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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Exodus 19:10 - 19:10
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God then commanded Moses to prepare the people for His appearing or speaking to them: (1) by their sanctification, through the washing of the body and clothes (see Gen 35:2), and abstinence from conjugal intercourse (Exo 19:15) on account of the defilement connected therewith (Lev 15:18); and (2) by setting bounds round the people, that they might not ascend or touch the mountain. The hedging or bounding (הִגְבִּיל) of the people is spoken of in Exo 19:23 as setting bounds about the mountain, and consisted therefore in the erection of a barrier round the mountain, which was to prevent the people form ascending or touching it. Any one who touched it (קָצֵהוּ, “its end,” i.e., the outermost or lowest part of the mountain) was to be put to death, whether man or beast. “No hand shall touch him” (the individual who passed the barrier and touched the mountain), i.e., no one was to follow him within the appointed boundaries, but he was to be killed from a distance either by stones or darts. (יִּיָּרֶה for יִוָּרֶה, see Gesenius, §69.) Not till “the drawing out of the trumpet blast,” or, as Luther renders it, “only when it sounded long,” could they ascend the mountain (Exo 19:13). הַיֹּבֵל, from יָבַל to stream violently with noise, is synonymous with הַיֹּבֵל קֶרֶן (Jos 6:5), and was really the same thing as the שֹׁופָר, i.e., a long wind instrument shaped like a horn. הַיֹּבֵל מָשַׁךְ is to draw the horn, i.e., to blow the horn with tones long drawn out. This was done either to give a signal to summon the people to war (Jdg 3:27; Jdg 6:34), or to call them to battle (Jdg 7:18; Job 39:24-25, etc.), or for other public proclamations. No one (this is the idea) was to ascend the mountain on pain of death, or even to touch its outermost edge; but when the horn was blown with a long blast, and the signal to approach was given thereby, then they might ascend it (see Exo 19:21), - of course not 600,000 men, which would have been physically impossible, but the people in the persons of their representatives the elders. בָּהָר עֲלֹות signifies to go up the mountain in Exo 19:13 as well as in Exo 19:12, and not merely to come to the foot of the mountain (see Deu 5:5).