Commentary for Exodus 24:16

ויכסהו הענן AND THE CLOUD COVERED IT (lit., “him”) [SIX DAYS] — Our Rabbis are of different opinions as to what this passage means. Some of them hold that these were the six days from the first of Sivan (until the Feast of Weeks, the day of the Giving of the Law) —

וישכון כבוד ה' על הר סיני, “the attribute כבוד of Hashem rested on Mount Sinai.” This is in line with what had been mentioned in connection with 20,1: “G’d said all these words.” I have elaborated on this subject there. When the Torah writes here that the cloud covered the mountain this means that during the six days from the first of Sivan until the time of Matan Torah the cloud enveloped the mountain.

The mountain. [If the six days that are referred to in the verse took place before the giving of the Ten Commandments, we must say that the cloud covered the mountain] but not Moshe. For right afterward it says, “He called to Moshe” to proclaim the Ten Commandments. And it cannot be that Moshe was covered in the cloud all six days, because Moshe was going up and down the mountain each day as it says in Parshas Yisro. But according to the opinion [that Rashi mentions later,] that holds that “He called to Moshe” took place after the Ten Commandments were given, at the beginning of the forty days, then ויכסהו הענן refers to Moshe — because “whoever intends to enter the camp of the Shechinah. . .”