The story of God giving Moses the ten commandments is so well known that most people picture similar things when imagining it. For me, I think of shaking ground, deafening thunder, and a mountain shrouded in fire and deep darkness. I think of Moses walking down a mountain with two heavy tablets of engraved stone. If I were there, I imagine I’d feel afraid, small, and far away from God. Turning from personal impressions to the actual words of Exodus 19 and 20, though, reveals not an angry, vengeful God, but a God of mercy and grace stepping down to earth to “meet” the people of fledgling Israel.

During this time of introduction, God demonstrates his love for Israel in all his actions. He called to them in Egypt and defeated their enslavers. He bore them to himself on eagle’s wings and descended to the earth in glory. The Lord Almighty stooped down to speak with his people and renewed his promise to bless them with a homeland. Finally, though it may not have looked like an act of grace to a trembling people, God’s thundering, fear-inducing presence on Mt. Sinai was a test, meant to protect them, “that [they] may not sin.” Imagine how overwhelming this rescue was. From the plagues to the stone tablets, the pillar of fire to the one of smoke, how unquenchably alive the Lord must have appeared to a people accustomed to the impotent pantheon of Egypt.

The ten commandments tell an enormous amount about God and his relationship with man. Contrary to popular belief, they are far more than a catalogue of things not to do. Even before God issues the first commandment, he displays his heart for his people by starting not with a list of directives, but with a reason to heed them. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” These words are spoken in love. God is saying, I am not like the wooden and metal idols of Egypt. Worship me because I am real, I am powerful, and I have rescued you.

In Exodus chapter 20, at the beginning of one of the most famous passages in the Bible, God makes it clear that he is speaking first to the people of Israel. As Jesus will point out later, God also desires all believers to obey – not just the words of the commandments, but the heart behind them. Still, here in the Sinai wilderness, these words are spoken directly to those whom Yahweh brought out of Egypt. I don’t know the origin stories of the gods of the ancient near east at that time, but I am pretty sure no people group had ever been claimed by a god in this way. In fact, the things I have read state the opposite – either the people claim the gods, or a person claims godhood. At one specific point in history, however, the One Living God reached down to earth and redeemed not just an individual, but a people.

In a way, the story of Genesis is a prologue or a prequel. It is here at the foot of Mt. Sinai that God’s chosen people are, well, chosen (or at least told they’re chosen). God, the author of all life and existence, has reached the point in his story where the main characters step in. One could argue (rightly) that the chronicle of creation began with Adam or Noah. Surely God’s covenant with Abraham and his re-christening of Jacob as Israel were starting points, as well. Going further back, John’s gospel makes it clear that Jesus was even before the story began.

Really, since historical timelines only exist for creatures and not the Creator, I think many cases could be made for where “the story” begins. One thing we can be sure of is that the people of Israel first “met” their God at the foot of a thundering, shuddering mountain. Perhaps it was surprising to them that the first formal words God gave his people were not in the form of rules or commands. They were instead a reminder that Yahweh, whose might had laid low Egypt, was their Protector and Savior. What a beautiful foreshadowing of when God, in the person of Jesus, rescues his people not from slavery to men, but from slavery to sin. I can’t look upon that crowd of dirt-stained Israelites, washing their clothes to be clean for their first meeting with God, without remembering that for us, thanks to Jesus, the order has flipped. It is only us meeting God which can make us truly clean.

We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:19