Acts 7:53

53. Law… angels We have intimated on Acts 7:38 that, according to Scripture, the law on Sinai was given by the Angel-Jehovah; but here the law is said to have been given at the dispensation or disposition of angels, in the plural. We understand this plural to be parallel to the plural of the name for God in Hebrew, Elohim. This plural grammarians explain by what they call the plural of excellence, or majesty, such as when a king styles himself We. We prefer to think it arises from the infinite variety and manifoldness of God, as when we call him the Heavenly Powers. So the Angel-Jehovah of Sinai is angels, from the manifoldness of his manifestations on that memorable occasion. Thus for the Hebrew phrase, (Deuteronomy 33:2, describing the same scene,) “From his right hand went a fiery law for them,” the Septuagint reads, “On his right hand angels were with him,” where the plural angels is their rendering for the singular fiery law. In this same sense (Hebrews 2:2) we have the word spoken by angels as being inferior to the utterances of the Son the visible fiery symbol being less than the living reality, Christ. So, also, “ordained by angels,” (Galatians 3:19,) used in the same sense.

There is, indeed, nothing requiring us to deny that God was attended by angels on mount Sinai; but there should be more precise proof than we have that the law, or word, was spoken even instrumentally by personal angels before we can adopt that view. The former point is confirmed by several passages. Thus in Deuteronomy 33:2, “He shined from Paran, and he came with holy myriads,” (as it should be rendered,) the word myriads probably denotes myriads of angels. Josephus says, “Our best doctrines and holiest laws have been learned from God through angels.” And Philo says, (on the Decalogue,) “There were present at the giving of the law voices visible, flames of fire, spirits, trumpets, and divine men running hither and thither to publish the law.”

This uninspired testimony is over fanciful. Admitting, in deference to Deuteronomy 33:2, that Jehovah was attended by personal angels, we doubt that the law was GIVEN by angels in any other sense than the plural of the Angel-Jehovah, unfolding himself by his multitudinous manifestations on the mount.

Have not kept it Though the Angel-Jehovah, amid angel ranks and with manifold unfoldings of his own power, had given the law, these Jews had not kept it.