"And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mount; and the
Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up." And the
first thing that Moses did on behalf of the Lord was to "charge the
people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them
perish."
And Moses replied to God's enquiry, "The people cannot come up to Mount
Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount.
"And the Lord said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up,
thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break
through to come up unto the Lord, lest he break forth upon them.
"So Moses went down unto the people, and spake unto them."
Whether the decalogue, as we know it, was a code of law actually delivered
upon Sinai, which German critics very much dispute as being inconsistent
with the stage of civilization at which the Israelites had arrived, but
which is altogether kindred to the Babylonish law with which Moses was
familiar, is immaterial for the present purpose. What is essential is that
beside the decalogue itself there is a considerable body of law chiefly
concerned with the position of servants or slaves, the difference between
assaults or torts committed with or without malice, theft, trespass, and
the regulation of the _lex talionis_.
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