For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, storm,
Verse 18. For ye are not come. To enforce the considerations already urged, the apostle introduces this sublime comparison between the old and new dispensations, . The object, in accordance with the principal scope of the epistle, is to guard them against apostasy.
The Jewish church was gross and earthly, dark and terrible, meant to strike dread; the gospel state is spiritual, clear, and mild. Mount Sinai demanded external obedience through fear; Mount Zion appeals to hope and the heart. Yet apostasy from the gospel is no less dreadful in its consequences than apostasy from Moses.
AI summary
Commenting on Hebrews 12:18-29
And the sound of a trumpet,.... Exo 19:16, which made it still more awful, as the sound of the trumpet will at the last day: and the voice of words; of the ten words, or decalogue; which was as an articulate voice, formed by angels; and, therefore, the law is called the word spoken by angels, Heb 2:2 and is represented, as the voice of...