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Heb_12:18. Γάρ ] enforces, by a reason adduced, the exhortation to sanctification at Heb_12:14 ff., inasmuch as there is an underlying reference to the fact that, according to Exo_19:10 f., 14 f., the people of Israel in their day, before they were permitted to approach Mount Sinai in order to receive the law, had to sanctify themselves (Exo_19:10 : ἅγνισον αὐτούς ; Heb_12:14 : καὶ ἡγίασεν αὐτούς ), to wash their clothes, and to preserve themselves free from all defilement.
οὐ γὰρ προσεληλύθατε ] for ye did not, sc. when ye became Christians, draw near. Comp. Deu_4:11 : καὶ προσήλθετε καὶ ἔστητε ὑτὸ τὸ ὄρος .
ψηλαφωμένῳ ὀρει ] to a mountain which is touched, i.e. felt, or laid hold of with hands. That which is intended is Mount Sinai, the place of revelation of the Mosaic law, mentioned also Gal_4:24-25 as the representative of Judaism. As a mountain, however, which is touched or felt with hands this mountain is spoken of, in order thereby to express its character of externally perceptible, earthly, in opposition to the supra-sensuous, heavenly ( ἐπουράνιον , Heb_12:22). The form ψηλαφώμενον is not to be taken as synonymous with ψηλαφητόν , that could be touched, as is still done by Knapp, Böhme, Stuart, Bleek, de Wette, Tholuck, Bloomfield, Ebrard, Bisping, Kurtz, Ewald, and the majority of modern expositors. For the participle is indeed employed for the verbal adjective in the Hebrew, but never in the Greek. Neither can ψηλαφώμενον signify: “touched of God by lightning, and therefore smoking” (Schöttgen, Kypke, Bengel, Chr. Fr. Schmid, Storr, Heinrichs, and others; comp. Exo_19:18 : τὸ ὄρος τὸ Σινὰ ἐκαπνίζετο ὅλον διὰ τὸ καταβεβηκέναι ἐπʼ αὐτὸ τὸν θεὸν ἐν πυρί ; Psa_104:32 : ὁ ἁπτόμενος τῶν ὀρέων καὶ καπνίζονται ), since ψηλαφᾶν signifies not the contact made with the view to the producing of an effect, but only the touching or feeling (handling), which has as its design the testing of the quality or the presence of an object. Comp. Luk_24:39; 1Jn_1:1; Act_17:27. Moreover, the participle present is unsuitable to this explanation, instead of which a participle of the past must have been chosen.
καὶ κεκαυμένῳ πυρί ] is understood by Erasmus, Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Bengel, Knapp, Paulus, Stuart, Stengel, Bisping, Delitzsch, Riehm (Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 114), Maier, Moll, Kurtz, Ewald, al., as a new particular, co-ordinate with the ψηλαφωμένῳ ὄρει : “and enkindled fire.” On account of the like nature of the additions, καὶ γνόφῳ κ . τ . λ ., immediately following, this acceptation seems in itself the more natural; but since, in the passages of the Pentateuch which were before the mind of the writer in connection with this expression, there are found the words: καὶ τὸ ὄρος ἐκαίετο πυρί (comp. Deu_4:11; Deu_5:23; Deu_9:15), it is more probable that the author referred κεκαυμένῳ still to ὄρει , and would have πυρί taken as dativus instrum. to κεκαυμένῳ : and which (mountain) was enkindled, or set on flame, with fire.
καὶ γνόφῳ καὶ ζόφῳ καὶ θυέλλῃ ] and to gloom and darkness and tempest. Comp. Deu_4:11; Deu_5:22 : σκότος , γνόφος , θύελλα .