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This week we are finishing up the Second Movement through the Book of Exodus looking at a test that The Israelites face at the foot of Mount Sinai. Do the Israelites pass the test or not? We will be looking at a slight translation difference that exists due to some tricky wording in the Hebrew of Exodus 19:13. Are the people just to approach or come up to the mountain as you would find in the KJV, NIV, ESV, and NASB? Or are the people called to go up on the mountain (NRSV)? But at the sound of the ram's horn the people do not go up onto the mountain. Exodus 20:18-21 gives some context in a flashback to this story sharing that the people were afraid of God and wouldn't come near. Moses tells them not to be afraid. This is a Test so that they will Fear the Lord. 

They way it all reads will make us think that they passed the test, but this story shares the same language and pattern of Abraham's test on the mountain in Genesis 22, in which on the third day, God called Abraham to go up on the mountain to do something scary, yet ends up proving to Yahweh that he fears God. 

When God calls us into relationship with Him, we are called to walk in reverence and fear of God coupled with trust and surrender. Don't be like the Israelites who shied away afraid of God. We are not just to approach the foot of the mountain, we are to come directly to God with fear and reverence, trusting in his call as he beckons us to Him.

Do they pass the test? Do they only just pass the test, but could score much better? Or do they fail the test that God had put in front of them to come up the mountain