Chumash In Depth - Exodus 19:17 - Approaching God at Sinai

(1) ויוצא משה את העם לקראת האלו-הים מן המחנה, “Moses took the people toward G’d out of the camp.“ The “camp” mentioned here was the camp of the 600,000 Israelites. The words לקראת האלו-הים mean toward the “camp of G’d”, i.e. the area where the ministering angels who had descended from heaven had made their camp.

According to Tanchuma Tetzaveh 11 the number of ministering angels who had assembled there matched the number of male adult Israelites. When Yaakov (Genesis 32,3) “saw the camp of G’d” this is what he saw already at the time. He named the camp מחנים, “two camps,” as he envisaged a “return trip” by these angels to earth on the occasion of the revelation at Mount Sinai. Alternately, he envisaged the two camps, the Israelites and the angels taking up position, one opposite the other.

Israel shuns all that the nations of the world have to offer as they cannot match what we have already experienced at Mount Sinai when we were chosen by G’d as His people. This is the meaning of the words כמחולות מחנים, it is impossible to duplicate the joy that pervaded the Jewish people when they saw themselves as paired with 600,000 angels, their equal, at least.

The idea described at length in Bamidbar Rabbah 2,2 of the reason for the Jewish camp being provided with flags also goes back to what they experienced a few months earlier when they saw the flags held by the angels. This evoked in them a desire to be given flags also, a request which G’d honored at the time the Tabernacle was erected.

According to another Midrash the experience of listening to G’d’s voice at Mount Sinai was of such overwhelming proportions that each time the people heard a word (commandment) their soul escaped their bodies. They were revived immediately, i.e. they experienced multiple resurrections on that day.

(3) The glory of G’d was on the top of the mountain. We know this because the Torah writes in 19,20 that “G’d descended onto the top of the mountain.” We also have a verse in Exodus 24,17 that “the appearance of G’d was like consuming fire on top of the mountain.” All of the Israelites stood at the farthest end of the mountain. Moses was allowed to enter into the cloud and ascend the mountain, as we know from 24,18 as well as from 19,9.

The expression עב הענן refers to a dark cloud within which the Presence of G’d was concealed. The word חשך in our context means a type of fire. The whole verse in Deut 4,11 must be understood as the following sequence: “and the mountain was burning with fire until the heart of the heaven; חשך, ענן, וערפל.

The word חשך refers to a fire as we explained on Genesis 1,2; this was followed by ענן, which in turn was followed by ערפל, also described as עב הענן. In other words, there were 4 separate stages, each one on a higher level than the previous one, each higher level being “inside” the previous one, closer to the core. The lowest and outermost level was that described as תחתית ההר.

This was followed by the region called ראש ההר. The next higher region to that was called ענן, whereas the highest region was called עב הענן. We find something parallel to these regions of relatively higher levels of sanctity when comparing the way the Israelite nation organized itself on earth when it erected the Holy Temple.

The level of the relatively minimal decree of sanctity, corresponding to the תחתית ההר, was the שער העזרה, the entrance gate to the courtyard of the Temple. The next higher level of sanctity i.e. corresponding to ראש ההר, was the עזרה, the holy courtyard. This was followed by the היכל, the Sanctuary, which corresponded to the level of ענן when compared to what occurred at מתן תורה.

Finally, the Holy of Holies, קדשי קדשים, the innermost sanctum of the Holy Temple was what corresponded to what the Torah described as עב הענן at Mount Sinai. This was equivalent to ערפל, the region where G’d concealed Himself.