Or HaChaim on Exodus 19:9/אור החיים על שמות י״ט:ט׳

1 הנה אנכי בא אליך "Here I am about to come to you, etc." Seeing that G'd was in the habit of speaking to Moses on a "mouth to mouth" basis, He may have announced to him that in this instance He would depart from that method. In this instance G'd would speak out of the thick cloud; this meant that His speech would not be as totally spiritual in nature as usual. G'd told Moses that the reason for this was not that Moses was not worthy of the usual mode of communication, but that G'd wanted the people to be able to hear that G'd spoke with Moses. Seeing the people were not on the level on which G'd usually communicated with Moses, He had to lower the level of His communication with Moses in order for them to become aware of what was happening. G'd added that the reason He wanted the people to hear that He, G'd, spoke with Moses was in order for the people to strengthen their belief in the level of Moses' prophetic powers. As a result of that experience their faith in Moses would become enduring. G'd hoped that this explanation would put Moses' mind at rest over the reduced level of communication between G'd and himself.

2יאמינו לעולם, "they will believe forever." What is meant by "forever" are the subsequent generations. If people would have faith in future prophets it would be based on the father of all prophets, on Moses. Maimonides has explained this in detail in his Yesodey Hatorah chapter 8. This is what he wrote: "Any prophet who arose after Moses is credible not because of any miracles he may perform but because Moses commanded us in the Torah that if the prophet performs a miracle we are to consider this as confirmation that he is a prophet and we should obey him." Maimonides also wrote that the credibility of Moses as a prophet was not based on the miracles he performed but on the fact that the whole nation heard that G'd spoke to him. As a result the people became witnesses of his being a true prophet. Keeping these statements of Maimonides in mind, we can interpret the words: "they will also believe in you forever" as a reference to prophets who would arise in future generations. Any prophet who would arise in the future would bear further witness to the credibility of Moses as a prophet. G'd hinted here that when a future prophet would be sent by Him to the Jewish people, such prophets would be further proof of the credibility of Moses as a true prophet. None of the miracles such prophets would perform would in themselves establish their credibility. The only thing which would do this is the fact that G'd commanded in His Torah that we should obey such prophets. If not for the people witnessing that G'd spoke to Moses, all the miracles he had performed would not totally eliminate doubt in the minds of the people as to Moses' stature as a true prophet.

3We must pay careful attention to what Maimonides writes about any doubt the people might have entertained about Moses being a true prophet, seeing that the Torah has already told us in Exodus 14,31 "they believed in G'd and in Moses His servant." The Torah had made this statement in connection with the outstanding miracle Moses had orchestrated not only in splitting the Sea of Reeds but in reversing the process so that the Egyptians drowned in it. How can Maimonides claim that but for the fact that the people heard G'd speak to Moses they would have doubted his stature as a prophet? Granted that later prophets who did not perform those kinds of miracles needed to be connected to Moses by reminders that just as G'd Himself spoke to Moses in the hearing of the people in order to establish their respective credibility that they too had heard the word of G'd, but surely the same did not apply to Moses himself? How do we explain Maimonides who wrote that the miracles Moses performed were not in order for the Israelites to believe in him but because they were needed in order to advance the Israelites' cause? After all, eventually Moses would be revealed as a true prophet?

4I believe that initially the Israelites believed that Moses was a true servant of the Lord who enjoyed G'd's ear, that G'd would respond favourably to Moses' prayers, etc. They did not believe that G'd actually spoke to Moses. They believed the theories of the philosophers that it is impossible for G'd to speak with man and for man to remain alive. The same philosophers admitted however, that man can speak to G'd and that He listens to man and responds positively. Inasmuch as this was a widespread belief, we may say that though the Israelites believed that Moses was a true servant of G'd, i.e. one to whose prayers G'd would respond and carry out his wishes, this did not mean that they also believed that G'd spoke to Moses. The suspicion still lurked in the back of the minds of the Israelites that G'd did not speak to Moses. This is why G'd now wanted to erase this suspicion from their minds by making them witnesses when He spoke to him. The people would then realise that it was possible for G'd to speak to man without man having to die.

5The second matter that the people would believe from then on was וגם בך יאמינו לעולם, that through the experience the people had when they heard G'd speaking with Moses they would believe that other prophets would take the place of Moses in the future. If G'd had spoken to one prophet, i.e. Moses, there was no reason for Jews in the future not to believe that G'd spoke to other prophets. The word בך may also mean that when you, Moses, will command the people to obey the instructions of any prophet in the future who also identifies himself by means of a miracle, they will do so because they have seen you as a role model of a prophet. The deciding factor in obeying future prophets is not the miracle he performs but the instructions you have given the people to accept such a prophet in good faith. Having written this, I discovered the following statement in the Mechilta: "They will also have faith in you as well as in future prophets." This is identical to what I have already outlined.

6Once the people heard all this from G'd they all agreed that G'd does indeed speak to man without man dying as a result. This whole problem has been spelled out in Deut. 5,21: "on this day you have seen that G'd speaks to man and man stays alive." The beliefs held by the Israelites up until that time were dispelled once and for all by their visual experience. At the same time they realised the great stature of Moses whom G'd had elevated to such a lofty spiritual niveau. This is the meaning of 19,19: "Moses spoke and G'd answered him by voice." The Mechilta describes this in greater detail.

7ויגד משה את דברי העם, Moses relayed the words of the people, etc. Perhaps what Moses told G'd was that the Israelites had expressed their desire to hear the words of G'd from His mouth directly just as G'd had told Moses; alternatively, they may have said that there was no need to prove Moses' credibility as a prophet as they already believed in him as such. Moses told G'd all this in order to put the people in a good light. The Mechilta understands the verse to mean that Moses told G'd that the people had expressed a desire to hear G'd directly. Seeing that there are people who attributed to Israel the desire to see G'd, the expression ויגד is aptly chosen as it applies to relatively harsh words as we explained in connection with 19,3. The demand by the people to hear G'd or to see G'd is not really appropriate as it does not befit a slave to make demands on his master; this is why the Torah chose the word ויגד to describe what Moses told G'd in the name of the people. While it is true that G'd Himself had said: "in order that the people will hear when I speak with you," G'd had not said: "in order that the people will hear when I speak with them." Why did Moses need to tell G'd something that He was aware of already, just as He is aware of everything we think or say? Moses wanted to prepare the ground for G'd's reply. If he had not been on record as relaying the people's request, how could he portray G'd's reply as an answer to their request? We find that G'd replied immediately by saying: "sanctify them to-day and to-morrow, etc."