But, "Take heed
to yourselves that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it:
whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death:
"There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned or shot
through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet
soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount."
It must be admitted that Moses either had wonderful luck, or that he had
wonderful judgment in weather, for, as it happened in the passage of the
Red Sea, so it happened here. At the Red Sea he was aided by a gale of
wind which coincided with a low tide and made the passage practicable, and
at Sinai he had a thunder-storm.
"And it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were
thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice
of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp
trembled." Moses had undoubtedly sent some thoroughly trustworthy person,
probably Joshua, up the mountain to blow a ram's horn and to light a
bonfire, and the effect seems to have been excellent.
"And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended
upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace,
and the whole mount quaked greatly.
"And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and
louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.
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