Exodus 19:20

20 Yahweh came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. Yahweh called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

Exodus 19:20 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 19:20

And the Lord came down on Mount Sinai
In the above visible tokens of his presence and power; otherwise he is the incomprehensible Jehovah, that immense and omnipotent Being, who fills heaven and earth, and cannot be contained and circumscribed in either:

on the top of the mount;
where the fire he descended in rested, and where the smoke and thick cloud were, as a token of his presence:

and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount;
who either was at the bottom of it with the people, or in a higher ascent of it between God and them:

and Moses went up;
to the top of it, where the Lord was, as he ordered him: a certain traveller ^F25 tells us that the top of this mount was scarce thirty feet in circumference.

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FOOTNOTES:

F25 Baumgarten Peregrinatio, l. 1. c. 24. p. 61.

Exodus 19:20 In-Context

18 Mount Sinai, the whole of it, smoked, because Yahweh descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.

19 When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by a voice.

20 Yahweh came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. Yahweh called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

21 Yahweh said to Moses, "Go down, charge the people, lest they break through to Yahweh to gaze, and many of them perish.

22 Let the priests also, who come near to Yahweh, sanctify themselves, lest Yahweh break forth on them."