Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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Exodus-19
Israel at Mount Sinai
1 In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out
of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai.
2 For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the
desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount.
3 And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out
of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel;
The charter itself. Moses was called up the mountain (on the top of which God had pitched his tent, and at the foot of which Israel had pitched theirs), and was employed as the mediator, or rather no more than the messenger of the covenant: Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel, Ex 19:3.
Here bishop Patrick observes that the people are called by the names both of Jacob and Israel, to remind them that those who had lately been as low as Jacob when he went to Padan-aram had now grown as great as God made him when he came thence (justly enriched with the spoils of him that had oppressed him) and was called Israel.
Now observe, that the maker, and first mover, of the covenant, is God himself. Nothing was said nor done by this stiff-naked unthinking people themselves towards this settlement; no motion made, no petition put up for God's favour, but this blessed charter was granted ex mero motu--purely out of God's own good-will.