FROM Rephidim Israel journeyed to Mount Sinai. Here God would give His law to the people, and here they were to build the tabernacle for His holy service.
Before this time these people had no books to read. God's Word and His law had been told from father to son, and so remembered. But during the slavery in Egypt this instruction had been forgotten by many, until they had become like the heathen around them.
During their journey God had spoken to Israel only through Moses. But at this time all the people were called together, and God spoke His law to them with His own voice.
The scene which the people saw was terribly grand. There was a thick cloud on the mount, and amidst it were thunderings and lightnings. The whole mountain was shaken with an earthquake.
There was a loud blast of a trumpet from the mount, "so that all the people that was in the camp trembled." Then God spake His law to the people,—the ten commandments recorded in Exodus 20:3-17.
The children of Israel were always to remember this scene. It was to impress upon their minds the greatness and power of God, the importance of His law, and the necessity of obeying it.
Moses was called up into the very presence of God, on the top of the mountain. Here God gave him two tables of stone on which He had written with His finger the same ten commandments that He had spoken in the hearing of all Israel.
God's law is as enduring as the stone on which it was written. These two tables are called "the tables of the covenant." Deuteronomy 9:11. The ten commandments are called God's covenant with His people. "And He wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments." Exodus 34:28.
David said that His covenant, or law, was "commanded to a thousand generations." Psalms 105:8. It will continue forever. Christ Himself said, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law." Matthew 5:17, 18.