Deuteronomy 33:2

And he said,.... What follows, of which, in some things, he was an eye and ear witness, and in others was inspired by the Spirit of God, to deliver his mind and will concerning the future case and

And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount

The Lord came, to wit, to the Israelites, i.e. manifested graciously and gloriously among them. From Sinai, i.e. beginning at Sinai, where the first and most glorious appearance of God was, and so going on with them to Seir and Paran. Or, to Sinai, the particle mem oft signifying to, as is evident by comparing , with , with , with . See also 11:2 13:11 . Or, in Sinai; mem being put for beth, in, as 72:16. Rose up; he appeared or showed himself, as the sun doth when it riseth. From Seir, i.e. from the mountain or land of Edom, which is called Seir, 36:8 , to which place the Israelites came, , &c.; and from thence God led them on towards the Land of Promise, and then gloriously appeared for them in subduing Sihon and Og before them, and giving their countries unto them; which glorious work of God’ s is particularly celebrated . But because the land of Seir or Edom is sometimes taken more largely, and so reacheth even to the Red Sea, as appears from , and therefore Mount Sinai was near to it; and because Paran, which here follows, was also near Sinai, as being the next station into which they came from the wilderness of Sinai, ; all this verse may belong to God’ s appearance in Mount Sinai, where that glorious light which shone upon Mount-Sinai directly did in all probability scatter its beams into adjacent parts, such as Seir and Paean were; and so this is only a poetical and prophetical variation of the phrase and expression of the same thing in divers words, and God coming, or rising, or shining from or to or in Sinai, and Sear, and Paran note one and the same illustrious action of God appearing there with ten thousands of his saints or holy angels, and there giving a fiery law to them, as it here follows. And this interpretation may receive some strength from , where this glorious march of God before his people is remembered; only teman, which signifies the south, is put for Seir, which is here, possibly to signify that that Seir which is here mentioned was to be understood of the southern part of the country of Seir or Edom, which was that part adjoining to the Red Sea. Others refer this of Seir to the brazen serpent, that eminent type of Christ, which was erected in this place. Mount Paran; a place where God eminently manifested his presence and goodness, both in giving the people flesh which they desired, and in appointing the seventy elders, and pouring forth his Spirit upon them, Numbers 11; though the exposition mentioned in the foregoing branch may seem more probable. With ten thousands of saints, i.e. with a a great company of holy angels, , which attended upon him in this great and glorious work of giving the law, as may be gathered from 12:22.

Deuteronomy 33:2 And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand [went] a fiery law for them.Ver. 2. Went a fiery law for them.] This fire wherein the law was given, and shall be required, is still in it, and will never out; hence are those terrors which it flasheth in every conscience that hath felt remorse of sin. Every man’ s heart is a Sinai, and resembles to him both heaven and hell. "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law."

(2) “And he said, Jehovah came from Sinai,And dawned upon them from Seir; He shone forth from mount Paran. And there came from the ten thousands of holiness, From His right hand, a fire of law [10] for them.” [10] On this expression see an additional note at the end of the book. The appearance of God on Sinai is described as a sunrise. His light rose from Sinai, and the tops of the hills of Seir caught its rays. The full blaze of light shone on Paran. (Comp. Psalms 1:2 : “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.”) He came with ten thousands of saints is a mere mistranslation. The preposition is “from,” not “with.” If the verb “he came,” in the fourth line, is taken to refer to God, we must translate: “He came from ten thousands of saints” (to sinful men). Rashi takes “from” to mean “part of.” “There came some of His ten thousands of saints, but not all of them.” I believe the true translation is what I have given. The law itself was “ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator” (Galatians 3:19). It is called “the word spoken by angels” in Hebrews 2:2. The language of Dan 7:10—“A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him: thousand thousands ministered unto Him”—supplies a complete parallel. The fiery law came from the ten thousands on “His right hand;” or from them, and from His right hand. This construction is by far the most simple, and agrees with what we read elsewhere. NOTE ON Deuteronomy 33:2. “A FIERY LAW.” THE original expression, eshdath or esh dath, sometimes written as one word, and sometimes as two, has created some difficulty. Esh is “fire,” and dath, if taken as a distinct word, is “law.” But dath does not appear elsewhere in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, until we meet it in the book of Esther, where it occurs frequently. It is also found in Ezra 8:36. In the Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra it occurs six times. Modern authorities assert that it is properly a Persian word. But since it is found in the Chaldee of Daniel, it was in use among the Chaldζans before the Persian empire. The word has Semitic affinities. The Hebrewsyllable thκth would have nearly the same meaning. A datum (or dictum) is the nearest equivalent that we have. There seems no reason to doubt that the word dath had obtained a place both in Chaldee and in Hebrew at the time of the Captivity. It is perfectly possible that its existence in Chaldee dates very much earlier. We must remember that Chaldee was the language of the family of Abraham before they adopted Hebrew. “A Syrian ready to perish was my father,” is the confession dictated by Moses in Deuteronomy 26:5. Syriac and Chaldee in the Old Testament are names of the same language. In the Babylonish captivity the Jews really returned to their ancestral language.

(2–9). Four Laws: Of Right to Enter the Congregation There shall not enter any eunuch (Deuteronomy 33:1); nor the son of an unlawful marriage, nor descendants (Deuteronomy 33:2); nor Ammonite, nor Moabite, nor descendants (Deuteronomy 33:3-6); but the third generation of Edomite or Egyptian may enter (Deuteronomy 33:7 f.).—These laws have negative openings like the preceding and like the series which follow in Deuteronomy 33:15-20 (Deuteronomy 33:16-21) after the interrupting law, Deuteronomy 33:9-14 (Deuteronomy 33:10-15); hence possibly their position just here. The form of address to Israel does not appear till Deuteronomy 33:4 a (Deuteronomy 33:5 a) where it is Pl., but in Deuteronomy 33:4-7 Sg. Other features are the use of ḳ ?ahal, congregation, for the commonwealth of Israel, not elsewhere in D, the difference of Deu 33:4 a (Deuteronomy 33:5 a) from Deuteronomy 2:29, the introduction of Balaam not mentioned in chs. 1–3, and the favourable treatment of Egyptians. Such data raise questions of the origin and structure of these laws as difficult as any we have met, and perhaps incapable of solution. Some take Deuteronomy 33:4-6 (Deuteronomy 33:5-7) as secondary, and the rest as original to D. But it is nearly as plausible to reckon part or all of Deu 33:4-6 as D’s addition to earlier laws and to argue for the primitive origin of these (see below). Berth. holds that all Deuteronomy 33:1-8 (Deuteronomy 33:2-9) is secondary, Deuteronomy 33:1-6 being from the time of Ezra and perhaps inserted by Ezra himself to correct the religious confusions which he found in Jerusalem. As there is nothing at that time to explain Deuteronomy 33:7 f. (Deuteronomy 33:8 f.) he boldly suggests the origin of this in the Maccabean period (Stellung d. Isr. zu d. Fremden, 142 ff., and his note on this passage). For answers to him see below.

By “Seir” is to be understood the mountain-land of the Edomites, and by “mount Paran” the range which forms the northern boundary of the desert of Sinai (compare Genesis 14:6 note).

2. The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran — These expressions do not refer to different appearances of Jehovah, but to that signal manifestation