Exodus 24:12-18
Scripture 7 verses
12And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.
13And Moses rose up, and his minister Joshua: and Moses went up into the mount of God.
14And he said unto the elders, Tarry ye here for us, until we come again unto you: and, behold, Aaron and Hur
are with you: if any man have any matters to do, let him come unto them.
15And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount.
16And the glory of the LORD abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud.
17And the sight of the glory of the LORD
was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.
18And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.
Ambrose of Milan AD 397 · On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 2.110
If, then, any one desires to see this Image of God, he must love God, that he may be loved by God; and be no longer a servant but a friend, because he has kept the commandments of God, that he may enter into the cloud where God is.
John Chrysostom AD 407 · HOMILIES ON GENESIS 1:7
Do you now recognize the harm caused by intemperance? Look in turn at the instances of good behavior due to fasting. The great Moses, after keeping his fast for forty days, was able to get the tables of the law. When he came down from the mountain and saw the people’s sin, the tablets which he had been successful in obtaining through such intercession he threw down and smashed, thinking it was preposterous that an indulgent and sinful people should receive laws of the Lord’s own making.
Bede AD 735 · Homilies on the Gospels 2.10
Mystically the rolling away of the stone implies the disclosure of the sacraments, which were formerly hidden and closed up by the letter of the law. The law was written on stone. Indeed in the case of each of us, when we acknowledge our faith in the Lord’s passion and resurrection, his tomb, which had been closed, is opened up.
Peter Chrysologus AD 450 · SERMON 166
Moses himself was so purified and freed from his body by a fast of forty days that his whole self took on a glorious appearance of divinity. Still in the darkness of our body, he gleamed with the full radiance of divinity. The eyes of mortals could not gaze upon him who, long nourished by the substance of God, had forgotten all about the aids provided by mortals’ food. From this he learned that the sustenance of life does not fail those who live in God’s sight and with him.