And the Lord said to Moses: go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the Lord and many of them perish. The warning to go down immediately after Moses arrives up is the protection of the people from themselves. The sight of God's glory at the summit could draw the curious and the bold past the boundary — and the crossing of the boundary means death. The warning is not punishment for desire but protection against the fatal misunderstanding that familiarity is the same as relationship. Numbers 4:20 records a similar warning about the Kohathites not looking at the holy things or they will die. The line between proper approach and presumptuous intrusion is a live boundary at Sinai, and God sends Moses back down to maintain it.

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