Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/618

 founding of the new heaven and new earth. Hence not only is every person, whom God receives into the sphere of His sin-destroying grace, קדושׁ, or holy; but everything which is applied to the realization of the divine work of salvation, or consecrated by God to this object. The opposite of קדושׁ, holy, is הל, κοινός, profanus (from חלל, to be loose, lit., the unbound), not devoted to holy purposes and uses (cf. Lev 10:10); and this term was applied, not only to what was sinful and unclean (טמא), but to everything earthly in its natural condition, because the whole earth, with all that is upon it, has been involved in the consequences of sin.

verses 7-9
When Moses communicated to the people through their elders this incomparable promise of the Lord, they promised unanimously (יחדּו) to do all that Jehovah said; and when Moses reported to the Lord what the people had answered, He said to Moses, “I will come to thee in the darkness of the cloud, that the people may listen to My speaking to thee (בּ שׁמע, as in Gen 27:5, etc.), and also believe thee for ever.” As God knew the weakness of the sinful nation, and could not, as the Holy One, come into direct intercourse with it on account of its unholiness, but was about to conclude the covenant with it through the mediation of Moses, it was necessary, in order to accomplish the design of God, that the chosen mediator should receive special credentials; and these were to consists in the fact that Jehovah spoke to Moses in the sight and hearing of the people, that is to say, that He solemnly proclaimed the fundamental law of the covenant in the presence of the whole nation (Ex 19:16-20:18), and showed by this fact that Moses was the recipient and mediator of the revelation of God, in order that the people might believe him “for ever,” as the law was to possess everlasting validity (Mat 5:18).

verses 10-15
God then commanded Moses to prepare the people for His appearing or speaking to them: (1) by their sanctification, through the washing of the body and clothes (see Gen 35:2), and abstinence from conjugal intercourse (Exo 19:15) on account of the defilement connected therewith (Lev 15:18); and (2) by setting bounds round the people, that they might not ascend or touch the mountain. The hedging or bounding (הגבּיל) of the people is spoken of in Exo 19:23 as setting bounds about the mountain, and consisted therefore in the erection of a barrier round the