escribed in the sacred
books. This sight, and the amazing sound that came to their ears,
disturbed the Hebrews to a prodigious degree, for they were not such as
they were accustomed to; and then the rumor that was spread abroad, how
God frequented that mountain, greatly astonished their minds, so they
sorrowfully contained themselves within their tents, as both supposing
Moses to be destroyed by the Divine wrath, and expecting the like
destruction for themselves.

3. When they were under these apprehensions, Moses appeared as joyful
and greatly exalted. When they saw him, they were freed from their fear,
and admitted of more comfortable hopes as to what was to come. The
air also was become clear and pure of its former disorders, upon the
appearance of Moses; whereupon he called together the people to a
congregation, in order to their hearing what God would say to them: and
when they were gathered together, he stood on an eminence whence
they might all hear him, and said, "God has received me graciously, O
Hebrews, as he has formerly done; and has suggested a happy method of
living for you, and an order of political government, and is now present
in the camp: I therefore charge you, for his sake and the sake of his
works, and what we have done by his means, that you do not put a low
value on what I am going to say, because the commands have been given by
me that now deliver them to you, nor because it is the tongue of a man
that delivers them to you; but if you have a due regard to the great
importance of the things themselves, you will understand the greatness
of Him whose institutions they are, and who has not disdained to
communicate them to me for our common advantage; for it is not to be
supposed that the author of these institutions is barely Moses, the son
of Amram and Jochebed, but He who obliged the Nile to run bloody for
your sakes, and tamed the haughtiness of the Egyptians by various sorts
of judgments; he who provided a way through the sea for us; he who
contrived a method of sending us food from heaven, when we were
distressed for want of it; he who made the water to issue out of a rock,
when we had very little of it before; he by whose means Adam was made to
partake of the fruits both of the land and of the sea; he by whose means
Noah escaped the deluge; he by whose means our forefather Abraham, of a
wandering pilgrim, was made the heir of the land of Canaan; he by whose
means Isaac was born of parents tha