“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,
or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in
the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow
down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the
Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the in-
iquity of the fathers upon the children unto the
third and fourth generation of them that hate Me;
and showing mercy unto thousands of them that
love Me, and keep My commandments.
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy
God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless
that taketh His name in vain.
“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but
the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy
God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy
son, nor they daughter, thy manservant, nor thy
maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger
that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them
Wide World Photos
The innermost coffin of King Tut-ankh-amen, one of
the great rulers of Egypt in the age of Moses and Israel
is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord
blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.
“Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy
days may be long upon the land which the Lord
thy God giveth thee.
“Thou shalt not kill.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery.
“Thou shalt not steal.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy
neighbor.
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house,
thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor
his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.”
The voice ceased. In awed silence the people
withdrew, requesting their leader to be thereafter
MAY, 1929
the spokesman for God. The experience had beem
too much for them. They had witnessed the birth
of a nation,—their own—and they had received their
fundamental law and their rule of life from Jehovah
himself.
These manifestations to Israel at Mount Sinai
seem to have had a double purpose. First, they were
to impress on the people the reality of the divine
existence, the power and awful majesty of God, and
His nearness to themselves. Second, they were to
give the highest possible sanction to the laws that
the people were to regard as an absolute obligation.
The Jews might not have accepted any merely
human legislator. They had to be convinced that
all the laws and ordinances that Moses gave
them were the laws and ordinances of God himself.
THE REACTION FROM SUBLIMITY
ProBaBLY the sacrificial fires burned later and
brighter than usual up in the temple of the cow-
goddess the night after the giving of the law. The
Hathor priests would be re-establishing their own
confidence.
Later, under the influence of the suave, insidious
and well-placed suggestions of
these priests, and demoralized
by the long absence of Moses,
who had gone up into the moun-
tain to get detailed instructions
from God for the governing of
the people, the Israelites made a
golden replica of Hathor. The
vision of God and His nearness
had made them feel painfully
small and inferior. Now they
felt much more comfortable and
important in the presence of an
object of worship that was the
work of their own hands and to’
which they themselves had at-
tached attributes. This, and not
absolute ignorance of the exis-
tence of God, is probably the
basis of paganism and idolatry.
Whatever may be said of others,
at least the Jews knew better, and they paid heavily
for their lapse when later they were made to drink
the dissolved symbol of their sin. It must have been
a bitter draft! And as long as they were camped
at Sinai the taste of it must have come back to their
tongues whenever they raised their eyes to the
Hathor temple.
Whenever mankind faces one of its great moments
—an event or a condition that is profoundly to
affect human history — God always raises up a
man to be His agent. In this case it was Moses.
One of the despised race of the Hyksos, the “Child
of the Water” became an Egyptian prince by adop-
tion. And Egypt, land of civilization, of art, of
science, of philosophy, gave up its secrets to the
young prince. As a member (Continued on page 32)
PAGE FIFTEEN