Saturday, October 10, 2026 · Week of Pentecost 19
Exodus 19:1–25
On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai. 2 They journeyed from Rephidim, entered the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness; Israel camped there in front of the mountain.
3 Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the Israelites:
4 ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”
7 So Moses went, summoned the elders of the people, and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him.
8 The people all answered as one, “Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.”
Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord. 9 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.”
When Moses had told the words of the people to the Lord, 10 the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes 11 and prepare for the third day, because on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. 12 You shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Be careful not to go up the mountain or to touch the edge of it. Any who touch the mountain shall be put to death. 13 No hand shall touch them, but they shall be stoned or shot with arrows; whether animal or human being, they shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they may go up on the mountain.”
14 So Moses went down from the mountain to the people. He consecrated the people, and they washed their clothes. 15 And he said to the people, “Prepare for the third day; do not go near a woman.”
16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled. 17 Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. They took their stand at the foot of the mountain. 18 Now all of Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently. 19 As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder. 20 When the Lord descended upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain, the Lord summoned Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.
21 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people not to break through to see the Lord; otherwise many of them will perish. 22 Even the priests who approach the Lord must consecrate themselves, or the Lord will break out against them.”
23 Moses said to the Lord, “The people are not permitted to come up to Mount Sinai, for you yourself warned us, saying, ‘Set limits around the mountain and keep it holy.’ ”
24 The Lord said to him, “Go down, then come back up and bring Aaron with you, but do not let either the priests or the people break through to come up to the Lord; otherwise he will break out against them.” 25 So Moses went down to the people and told them.
Notes
Israel reaches Sinai and camps "in front of the mountain." At the burning bush, God told Moses this would be the sign: once he'd brought the people out of Egypt, they would worship God on this mountain (3:12). Now they're here, and the story stays at Sinai until Numbers 10, nearly sixty chapters later. For Judaism, this might be the most important section of the whole Torah. Jews read Exodus 19 and 20 at Shavuot, the feast that celebrates the giving of the Torah. Robert Alter calls the Sinai encounter "the decisive moment in human history when the celestial and terrestrial realms are brought into panoramic engagement, and as God comes down on the mountain, every sort of natural fireworks is let loose." Thunder and lightning, smoke like a kiln, a whole mountain shaking.
There's a lot in this chapter I struggle with. Only Moses gets to go up. Everyone else stays behind the limits set around the mountain, and anyone who touches it dies, stoned or shot with arrows so that no one has to lay a hand on them (verse 13). Even the priests have to keep back, or "the Lord will break out against them" (verse 22).
Then there's verse 15: "do not go near a woman." Note that it’s not God who says that. In verses 10 and 11, God tells Moses to consecrate the people and have them wash their clothes. Moses adds the part about women, apparently his own idea of what consecration requires. And notice who he's talking to. He addresses "the people," but the instruction only makes sense if "the people" means the men. Judith Plaskow opens her book Standing Again at Sinai with this verse. At the moment the covenant is made, the women of Israel aren't even spoken to. Sexual purity as the price of getting close to God, fear, the threat of death for coming too near: I don't associate any of that with God anymore.
And yet, inside the story, this is the God who got these people out of Egypt and fed them in the desert, and who is now drawing them close. Close-ish. Even verse 13, in the middle of the death threats, ends with an invitation: "When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they may go up on the mountain."
Look where God says the exodus was headed: "I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself." The land comes later. The point of getting out of Egypt was getting to God. At Rephidim the people asked, "Is the Lord among us or not?" (17:7). God answers by coming down "in the sight of all the people" (verse 11), which is more than the gods of Egypt ever did for anybody.
Then comes my favorite line. The NRSVue has "you shall be my treasured possession," but the Hebrew reads more like "you will become for me a treasure," segullah. A segullah is a king's private treasure. When David gives gold and silver for the temple, he calls it "a treasure of my own" (1 Chronicles 29:3), his personal fortune, set apart from everything else he'd gathered.
And the treasure comes with a job. "Indeed, the whole earth is mine," God says in the same breath, "but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation." A priest stands between God and the people. A priestly kingdom stands between God and the nations. The word for "nation" here is גּוֹי (goy), the common biblical word for the other nations, and the same word God used when promising Abram "a great nation" (Genesis 12:2), "so that you will be a blessing." Israel is blessed to be a blessing, chosen so the nations could be invited into the covenant community. When I preached on these verses years ago, I put it this way: being chosen by God means being given a vocation, a calling to bring more people into God's community.
Read on through the rest of the Bible, and you can watch the boundary lines move. The letter to the Hebrews quotes this chapter, the order to stone even an animal that touches the mountain, and then tells its readers they haven't come to that mountain. They've come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God (Hebrews 12:18–24). Earlier in the letter, Hebrews urges us to approach the throne of grace with boldness (4:16). At Pentecost, the Greek name for Shavuot, what looks like tongues of fire comes down and rests on each of them (Acts 2:3). Paul tells the Corinthians that they're God's temple, and his "you" is plural: y'all are the temple (1 Corinthians 3:16). At Sinai, anyone who broke through to see the Lord would die (verse 21). In Revelation, "the home of God is among mortals" (21:3), God's servants "will see his face" (22:4), and the one who conquers gets to sit with Jesus on his throne (3:21). You can read all of this as a progression in God's relationship with God's people. Or, put another way, a progression in how we've understood God.
Questions for reflection
At Sinai, the people have to stay back from a mountain wrapped in fire. By Revelation, God's home is among mortals. What do you think changed between the two?
Which pictures of God from earlier in your life still keep you standing at the foot of the mountain? What has helped you come closer?
