Their voices could be heard by all the assembled multitude. By the reading of the law and the response of the people God and His people entered anew into a solemn covenant that held blessings for obedience and penalties for disobedience. The impressive occasion would not soon be forgotten.

 Here was a foretaste of Christianity: the guilt (James 2:10) that comes with the broken law (Rom. 1:32); the assent that God’s requirements are just and good (Rom. 7:12-14); the redemption from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13), with the inability of the law to lay hands upon the man in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1); the final victory and the Promised Land (Rev. 15:2; 21:1-7).