“Go unto the People, and Sanctify Them”
Exodus 19:10–11, 17
10 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes,
11 And be ready against the third day: for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. . . .
17 And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.
Hyrum L. Andrus wrote:
“Three months after the Israelites left Egypt they arrived at Mount Sinai. Moses then began the task of sanctifying the people and establishing them upon the law of God on a grand scale, with the Lord personally directing the program. ‘If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people,’ God explained, ‘. . . and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation’ [Exodus 19:5, 6]. They were to become like the people of Enoch. ‘He designed to lead them forward under the guidance of the everlasting Priesthood,’ George Q. Cannon stressed, ‘. . . until they should behold the face of their God and see Him for themselves’ [in Journal of Discourses, 25:291].
“In preparing Israel for these great blessings, the Lord instructed Moses: ‘Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes, and be ready against the third day: for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai’ [Exodus 19:10–11]. On this great occasion, the Israelites were also to be given the sacred laws and ordinances which would take them into the presence of God, endowed with His glory.
“When the time came for God to reveal Himself and His law to Israel, the record states:
“‘. . . there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.
“‘And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount’ [Exodus 19:16–17].”
(Principles of Perfection [1970], 436–37.)
