Exodus 19:9

9. Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud Or, Behold, I am coming; that is, I am about to come thus . He refers to the sublime theophany to be manifested on the third day thereafter, (Exodus 19:11,) and often subsequently, when Jehovah would impress the people with an awful sense of his power and majesty . “As God knew the weakness of the sinful nation, and could not, as the Holy One, come into direct intercourse with it on account of its un-holiness, but was about to conclude the covenant with it through the mediation of Moses, it was necessary, in order to accomplish the design of God, that the chosen mediator should receive special credentials; and these were to consist in the fact that Jehovah spoke to Moses in the sight and hearing of the people, that is to say, that he solemnly proclaimed the fundamental law of the covenant in the presence of the whole nation, (Exodus 19:16 to Exodus 20:18,) and showed by this fact that Moses was the recipient and mediator of the revelation of God, in order that the people might believe him for ever, as the law was to possess everlasting validity . Matthew 5:18. ” Keil .

And Moses told the words of the people unto the Lord The repetition of these words from Exodus 19:8 looks like the blunder of some ancient copyist . They add nothing to the passage, and have no natural connexion with what precedes or follows . To suppose, with Dillmann, that it is a sentence copied from another documentary source is no more satisfactory than to assume that the writer carelessly repeated himself . But the ancient versions contain the words, and the two sentences differ, in that Exodus 19:8 employs the word returned ( שׁוב ) and this verse has told, ( נגד . ) If the words are retained it is better to connect them with what follows, thus: “When Moses told the words of the people unto the Lord, then the Lord said unto Moses,” etc .