I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 19-21.

When the Children of Israel reached Mt. Sinai, Moses went up the mountain to meditate and converse with God about what to do next.  Moses had returned to Egypt and rescued the Children of Israel from slavery there as God had instructed him to do from the burning bush.  If they were going to conquer the land which God had promised to them when he spoke to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they would need to be organized.  How should they be organized and what rules should govern their lives?  Moses did what all leaders should do in that situation.  He turned to God in prayer and meditation.

I find the way in which the following portion is phrased to be open to interpretation.  God told Moses to tell the people that if they did as He commanded He would make them His special people. The phrasing seems to suggest that God gave Moses the commands to pass on to the people at this point, but further on in the passage it tells us that God gave them the commands later.  My interpretation is that at this point God was referencing the outline of laws which were contained in the stories which had been passed down to them from Abraham, who had them from his ancestors.  Once the people had agreed to God’s conditions in principle, God came to them to communicate the specifics of what He desired from them.

When God came to them He spoke what we know as the Ten Commandments, but which Jewish tradition refer to as the Ten Words.  In many ways the latter is more accurate.  Once God had spoken these Ten Words, the people asked that God no longer speak directly to them.  They asked that God speak His commands to Moses and Moses pass them on to them.