Looking out from Mount Sinai. The mount is in fact just one peak among many in a rumpled carpet of high rocky hills, lying at the southern tip of the V-shaped Sinai Peninsula. It was upon this peak, according to tradition, that Moses received the Ten Commandments.
Episode 7 of 11 in the Series
The Story of Moses
Introduction
Moses has brought the Israelites out of servitude in Egypt into the hard wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula. God has given them manna to eat and water from dry stone, but their hearts fail them when Moses goes up into the quaking, cloud-capped, lightning-crowned Mount Sinai, and does not return for over a month.
THERE upon Sinai’s peak, enveloped in thick cloud, God gave to Moses a law for the people of Israel, beginning with Ten Commandments.* They were to live by this law in the happy land to which he would bring them, bounded by the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and the River Jordan, and utterly reject all the laws and gods of other peoples. He also showed Moses the sanctuary of heaven itself, and bade him draw up plans for an earthly temple made in its likeness.* These laws God inscribed upon two tablets of stone.
Moses was gone forty days and nights, and down below the Israelites were growing restive. Convinced Moses was dead, they persuaded Aaron to melt down the jewellery given them by the Egyptians, and cast from it a golden calf. Then they offered sacrifices to their calf-god, and sang songs to it, crediting it with delivering them from slavery in Egypt, and pleading with it to save them once more.
Based on Exodus 20.
See The Ten Commandments in Church English in our Bible (Authorised Version) section. The list of commandments is given twice in the Bible, once in Exodus 20:3-17, and once in Deuteronomy 5:7-21.
See Exodus-24:9-11. Moses and his companions saw heaven’s own sanctuary, and “saw God, and did eat and drink”. Thereafter, it is repeatedly stated that the instructions for building an earthly temple must be carried out “according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount”. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews makes a great deal of this, saying that Christ has entered that heavenly sanctuary to plead for us before God. See Hebrews 8-9.
Archive
Word Games
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 All. Persuade. Upon.
2 Calf. Sanctuary. Song.
3 Cloud. Land. People.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Homophones Find in Think and Speak
In each group below, you will find words that sound the same, but differ in spelling and also in meaning. Compose your own sentences to bring out the differences between them.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1.
Cast.
Caste.
2.
Wood.
Would.
3.
There.
Their.
They’re.
4.
Two.
Too.
5.
Red.
Read.
6.
Sees.
Seas.
7.
Groan.
Grown.
8.
Its.
It’s.
9.
Knight.
Night.
Statements, Questions and Commands Find in Think and Speak
Use each word below in a sentence. Try to include at least one statement, one question and one command among your sentences. Note that some verbs make awkward or meaningless words of command, e.g. need, happen.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Make. 2 Bid. 3 Land. 4 Draw. 5 People. 6 Save. 7 Bring. 8 Plan. 9 Show.
Variations: 1. use a minimum of seven words for each sentence 2. include negatives, e.g. isn’t, don’t, never 3. use the words ‘must’ to make commands 4. compose a short dialogue containing all three kinds of sentence: one statement, one question and one command
Add Vowels Find in Think and Speak
Make words by adding vowels to each group of consonants below. You may add as many vowels as you like before, between or after the consonants, but you may not add any consonants or change the order of those you have been given. See if you can beat our target of common words.
tngs (6+1)
outings. tangos. tangs. tinges. tongs. tongues.
tings.
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