God told Moses that if anyone went to the mountain or even touched its base, he could not be touched, and must be stoned or killed with arrows… must not be allowed to live. I just wondered if there are any theories about what would have happened to such a person. Why could no one have touched him - like he would have contracted some deadly thing that was contagious or be like an alien to our world because he had touched God in the mountain?
It’s really related to the idea of the sacred being ‘set apart’ or ‘segregated’ (which is what the word ‘holy’ originally meant, after all) from the profane. To give you an example: in Shinto, it is customary to mark a sacred space using a rope made of rice straw (
shimenawa) festooned with paper streamers (
shide), it serving as a symbolic boundary. This was really why in the ancient world, many temples, and especially the sanctuaries therein, were off-limits except to authorized personnel (usually priests): they are ‘holy’ since they were the dwelling-place of the gods, so anyone - especially the ritually ‘impure’ - can’t just casually enter.
The ancients had
this idea of ritual purity and impurity as something contagious: by touching something ‘holy’ you contracted its sacredness, and by coming into contact with something unclean you became impure. Now coming in contact with a ‘sacred’ person or thing wasn’t always good, especially if you were unclean or did not have any authorization to touch them: for one, the sacred would risk being defiled upon coming in close contact with the profane.
That is really the point. The mountain was so ‘holy’, so ‘set apart’ (because God was ‘in’ it) that the people couldn’t approach it, much less set foot into it, and the people in turn had to kill the offender without actually touching him and thus becoming ‘contaminated’ as well. And this is also why the people had to to “sanctify” themselves by washing their clothes and abstaining from sex. At best, God had to invite the people to come ‘closer’ to the mountain (at and around its base but not further up), as a symbol of being allowed closer proximity to His holiness as He accepted His people into a covenant with Him, making them a more “holy nation.”
And the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever.”
When Moses told the words of the people to the LORD, the LORD said to Moses, “
Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain.”
So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people; and they washed their garments. And he said to the people, “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.”
On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The LORD came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.
And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to the LORD to look and many of them perish.
Also let the priests who come near to the LORD consecrate themselves, lest the LORD break out against them.” And Moses said to the LORD, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for you yourself warned us, saying, ‘Set limits around the mountain and consecrate it.’” And the LORD said to him, “
Go down, and come up bringing Aaron with you. But do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the LORD, lest he break out against them.”
. I believe God is the universe itself. However, in this book of the bible - this is inerrant sacred scripture - it says he met Moses on the mountain. Anyway he’s always outside of time - he’s in the past, present, and future always. Thanks. 
