The written description of this scene gives us a sense of its ineffable grandeur and sublimity. “Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. When the voice of the trumpet sounded long and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake and the God answered him by a voice.”――――Essentially the same descriptive points are repeated after the record of the law as promulged from Sinai (Ex. 20: 18–21). “All the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off, and said to Moses: Speak thou with us and we will hear; but let not God speak with us lest we die.” See also the renewed mention of this scene in Deut. 4: 10–12.[39] _The Moral Law as given from Sinai._ Passing from the natural surroundings and scenes of Sinai to the law itself, let it be observed carefully that this law of ten commandments (Ex. 20: 1–17 and Deut. 5: 6–21) is to be somewhat broadly distinguished from the other “statutes and judgments,” whether civil or religious, which the Lord gave to Israel by the hand of Moses;――this distinction being apparent in the following points and for the reasons which they suggest: 1. It was proclaimed by God himself in a most public and solemn manner in the hearing not of Moses alone, but of the elders of the people at least, if not of the people en masse, assembled before and around the glorious mount. 2. It was given under circumstances of most appalling majesty and sublimity――the mountain being enveloped with clouds and thick darkness, yet at some moments all ablaze with the lightning’s flash and rocking beneath Jehovah’s feet. 3. It was written by the finger of God on two tables of stone (Deut. 5: 22). 4. It differed from any and all other laws given to Israel in that it was comprehensive and general rather than specific and particular. 5. It was complete, being one finished whole to which nothing was to be added――from which nothing was ever taken away. (“And he added no more” Deut. 5: 22. See also Mat. 5: 18). The other statutes, as we shall see, were subjected to future modification. 6. The law of the ten commandments was honored by Jesus Christ as embodying the substance of the law of God enjoined upon man. With a master’s hand he grasped and brought out its two great principles, underlying all the precepts: Love supreme to God: love equal and unselfish toward fellow-men. “Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself.” (Mat. 22: 36–40, and 19: 18, 19 and Mk. 12: 28–34). 7. It can scarcely be doubted that Jesus had his eye specially if not exclusively on this law (Mat. 5: 18) as _one never to be repealed_――from which not one jot or tittle should ever pass away.