To this twofold testimony may be added that of the Psalmist:

`The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in SINAI, in the

holy place' (Psa. 68:17),

which is an echo of the words of Moses when he said:

`He came with ten thousands of saints (His holy ones): from His right hand went a fiery law for them' (Deut.

Yet further, Stephen had earlier spoken of Moses at Sinai saying:

`This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina' (Acts

In Hebrews, chapter 2, the ministry of angels and their relation with the law is further developed.

`For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just

recompence of reward; how shall we escape?' (2:2,3).

With this passage, Hebrews 12:25 should be read:

`See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused Him that spake on earth ...'.

Chapter 2 deals with `the Lord' speaking, in contrast with angels, and chapter 12 follows by contrasting Sinai

with heaven. Let us finish the record of these verses then. Here is both question and answer.

`How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord?' (Heb.

`Much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven' (Heb. 12:25).

Resuming the references to angels in chapter 2 the apostle says:

`For unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak' (Heb. 2:5).

This assumes that `the world' was at some time under angelic surveillance. The word `world' here is not aion or

kosmos, but oikoumene, `the habitable world', particularly the world as known and visualized in Old Testament

times, the prophetic earth. The first occurrence of oikoumene in the LXX is in Exodus 16:35:'Until they came to a

land inhabited', i.e., the land of Canaan. In Psalm 72 which speaks prophetically of the dominion ruled over by

David's greater Son, we read:

`He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the oikoumene' (Psa. 72:8).

The kingdoms of the world (oikoumene) were shown in the temptation in the wilderness (Luke 4:5). In contrast

with the wide extent of `heaven and earth', Psalm 89:11 says, `Thou hast founded them' (heaven and the

oikoumene), and it is in this Psalm that we have another prophetic anticipation:

`I will make Him My Firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth' (Psa. 89:27).

When the day comes when man shall `sing a new song' the psalmist says:

`Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth: the oikoumene also shall be established that it shall not be

moved' (Psa. 96:10).

This verse gives us a positive link with the theme of Hebrews, for there, in chapter 12, following the shaking of

the earth at Sinai, we read:

`Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved' (Heb. 12:28),

where the Greek word, saleuo (move or shake) is employed. It is a very wonderful comment on the meaning

attached to the oikoumene of the future, that where the Hebrew reads:'Thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah (i.e. My

delight is in her), and thy land Beulah (i.e. married)', the LXX of Isaiah 62:4 reads, `Thou shalt be called My

Pleasure (thelema), and thy land oikoumene'. This is the `world to come' whereof Paul was speaking in Hebrews 2.