous state — may be seen from their subse-      
quent history.  Even on that very plain, beneath that      
very Mount, they could not bear to think that they        
were to serve a God who was invisible; they returned       
to Egypt in their hearts.  Then ensued a scene which       
Josephus, after the manner of much Ecclesiastical His-       
tory of later times, shrinks from describing, but which        
the Sacred historian does not fear to relate at length.      
Aaron, the great High Priest, in the absence of his        
greater brother, was shaken.  He framed a       
visible form, the likeness of the sacred beast       
of Heliopolis, and proclaimed it as "the God, which        
had brought them up from the land of Egypt."  An        
altar rose before it, like that which still exists beneath         
the nostrils of the Sphinx; a three days' festival was       
proclaimed, with all the licentious rites of song and           
dance which they had learned in Egypt.  And not        
then only, but again and again, both in the history       
of the Jewish and of the Christian Church, has the        
same temptation returned.  The Priest has set up         
what the Prophet has destroyed.  Graven images have        
been set up in deed or in word, to make the Unseen       
visible, and the Eternal temporal.  But the Revelation        
of Sinai has prevailed.  Slowly and with many reverses        
did the great truth then first imparted gain possession     
of the hearts of Israel, and through them, of the      
whole world, — that we are neither to imagine that         
we see God when we do not, nor that because we do      
not see Him, are we to doubt that He has been, and       
is, and yet shall be.  This was the marvel which the      
Jewish worship presented, even to the best and wisest        
heathen who were perplexed by what seemed to them      
a Religion without a God.  It is to us the declaration        
that there must be a void created by the destruction           
of errors, by the removal of false images of God,     
before we can receive the true image of the Truth      
itself.             
   II.  But it was not only a negative form that the      
Revelation of Sinai assumed.  This blank, this       
vague infinity, as a heathen would have called it, sup-      
plied the enthusiasm, the ardor, the practical basis of       
life, which most nations in the old world, and many      
in the modern world, have believed to be compatible        
only with the most elaborate imagery and the most        
definite statements.         
   The idea of God in the Jewish Church, which can       
be traced to nothing short of Mount Sinai, was the         
very reverse of a negation or an abstraction.  It was       
the absorbing thought of the national mind.  It was       
not merely the Lord of the Universe, but "the Lord       
who had brought them out of the land of Egypt,      
out of the house of bondage."  It was in the recep-         
tion and promulgation of this Revelation that the pro-          
phetic character of Moses is chiefly brought out.  He       
had been called to his prophetic mission, as we have       
seen, in the vision of the Burning Bush.  But the      
mission itself, properly speaking, dates from this time,     
and is indicated in a form nearly corresponding to        
that of his original call.  "I beseech Thee, show me       
Thy glory," was the petition which burst from the        
Prophet in the hour of bitter disappointment and iso-       
lation, when he found that his brother and his people        
had fallen away from him.  The wish was thoroughly      
Egyptian.  The same is recorded in Amenoph, the        
Pharaoh preceding the Exodus.  But the difference in        
the answer to the two prayers well expressed the dif-         
ference between the Egyptian and the Mosaic religion.      
"Thou canst not see My face, for there shall no man       
see Me and live."  He was commanded to hew two      
blocks like those which had been destroyed.  He was to        
come absolutely alone.  Even the flocks and herds       
which fed in the neighboring valleys were to be re-         
moved out of the sight of the mountain.  He took his         
place on a well-known or prominent rock — "the"      
rock.  The legendary locality is still shown, and the      
importance of the incident, told equally in the Bible      
and the Koran, is attested by the fact, that from this,      
rather than from any more general connection, the     
mountain derives its name of the "Mount of Moses."        
It was a moment of his life second only to that when he      
received the first revelation of the Name of Jehovah.          
"The Lord passed by and proclaimed, The Lord, the     
Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and       
abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for         
thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and      
sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty."       
The union of the qualities, so often disjoined in man,     
so little thought of in the gods of old, "justice and        
mercy," "truth and love," became henceforward the     
formula, many times repeated — the substance of the      
Creed of the Jewish Church.  And this union, which      
was disclosed as the highest revelation to Moses, was       
exactly what received its fullest exemplification in the       
Revelation for which it was a preparation:  when in       
the most literal sense of the words, "grace and truth"     
— the tenderest of grace, the sternness and justice     
of truth — "came by Jesus Christ."            
   How marked an epoch is thus intended appears from      
the mode of the Divine manifestations, which        
are described as commencing at this juncture,       
and perpetuated with more or less continuity through      
the rest of his career.  Immediately after the catas-        
trophe of the worship of the calf, and, apparently in      
consequence of it, Moses removed the chief tent — his       
own tent, according to the Septuagint — outside the      
camp, and invested it with a sacred character under        
the name of "the Tent or Tabernacle of the Con-       
gregation."  This tent became henceforth the chief      
scene of his communications with God.  He left the      
camp, and it is described how, as in the expectation      
of some great event, all the people rose up and stood       
every man at his tent-door, and looked — gazing after          
Moses until he disappeared within the Tabernacle.      
As he disappeared, the entrance was closed behind     
him by the cloudly pillar, at the sight of which the      
people prostrated themselves.  The communications      
within the Tabernacle were still more intimate than       
those on the mountain.  "Jehovah spake unto Moses       
face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend."       
He was apparently accompanied on these mysterious      
visits by his attendant Hoshea (or Joshua), who re-          
mained in the Tabernacle after his master had left       
it.       
   It was during these Prophetic visions that a pecu-      
liarity is mentioned which apparently had not been      
seen before.  It was on his final descent from Mount      
Sinai, after his second long seclusion, that a splendor      
shone on his face, as if from the glory of the Divine        
Presence; which gradually faded away, till, conceal-      
ing its extinction by a veil, he returned to the Divine       
Presence, once more to rekindle it there.  It is from      
this incident, that, by no very remote analogy, the        
Apostle draws the contrast between the fearlessness,       
the openness, of the New Dispensation, and the con-       
cealment and doubtfulness of the Old.  "We have           
no fear, as Moses had, that our glory will pass          
away."         
   It is only by thus looking forwards to the end, that       
we see the full importance of the Prophetic Mission        
of Moses.  But it is only by looking back to the      
beginning, that we understand its peculiar signifi-      
cance.        
   That the consciousness of a present Ruler, in the      
closest moral relation with man, as above described,      
was a part of the Mosaic Revelation, properly so-      
called, — that it had its origin in the solitudes of      
Sinai, and not in any later growth of the people of     
Israel, — seem proved by the place which it holds as       
the basis of their most striking peculiarities.  Two      
may be selected as the illustrations of this position.        
   First, the Jewish religion is characterized in an      
eminent degree by the dimness of its concep-       
tion of a future life.  From time to time there         
are glimpses of the hope of immortality.  But      
for the most part, it is in the present life that the      
faith of the Israelite finds its full accomplishment.        
"The grave cannot praise thee; death cannot cele-      
brate thee, . . . the living, the living, he shall praise        
thee, as I do this day."      
   It is needless to repeat here the elaborate contrast      
drawn out by Bishop Warburton in this respect be-      
tween the Jewish Scriptures and the religions of       
Paganism.  Nor need we adopt the paradoxical expe-        
dient by which, from this apparent defect, he infers        
the Divine Legation of Moses.  But the fact becomes        
of real religious importance, if we trace the ground       
on which this silence respecting the Future state was        
based.  Not from want of religion, but (if one might        
use the expression) from excess of religion, was this         
oid left in the Jewish mind.  The Future Life was       
not denied or contradicted, — but it was overlooked,     
set aside, overshadowed, by the consciousness of the      
living, actual presence of God Himself.  That truth,       
at least in the limited conceptions of the youthful     
nation, was too vast to admit of any rival truth,       
however precious.  When David and Hezekiah, as in          
the passages just quoted, shrank from the gloomy       
vacancy of the grave, it was because they feared lest,              
when death closed their eyes on the present world,       
they should lose their hold on that Divine Friend,      
with whose being and communion the present world      
had in their minds been so closely interwoven.  Such       
a sense of the overwhelming greatness and nearness      
of God, the root of feelings so peculiar as those which     
I have described, must have lain too deep in the     
national belief to have had its beginning in any later      
time than the epoch of Moses.  It is the primary        
stratification of the Religion.  We should invert the        
whole order of the nation, if we placed it amongst        
the secondary formations of subsequent ages.                 
   Secondly, it is to this period that we must refer in      
its full extent, in its most literal meaning,      
what is often called the Theocracy of the      
Jewish people.  The word is derived from Josephus's       
account of this time.  He, as it would seem, invented       
the phrase to express an idea for which ordinary        
Greek could furnish no adequate term.  "Our law-        
giver," he says, "had no regard to monarchies, oli-       
garchies, democracies, or any of those forms; but he        
ordained our government to be what by a forced ex-        
pression may be called 'a Theocracy.' "  It is a term         
which has been often employed since; usually in the       
sense of a sacerdotal rule, which is almost exactly the          
reverse of that in which it was used by its first in-            
ventor.  The "Theocracy" of Moses was not a gov-      
ernment by priests, as opposed to kings; it was a           
government by God Himself, as opposed to the gov-      
ernment by priests or kings.  It was, indeed,        
in its highest sense, as appeared afterwards in       
the time of David, compatible both with regal and       
sacerdotal rule; but, in the first instance, it excluded         
all rule, except the simplest forms which the freedom       
of desert life could furnish.  The assembly of all the          
tribes in the armed congregation, the chieftains or       
elders of the various tribes as established by Jethro,           
were the constituent elements of the primitive He-      
brew commonwealth, in its ordinary social relations.        
But in its highest aspect, it was distinguished from        
the other nations of antiquity by its comparative ab-      
sence of caste, by its equality of religious relations.         
An hereditary priesthood, it is true, was established,         
after the manner of Egypt, in the tribe of Levi, in      
the family of Aaron.  But it was a subse-     
quent appendage to the fundamental pre-       
cepts, to the first declaration of the religion: in its      
hereditary functions, in its sacred dress, in its minute      
regulations, rather a part of the mechanism of the        
religion, than its animating spirit.  The Levitical caste       
never corresponded to what we should call "the        
clergy."  The fact that the Levites were collected in        
single cities is of itself a fatal objection to so regard-      
ing them.  They never claimed or were intended to       
govern the nation.  They hardly claimed even to          
teach.  Levi was not the ruling tribe, even though        
the two great leaders belonged to it; its consecration       
dated from no essential ordinance of the Law, but        
from the sudden emergency which arose out of the      
apostasy at the time of the molten calf.  Aaron,         
though the head of that tribe, and the founder of       
the sacerdotal family, was not the ruling spirit of the     
people.  He was but the weaker erring helpmate of      
Moses, who was the Guide, the Prophet, but not the     
Priest.       
   We shall see how, like the equality of the primi-     
tive Christian Church, this first development of Israel-      
ite independence gradually passed into other forms, —            
to what disorders it gave rise when every man did       
what was right in his own eyes, and there was no       
king in Israel; how, as in the case of the Christian      
Church of later times, all the complicated relations      
of state and of hierarchy afterwards sprang up within        
the framework of a society at its beginning so simple.        
But the twin truths, which see incorporated with      
the very localities of Sinai, — the Unseen Ruler in the        
thick clouds on the top of the awful Mountain, and         
the sacredness of the whole congregation as it lay       
spread over the level Plain beneath, — were never lost        
to the Jewish Church, and have been the constant      
springs of religious freedom and responsibility to the     
Christian Church.  Even at the very outset of the      
Revelation was announced the great principle — the       
Gospel, as it has well been called, of the Mosaic dis-      
pensation — so new to the nation of slaves, who had       
hitherto seen truth only through the long vista of       
mystical emblems and sacred incorporations.  "Thus       
shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the      
Children of Israel; Ye have seen what I did to the       
Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings,       
and brought you unto Myself.  Now therefore, if      
ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My cove-     
nant, then shall ye be a peculiar treasure unto Me      
above all people; for all the earth is Mine.  And ye      
shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy     
nation."  "Ye shall be holy, for I am holy."         
   Inspiration, communion with God, in the case of the      
Pagan religions, was for the most part con-       
fined to sacred families or local oracles; in      
the case of the Mussulman religion, was con-       
fined to its first founder and his sacred volume.  But      
in the case of Israel it extended to the whole nation.             
The history of Israel , from Moses downwards, is not       
the history of an inspired book or an inspired order,       
but of an inspired people.  When Joshua, in his       
youthful zeal, entreated Moses to forbid the prophe-     
sying of Eldad and Medad, because they remained in       
the camp, Moses answered: "Enviest thou for my     
sake?  Would that all the Lord's people were proph-     
ets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon     
them!"  In different forms and in different degrees     
that noble wish was fulfilled.  The acts of the hero,     
the songs of the poet, the skill of the artificer, —        
Samson's strength, the music of David, the architect-       
ure of Bezaleel and Solomon, are all ascribed to the       
inspiration of the Divine Spirit.  It was not a holy       
tribe, but holy men of every tribe that spake as they       
were moved, carried to and fro, out of themselves,     
by the Spirit of God.  The Prophets, of whom this      
might be said in the strictest sense, were confined to       
no family or caste, station or sex.  They rose, indeed,    
above their countrymen, their words were to their       
countrymen, in a peculiar sense, the words of God.      
But they were to be found everywhere.  Like the        
springs of their own land, there was no hill or valley         
where the prophetic gift might not be expected to       
break forth.  Miriam and Deborah, no less than Moses      
and Barak; in Judah and in Ephraim, no less than in       
Levi; in Tekoah and Tishbe, and, as the climax of all,      
in Nazareth, no less than in Shiloh or Jerusalem,       
God's present counsel might be looked for.  By this        
constant attitude of expectation, if one may so call it,       
the ears of the whole nation were kept open for the      
intimations of the Divine Ruler under whom they         
lived.  None knew beforehand who would be called.      
As Strabo well says, in his description of the Mosaic      
dispensation which I have before quoted, "all might       
expect to receive the gift of good dreams" for       
themselves or their people, "all who lived temper-         
ately and justly, — those always and those only."      
In the dead of night, as to Samuel; in the plough-     
ing of the field, as to Elisha; in the gathering of the       
sycamore figs, as to Amos; the call might come.        
"Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth," was to be     
the ready and constant answer.  And thus, even in     
its first establishment, the Theocracy, in its true     
sense, contained the warrant for its complete develop-       
ment.  Moses was but the beginning; he was not, he       
could not be the end.  The light on his countenance      
faded away, and had to be again and again rekindled      
in the presence of the Unseen.  But his appearance,      
his character, his teaching, accustomed, familiarized     
the nation to this mode of revelation; and it would      
be at their peril, and against the whole spirit of the      
education received from him, if they refused to re-       
ceive its later manifestations, from whatever quar-      
ter.  "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a       
Prophet, from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like      
unto me.  Unto him shall ye hearken."  The same     
event, it has been truly remarked, never repeats it-     
self in history.  Yet a like event in one age is al-      
ways a preparation for a like event in another, es-     
pecially when the first event is one which involves        
the principle of the second.  Moses, — the expounder      
of the Theocracy, the founder of the Hebrew Proph-      
ets, the interpreter between God and Mount Sinai      
and Israel in the plain below, was the necessary fore-     
runner, because the imperfect likeness, of the Last      
Prophet of the last generation of the Jewish theoc-     
racy.  In the fullest sense might it be said to that      
generation: "There is one that accuseth you, even Moses,     
in whom ye trust; for had ye believed Moses, ye would      
have believed Me; but if ye believe not his writings, how     
will ye believe My words?"        
   III.  There was another point in the Revelation of    
Sinai not less permanent, and equally charac-      
teristic.  We speak of it as a revelation of "Religion."      
But this was not the name by which it was known      
in ancient times.  The Israelite  spoke not of the      
"Religion" but of the "Law" of Moses.  Moses was       
a Lawgiver even more than he was a Prophet.  In     
this aspect the Revelation presented itself, and from       
this were derived some of its most important features.     
At first sight it might appear as if "the Law" was          
not the form of truth for which the wild desert and      
the return to the wandering Arab life would have       
predisposed them; and as regards the minuteness of       
many of the enactments, Egypt, as I have before ob-      
served, and not Sinai, must be considered the fitting     
school of preparation.  But those who have studied      
the Bedouin tribes know that there is no contradic-      
tion between their wild habits and an elaborate     
though purely traditional system of social and legal     
observances.  Such a system has been carefully col-      
lected and expounded by the traveller Burckhardt,     
who thus closes the first portion of his remarkable     
work: "The present state of the great Bedouin com-      
monwealth of Arabia . . . offers the rare example of       
a nation which, notwithstanding its perpetual state     
of warfare, without and within, has preserved, for a       
long succession of ages, its primitive laws in all their     
vigor. . . .  But," he adds, "of the origin of these      
laws nothing is known. . . .  The ancient code of     
one Bedouin tribe only has reached posterity. . .        
The Pentateuch was exclusively given to the Beni-      
Israel."         
   It is the code of the Beni-Israel, — the "sons of     
Israel," (the name itself is an enduring mark of their      
first Patriarchal state,) — this one extant code of an       
ancient Bedouin tribe, which, bearing in mind this     
peculiarity of its first appearance, we have now to     
examine.  Here, as elsewhere, it is only by remem-    
bering what there was immediate, historical, and local,    
that we shall be able to fully appreciate what there      
is of eternal and universal.      
              

from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. I : Abraham to Samuel,
Lecture VII: Sinai and the Law.
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1879, pp. 165-181