<p>12:21 <em>And so fearful was the appearance that Moses said: I am exceedingly afraid and trembling</em>- Again there is the implication that Moses was not to be read as the acme of spirituality which Judaism presented him as. He himself sensed his own moral weakness as he climbed the mountain which would lead to death for any other being, human or animal, who touched it. There is no direct record of Moses saying what he here says; Paul may have been inspired to share this with us for the first time. But he reasons as if Moses' words were already recorded and known. We read in Ex. 19:16 that the people trembled; perhaps we are to understand that Moses as one of them, the sinful mass, trembled likewise, and said so before God. He as a sinner received the old covenant, trembling at his sense of moral failure. The contrast is thereby heightened with how the Lord Jesus, without sin, although also one of us, mediated the new covenant.</p>