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CHAPTER XI.
XI. And in the 3rd month of the journeying of the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, they came into the wilderness of Sinai. And God remembered his word and said: I will give light unto the world, and lighten the habitable places, and make my covenant with the children of men, and glorify my people above all nations, for unto them will I put forth an eternal exaltation 1 which shall be unto them a light, but unto the ungodly a chastisement. 2. And he said unto Moses: Behold, I will call thee to-morrow: be thou ready and tell my people: "For three days let not a man come near his wife," and on the 3rd day I will speak unto thee and unto them, and after that thou shalt come up unto me. And I will put my words in thy mouth and thou shalt enlighten my people. For I have given into thy hands an everlasting law whereby I will judge all the world. For this shall be for a testimony. For if men say: "We have not known thee, 2 and therefore we have not served
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thee," therefore will I take vengeance upon them, because they have not known my law.
3. And Moses did as God commanded him, and
sanctified the people and said unto them: Be ye ready on the 3rd day, for after 3 days will God make his covenant with you. And the people were sanctified. 4. And it came to pass on the 3rd day
that, lo, there were voices of thunderings (lit. them that sounded) and brightness of lightnings and the voice of instruments sounding aloud. And there was fear upon all the people that were in the camp. And Moses put forth the people to meet God. 5. 1 And behold the mountains burned with fire and the earth shook and the hills were removed and the mountains overthrown: the depths boiled, and all the habitable places were shaken: and the heavens were folded up and the clouds drew up water. And flames of fire shone forth and thunderings and lightnings were multiplied and winds and tempests made a roaring: the stars were gathered together and the angels ran before, until God established the law of an everlasting covenant with the children of Israel, and gave unto them an eternal commandment which should not pass away.
6. And at that time the Lord spake unto his people
all these words, saying: I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not make to thyself
graven gods, neither shalt thou make any abominable image of the sun or the moon or any of the ornaments of the heaven, nor the likeness of all things that are upon the earth nor of such as creep in the
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waters or upon the earth. I am the Lord thy God, a jealous God, requiting the sins of them that sleep upon the living children of the ungodly, if they walk in the ways of their fathers; unto the third and fourth generation, doing (or shewing) mercy unto 1000 generations to them that love me and keep my commandments.
7. Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, that my ways be not made vain. For God abominateth him that taketh his name in vain.
8. 1 Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it. Six days do thy work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord. In it thou shall do no work, thou and all thy
labourers, saving that therein ye praise the Lord in the congregation of the elders and glorify the Mighty One in the seat of the aged. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that are in them, and all the world, the wilderness that is not inhabited, and all things that do labour, 2 and all the order of the heaven, and God rested
the seventh day. Therefore God sanctified the seventh day, because he rested therein.
9. Thou shalt love thy father and my mother and fear them: and then shall thy light rise, and I will command the heaven and it shall pay thee the rain thereof, and the earth shall hasten her fruit and thy days shall be many, and thou shalt dwell in thy land, and shalt not be childless, for thy seed shall not fail, even that of them that dwell therein.
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10. Thou shalt not commit adultery, for thine
enemies did not commit adultery with thee, but thou camest out with a high hand.
11. Thou shall not kill: because thine enemies
got not the mastery over thee to slay thee, but thou beheldest their death.
12. Thou shalt not bear false witness against
thy neighbour, speaking falsely, lest thy watchmen 1 speak falsely against thee.
13. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's house, nor
that which he hath, lest others also covet thy land.
14. And when the Lord ceased speaking, the
people feared with a great fear: and they saw the mountain burning with torches of fire, and they said to Moses: Speak thou unto us, and let not God speak unto us, lest peradventure we die. For, lo, to-day we know that God speaketh with man face to face, and man shall live. And now have we perceived of a truth how that the earth bare the voice of God with trembling. And Moses said unto them: Fear not, for this cause came this voice unto you, that ye should not sin (or, for this cause, that he might prove. you, God came unto you, that ye might receive the fear of him unto you, that ye sin not). 15. And all the people
stood afar off, but Moses drew near unto the cloud, knowing that God was there. And then God spake unto him his justice and judgements, and kept him by him 40 days and 40 nights. And there did he command him many things, and showed him the tree of life, 2 whereof he cut and
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took and put it into Mara, and the water of Mara was made sweet and followed them in the desert 40 years, and went up into the hills with them and came down into the plain. Also he commanded him concerning the tabernacle and the ark of the Lord, and the sacrifice of burnt offerings and of incense, and the ordinance of the table and of the candlestick and concerning the laver and the base thereof, and the shoulder-piece and the breastplate, and the very precious stones, that the children of Israel should make them so: and he shewed him the likeness of them to make them according to the pattern which he saw. And said unto him: Make for me a sanctuary and the tabernacle of my glory shall be among you.
Footnotes
106:1 XI. 1. For upon them will I put forth an eternal exaltation: in quem eliciam excelsa sempiterna, or in whom I have ordained high things eternal. In quo disposui excelsa sempiterna. In either case the Law is meant.
106:2 2. If men say, "we have not known thee," etc. Compare p. 107 the injunction to the Apostles in a fragment of the Preaching of Peter: "After twelve years go forth into the world, lest any say, 'we did not hear.'"
107:1 5. Similar lists of the wonders which accompanied the giving of the Law are in XV. 6, XXIII. 10, XXXII. 7, 8.
108:1 8. The gloss on the 4th Commandment, as Dr. Cohn says, shows that the writer has little interest in the Temple services, and is appropriate to a time when those services had ceased. It is rather the Synagogue and its ritual that occur to him as the obvious form of worship. The words are adapted from Ps. cvii. 32.
108:2 all things that do labour: quaecunque oberantur.
109:1 12. thy watchmen: custodes. I interpret this of angels.
109:2 15. The statement that the tree of life sweetened the waters of Marah, and that these were the waters that followed Israel, are both peculiar to this book. For Marah the MSS. seen by me read myrrha, but the Fulda MS. has myrra; it is Μεῤῥα in the LXX.
Next: Chapter XII