Exodus 19:16

THE SINAITIC THEOPHANY, Exodus 19:16-20.

16. The third day in the morning The Scripture furnishes no certain data from which to determine the day of the week, or of the month, on which this theophany took place . Rabbinical and other speculations and conjectures on the subject are of no value . But there are some noticeable analogies between these three days and those intervening between the death and resurrection of our Lord, especially the preparations and ardent expectations among the more believing disciples, and the earthquake and lightning-like appearance of the angel that rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulchre . The one third day heralded the sublimest proclamation of law ever known to man, the other the grandest monumental fact of Christianity the revelation and pledge of immortality.

Thunders Hebrews, voices. The thunders and lightnings and thick (heavy) cloud upon the mount, the smoke and the fire and the quaking of the mountain, (Exodus 19:18,) were adapted to impress upon the thousands of Israel profoundest convictions of the majesty and might of Jehovah. A sublimer picture than that here given is not to be found among all the writings of men. Whether the voice (or sound) of the trumpet exceeding loud was produced by natural or supernatural agency is difficult to determine, and yet the mention of it in connexion with the other supernatural occurrences here and in Exodus 19:19, and in Exodus 20:18, rather implies that it also was produced by supernatural means. In all these passages it is noticeable that the word trumpet (Hebrews, shophar) occurs, not yobel, as in Exodus 19:13 above. To the imagery furnished by this sublime theophany the apostle alludes in 1 Thessalonians 4:6.

The reader should compare the corresponding description in Deuteronomy 4:0, especially Deuteronomy 4:11-12; Deuteronomy 4:15; Deuteronomy 4:33; Deuteronomy 4:36. Kalisch observes: “The whole description of the fiery appearance of God in lightning and thunder and clouds, and the smoke of Sinai, and the terrible sound of the trumpet, is so majestically sublime and grand that it could only issue from a mind which, overwhelmed by the omnipotence and grandeur and majesty of God, exhausts the whole scanty store of human language to utter but a faint expression of the agitated sentiments of his soul.”