seq.). The giving of the law at
Sinai has only a formal, not to say dramatic, significance. It
is the product of the poetic necessity for such a representation
of the manner in which the people was constituted Jehovah's people
as should appeal directly and graphically to the imagination.
Only so can we justly interpret those expressions according to
which Jehovah with His own mouth thundered the ten commandments
down from the mountain to the people below, and afterwards for
forty days held a confidential conference with Moses alone on the
summit. For the sake of producing a solemn and vivid impression,
that is represented as having taken place in a single thrilling
moment which in reality occurred slowly and almost unobserved.
Why Sinai should have been chosen as the scene admits of ready
explanation. It was the Olympus of the Hebrew peoples, the earthly
seat of the Godhead, and as such it continued to be regarded by
the Israelites even after their settlement in Palestine (Judges
v. 4, 5). This immemorial sanctity of Sinai it was that led to
its being selected as the ideal scene of the giving of the law,
not conversely.
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