Moses revealed God's purpose for giving the Mosaic Covenant in this chapter.
19:1-6 The Israelites arrived at the base of the mountain where God gave them the law about three months after they had left Egypt, in May-June (v. 1). The mountain in the Sinai range that most scholars have regarded as the mountain peak referred to in this chapter stands in the southeastern part of the Sinai peninsula. Its name in Arabic is Jebel Musa, mountain of Moses.312There is a natural slope to the land to the southeast of this peak that would have afforded Israel a good view of the mountain if the people camped there. However the location of biblical Mt. Sinai continues to be uncertain. The nation stayed at Mt. Sinai 11 months (Num. 10:11). The record of their experiences here continues through Numbers 10:10.
Many reliable scholars have considered verses 3-6 the very heart of the Pentateuch because they contain the classic expression of the nature and purpose of the theocratic covenant that God made with Israel.
Note that God gave the Mosaic Law specifically "to the house of Jacob . . . the sons of Israel"(v. 3).313
"The image of the eagle [v. 4] is based on the fact that the eagle, when its offspring learns [sic] to fly, will catch them on its wings when they fall."314
"Without doubt Exodus 19:4-6 is the most theologically significant text in the book of Exodus, for it is the linchpin between the patriarchal promises of the sonship of Israel and the Sinaitic Covenant whereby Israel became the servant nation of Yahweh."315
God's promise to Israel here (vv. 5-6) went beyond what He had promised Abraham. IfIsrael would be obedient to God, He would do three things for the nation (cf. Josh. 24:15).
1. Israel would become God's special treasure (v. 5). This means that Israel would enjoy a unique relationship with God compared with all other nations. This was not due to any special goodness in Israel but strictly to the sovereign choice of God.
2. Israel would become a kingdom of priests (v. 6). A priest stands between God and humankind. Israel could become a nation of mediators standing between God and the other nations responsible for bringing them to God and God to them. Israel would not be a kingdom run by politicians depending on strength and wit but by priests depending on faith in Yahweh; a servant nation rather than a ruling nation.316
3. Israel would become a holy nation (v. 6). Holy means set apart and therefore different. The Israelites would become different from other peoples because they would devote themselves to God and separate from sin and defilement as they obeyed the law of God.317
In short, Israel could have become a testimony to the whole world of how glorious it can be to live under the government of God. However the people experienced these blessings only partially because their obedience was partial. Israel's disobedience to the Mosaic Covenant did not invalidate any of God's promises to Abraham, however. Those promises did not rest on Israel's obedience as these did (cf. Gen. 15:17-21 and Exod. 19:5-6).318
19:7-15 The reaction of the Israelites to God's promises was understandably positive. They wanted what God offered them. However, they overestimated their own ability to keep the covenant, and they underestimated God's standards for them. This twin error is traceable to a failure to appreciate their own sinfulness and God's holiness. The Mosaic Law would teach them to appreciate both.
God designed the procedures He specified in verses 10-15 to help the people realize the difference between their holy God and their sinful selves. Notice that God separated Himself from the Israelites spatially and temporally.
The temporary prohibition against normal sexual relations (v. 15) seems intended to impress the importance of this occasion on the Israelites and to help them concentrate on it. We should not infer from this command that normal sexual relations are sinful (cf. Gen. 1:28; 9:1, 7). Abstention was for ritual cleanness, not moral cleanness.
19:16-25 God again used the symbol of fire to reveal Himself on this mountain (3:2-5). Fire is a symbol of His holiness that enlightens, purges, and refines. The smoke and quaking that accompanied the fire further impressed this awesome revelation on the people.
The priests referred to (vv. 22, 24) were evidently young men (first-born?) that offered sacrifices before God appointed the Aaronic priests to this service (cf. 24:5).
Comparative ancient Near Eastern studies have revealed that the covenant form and terminology that God used to communicate His agreement with Israel were common in Moses' day. There were two basic types of formal covenants in the ancient Near East: parity(between equals) and suzerainty(between a sovereign and his subjects). The Mosaic Covenant was a suzerainty treaty. Such agreements characteristically contained a preamble (v. 3), historical prologue (v. 4), statement of general principles (v. 5a), consequences of obedience (vv. 5b-6a), and consequences of disobedience (omitted here). In 1977, Kenneth Kitchen wrote the following.
"Some forty different [suzerainty] treaties . . . are known to us, covering seventeen centuries from the late third millennium BC well into the first millennium BC, excluding broken fragments, and now additional ones still to be published from Ebla."319
Thus the form in which God communicated His covenant to Moses and Israel was undoubtedly familiar to them. It enabled them to perceive better the nature of the relationship into which they were entering.320
The Mosaic Law consisted of three classes of requirements: those governing morallife (the Ten Commandments), those governing religiouslife (the ceremonial ordinances), and those governing civillife (the civil statutes). God gave the whole Law specifically for the nation of Israel (v. 3). It is very important to recognize how comprehensive the Mosaic Law was and not limit it to the Ten Commandments. The rabbis after Maimonides counted 613 commands, 248 positive and 365 negative, in the law.321
There were three categories of law in Israel.
1. Crimes were actions that the community prohibited under the will of God and punished in its name. Murder (Exod. 21:12), adultery (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22), and the kidnapping of persons for sale outside Israel (Exod. 21:16) are examples of crimes. These offenses resulted in the punishment of the guilty party by the community as a community (Exod. 21:2).
2. Torts were civil wrongs that resulted in an action by the injured party against the party who had wronged him. Assault (Exod. 21:18-27), the seduction of an unmarried or betrothed girl (Exod. 22:15-16), and theft of animals or other property (Exod. 22:1-4) are examples of torts. Conviction resulted in the guilty party paying damages to the injured party (Exod. 21:18-27).
3. Family law did not involve the courts, but the head of the household administered it in the home. Divorce (Deut. 24:1-5), the making of slavery permanent (Exod. 21:1-11), and adoption (cf. Gen. 15:2; 30:3; 48:5, 12; 2 Sam. 7:14; Ps. 2:7) are examples. In these cases the head of the household acted unilaterally. He did not, however, have the power of life or death.322
The Mosaic Law had several purposes:
1. To reveal the holiness of God (1 Peter 1:15)
2. To reveal the sinfulness of man (Gal. 3:19)
3. To reveal the standard of holiness required of those in fellowship with God (Ps. 24:3-5)
4. To supervise physical, mental, and spiritual development of redeemed Israelites until they should come to maturity in Christ (Gal. 3:24; Ps. 119:71-72)
5. To be the unifying principle that made the establishment of the nation possible (Exod. 19:5-8; Deut. 5:27-28)
6. To separate Israel from the nations to become a kingdom of priests (Exod. 31:13; 19:5-6)
7. To make provision for forgiveness of sins and restoration to fellowship (Lev. 1-7)
8. To make provision for a redeemed people to worship (Lev. 23)
9. To provide a test whether one was in the kingdom (theocracy) over which God ruled (Deut. 28)
10. To reveal Jesus Christ.
J. Dwight Pentecost concluded his article on the purpose of the Law, from which I took the preceding 10 points, by pointing out the following.
". . . there was in the Law that which was revelatoryof the holiness of God. . . ."There was also ". . . that in the Law which was regulatory."323
"It is extremely important to remember that the Law of Moses was given to a redeemed people, not to redeem a people."324
". . . it is also possible that the Pentateuch has intentionally included this selection of laws for another purpose, that is, to give the reader an understanding of the nature of the Mosaic Law and God's purpose in giving it to Israel. Thus it is possible to argue that the laws in the Pentateuch are not there to tell the readerhow to live but rather to tell the reader how Moses was to live under the law.
"This understanding of the purpose of the laws in the Pentateuch is supported by the observation that the collections of laws in the Pentateuch appear to be incomplete and selective. The Pentateuch as such is not designed as a source of legal action. That the laws in the Pentateuch are incomplete is suggested by the fact that many aspects of ordinary community life are not covered in these laws."325
A movement that is gaining followers in our day, especially among charismatic evangelicals, is the Christian Reconstruction movement, also known as the theonomy movement and the Chalcedon school. Its central thesis is that God intended the Mosaic Law to be normative for all people for all time. Its advocates look forward to a day when Christians will govern everyone using the Old Testament as the law book. Reconstructionism rests on three foundational points: presuppositional apologetics, theonomy (lit. the rule of God), and postmillennialism. This movement is too complex to discuss briefly here, but it is too significant to pass over without mention.326
