Deuteronomy 5:24

24 And said, The Lord has let us see his glory and his power, and his voice has come to us out of the fire: today we have seen that a man may go on living even after hearing the voice of God.

Deuteronomy 5:24 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 5:24

And ye said, behold, the Lord our God hath showed us his glory
and his greatness
In descending on Mount Sinai in the manner he did, and giving the law from thence with such solemnity; for there was a glory in the ministration of it, as the apostle argues ( 2 Corinthians 3:7-11 ) , it being delivered with so much majesty, and such a glorious apparatus attending it; see ( Deuteronomy 33:2 ) . Aben Ezra interprets this of the appearance of fire in which the Lord was, "and his greatness", of the thunders and lightnings, and the voice of the trumpet:

and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire;
the ten words, as the same interpreter rightly notes, which were vocally and audibly expressed out of the fire:

we have seen this day, that God doth talk with man, and he liveth;
they had proof of it in themselves; God had been talking with them out of the fire, and yet it did not reach and consume them, but they were still alive.

Deuteronomy 5:24 In-Context

22 These words the Lord said to all of you together on the mountain, out of the heart of the fire, out of the cloud and the dark, with a great voice: and he said no more; he put them in writing on the two stones of the law and gave them to me.

23 And after hearing the voice which came out of the dark while the mountain was burning with fire, all the heads of your tribes and your chiefs came to me,

24 And said, The Lord has let us see his glory and his power, and his voice has come to us out of the fire: today we have seen that a man may go on living even after hearing the voice of God.

25 Why then is death to be our fate? For if the voice of the Lord our God comes to us any more, death will overtake us, and we will be burned up in this great fire.

26 For what man is there in all the earth, who, hearing the voice of the living God as we have, out of the heart of the fire, has been kept from death?