Verse 1. - In the third month. The month Sivan, corresponding nearly with our June. When the children of Israel were gone forth. Rather, "after the children of Israel had gone forth," or "after the departure of the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt." Compare Exodus 16:1, where the expression used is the same. The same day. Literally, "on that day" - which can only mean "on the day that the month began" - on the 1st of Sivan. The wilderness of Sinai. The plain Er-Rahah; as is now generally allowed, since the true character of the Wady Sebaiyeh has been shown by Dean Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, p. 76) and others.

19:1-8 Moses was called up the mountain, and was employed as the messenger of this covenant. The Maker and first Mover of the covenant, is God himself. This blessed charter was granted out of God's own free grace. The covenant here mentioned was the national covenant, by which the Israelites were a people under the government of Jehovah. It was a type of the new covenant made with true believers in Christ Jesus; but, like other types, it was only a shadow of good things to come. As a nation they broke this covenant; therefore the Lord declared that he would make a new covenant with Israel, writing his law, not upon tables of stone, but in their hearts, Jer 31:33; Heb 8:7-10. The covenant spoken of in these places as ready to vanish away, is the national covenant with Israel, which they forfeited by their sins. Unless we carefully attend to this, we shall fall into mistakes while reading the Old Testament. We must not suppose that the nation of the Jews were under the covenant of works, which knows nothing of repentance, faith in a Mediator, forgiveness of sins, or grace; nor yet that the whole nation of Israel bore the character, and possessed the privileges of true believers, as being actually sharers in the covenant of grace. They were all under a dispensation of mercy; they had outward privileges and advantages for salvation; but, like professing Christians, most rested therein, and went no further. Israel consented to the conditions. They answered as one man, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. Oh that there had been such a heart in them! Moses, as a mediator, returned the words of the people to God. Thus Christ, the Mediator, as a Prophet, reveals God's will to us, his precepts and promises; and then, as a Priest, offers up to God our spiritual sacrifices, not only of prayer and praise, but of devout affections, and pious resolutions, the work of his own Spirit in us.In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt,.... Which was the month Sivan, and answers to part of May and part of June:

the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai; which had its name from the mountain situated in it, and that from the bushes which grew upon it. Justin (z) calls it Synan, which he says Moses occupied, and Strabo (a), Sinnan. Hither they came either on the same day they came from Rephidim; which, according to Bunting (b), were eight miles from it, or on the same day of the month, as to number, that is, on the third day of the third month; and so Jerom (c) and others say it was on the forty seventh day after their coming out of Egypt, three days after which they received the law on Mount Sinai, it being a generally received notion that the law was given fifty days after the passover; hence the feast of weeks is called from thence the feast of pentecost, or fifty days: or rather this was the first day of the month, as Jarchi and R. Moses; with which agrees the Targum of Jonathan; and so was the forty fifth of their coming out of Egypt, five days after which they received the law; it being a tradition with the Jews, as Aben Ezra observes, that that was given on the sixth of Sivan, and may be accounted for thus; on the first day they came to Sinai, and encamped there, on the day following Moses went up to God, Exodus 19:3, on the third day Moses gathered the elders together, Exodus 19:7, and declared to them the words of God, and on the third day after that, which was the sixth, the law was delivered to them.

(z) E Trogo, l. 36. c. 2.((a) Geograph. l. 16. p. 520. (b) Travels, p. 82. (c) Epist. Fabiolae de 42 mansion. fol. 15. c. 1. tom. 3.