More is hinted than is expressly said in Scripture of the part taken by the angels in the Law-giving. Deut. xxxiii. 2[102] and Ps. lxviii. 17 give the most definite indications of the ancient faith of Israel on this point. But "the Angel of the Lord" is a familiar figure of Old Testament revelation. In Hebrew thought impressive physical phenomena were commonly associated with the presence of spiritual agents.[103] The language of Heb. i. 7 and ii. 2 endorses this belief, which in no way conflicts with natural science, and is in keeping with the Christian faith. [102] A doubtful citation at the best: the reading of the LXX is more to the point than the Hebrew text. [103] See the quotations from Jewish writers to this effect given by Meyer or Lightfoot. But while such intermediacy, from the Jewish standpoint, increased the splendour and authority of the Law, believers in Christ had learned to look at the matter otherwise.[104] A revelation "administered _through angels_," spoke to them of a God distant and obscured, of a people unfit for access to His presence. This is plainly intimated in the added clause, "by means of _a mediator_,"--a title commonly given to Moses, and recalling the entreaty of Exod. xx. 19; Deut. v. 22-28: "The people said, Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die." These are the words of sinful men, receiving a law given, as the Apostle has just declared, on purpose to convict them of their sins. The form of the Mosaic revelation tended therefore in reality not to exalt the Law, but to exhibit its difference from the Promise and the distance at which it placed men from God. [104] Comp. Heb. ii. 2-4; also Col. ii. 15: "(_scil._ God) having stripped off the principalities and powers"--the earlier forms of angelic mediation. The writer may refer on this latter passage to his note in the _Pulpit Commentary_, also to _The Expositor_, 1st series, x. 403-421. The same thought is expressed, as Bishop Lightfoot aptly shows, by the figure of "the veil on Moses' face," which Paul employs with so much felicity in 2 Cor. iii. 13-18. In the external glory of the Sinaitic law-giving, as on the illuminated face of the Law-giver, there was a fading brightness, a visible lustre concealing its imperfect and transitory character. The theophanies of the Old Covenant were a magnificent veil, hiding while they revealed. Under the Law, _angels, Moses_ came between God and man. It was God who in His own grace conveyed the promise to justified Abraham (ver. 18).[105]