Exodus 19:16

These have natural causes; but the scripture directs us in a particular manner to take notice of the power of God, and his terror in them. Thunder is the voice of God, and lightning the fire of God, proper to engage both the learning senses of seeing and hearing.

These have natural causes; but the scripture directs us in a particular manner to take notice of the power of God, and his terror in them. Thunder is the voice of God, and lightning the fire of God, proper to engage both the learning senses of seeing and hearing.

And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, The sixth of the month, according to the Targum of Jonathan, and so Jarchi; on which day, as the Jews generally say (t), the law was given, and which, they also observe, was a sabbath day: yea, they are sometimes so very particular as to fix the hour of the day, and say (u), it was the sixth hour of the day, or twelve o'clock at noon, that Israel received the decalogue, and at the ninth hour, at three o'clock in the afternoon, returned to their stations: there were thunders, and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount; which were to awaken the attention of the people to what they were to hear and receive, and to strike their minds with an awe of the divine Being; and to add to the solemnity of the day, and the service of it; and to signify the obscurity and terror of the legal dispensation, and the wrath and curse that the transgressors the law might expect, even an horrible tempest of divine vengeance, see Heb 12:18. and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; or, "exceeding strong" (w); being blown by the mighty angels, and by ten thousand them, with whom the Lord now descended: so that all the people that was in the camp trembled, at the sound of it, it was so loud and terrible, and it so pierced their ears and their hearts: a different effect the Gospel trumpet the jubilee trumpet, the joyful sound of love, grace, and mercy, has upon sensible sinners, and on true believers: the law with its curses terrifies, the Gospel with its blessings comforts. (t) T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 86. 2. & Yoma, fol. 4. 2. Seder Olam Rabba, c. 5. p. 18. (u) Pirke Eliezer, c. 46. (w) חזק מאד "fortis valde", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus; so Ainsworth.

Thunder is the voice of God, and lightning the fire of God, proper to engage the senses of sight and hearing, those senses by which we receive so much of our information. Moses is God's minister, who is spoken to, to command silence, and keep the congregation in order: Moses spoke,

on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, &c.--The descent of God was signalized by every object imagination can conceive connected with the ideas of grandeur and of awe. But all was in keeping with the character of the law about to be proclaimed.

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Thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud - and the voice of the trumpet - The thunders, lightnings, etc., announced the coming, as they proclaimed the majesty, of God. Of the thunders and lightnings, and the deep, dark, dismal, electric cloud, from which the thunders and lightnings proceeded, we can form a tolerable apprehension; but of the loud, long-sounding trumpet, we can scarcely form a conjecture. Such were the appearances and the noise that all the people in the camp trembled, and Moses himself was constrained to say, “I exceedingly fear and quake,” Heb 12: