He said to Moses, “Come up to Yahweh, you, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship from a distance. Moses alone shall come near to Yahweh, but they shall not come near. The people shall not go up with him.”
Moses came and told the people all Yahweh’s words, and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words which Yahweh has spoken will we do.”
Moses wrote all Yahweh’s words, then rose up early in the morning and built an altar at the base of the mountain, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of cattle to Yahweh. Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. He took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, “We will do all that Yahweh has said, and be obedient.”
Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Look, this is the blood of the covenant, which Yahweh has made with you concerning all these words.”
Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up. They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was like a paved work of sapphire stone, like the skies for clearness. He didn’t lay his hand on the nobles of the children of Israel. They saw God, and ate and drank.
Yahweh said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and stay here, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commands that I have written, that you may teach them.”
Moses rose up with Joshua, his servant, and Moses went up onto God’s Mountain. He said to the elders, “Wait here for us, until we come again to you. Behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever is involved in a dispute can go to them.”
Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. Yahweh’s glory settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. The seventh day he called to Moses out of the middle of the cloud. The appearance of Yahweh’s glory was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. Moses entered into the middle of the cloud, and went up on the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17 When he called him up to the mountain to…
When he called him up to the mountain to give him the Laws, beginning at Exod. 20, hitherto.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–18 Exo 24:1 And he said unto Moses, Come up…
Exo 24:1 And he said unto Moses, Come up unto the LORD, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship ye afar off.
Ver. 1. Worship ye afar off.] Thus under the law; but now by grace we draw nigh with boldness, and "have access with confidence by the faith of Christ." {Eph 3:12} {See Trapp on "Eph 3:12"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18 After thou hast gone down and acquainted the people…
After thou hast gone down and acquainted the people with my will, and received their answer, then come up again. This sense is gathered from the repetition of this command after that was done, Exo 24:12. Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu; Aaron and his two eldest sons, whom by this special honour and favour he prepared for that office to which they were to be called, Exo 28. Seventy of the elders of Israel; not the seventy governors which were chosen after this time, as appears from Num 11:16, compared with Exo 24:14; but seventy persons selected by Moses out of those rulers chosen and mentioned Exo 18:25; and possibly these were the chief heads of those several families which went with Jacob into Egypt, which were about seventy. See Gen 46:26,27. Worship ye afar off. Though they may come up into the mount further than the people, yet do thou, and let them especially, keep their distance; and what worship either thou or they shall offer to me, shall be performed afar off from the top of the mountain, whither thou only shalt be admitted, and that not to pray to me, but only to receive laws and oracles from me. See Exo 24:2.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 9, 12 The first two verses record the appointment of a…
The first two verses record the appointment of a second session upon mount Sinai, for the making of laws, when an end was put to the first. When a communion is begun between God and us, it shall never fail on his side, if it do not first fail on ours. Moses is directed to bring Aaron and his sons, and the seventy elders of Israel, that they might be witnesses of the glory of God, and that communion with him to which Moses was admitted; and that their testimony might confirm the people's faith. In this approach, 1. They must all be very reverent: Worship you afar off, Exo 24:1. Before they came near, they must worship. Thus we must enter into God's gates with humble and solemn adorations, draw near as those that know our distance, and admire the condescensions of God's grace in admitting us to draw near. Are great princes approached with the profound reverences of the body? And shall not the soul that draws near to God be bowed before him? 2. They must none of them come so near as Moses, Exo 24:2. They must come up to the Lord (and those that would approach to God must ascend), but Moses alone must come near, being therein a type of Christ, who, as the high priest, entered alone into the most holy place.
In the following verses, we have the solemn covenant made between God and Israel, and the exchanging of the ratifications; and a very solemn transaction it was, typifying the covenant of grace between God and believers through Christ.
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I. Moses told the people the words of the Lord, Exo 24:3. He did not lead them blindfold into the covenant, nor teach them a devotion that was the daughter of ignorance; but laid before them all the precepts, general and particular, in the foregoing chapters; and fairly put it to them whether they were willing to submit to these laws or no.
II. The people unanimously consented to the terms proposed, without reservation or exception: All the words which the Lord hath said will we do. They had before consented in general to be under God's government (Exo 19:8); here they consent in particular to these laws now given. O that there had been such a heart in them! How well were it if people would but be always in the same good mind that sometimes they seem to be in! Many consent to the law, and yet do not live up to it; they have nothing to except against it, and yet will not persuade themselves to be ruled by it.
This is the tenour of the covenant, That, if they would observe the foregoing precepts, God would perform the foregoing promises. "Obey, and be happy." Here is the bargain made. Observe,
1. How it was engrossed in the book of the covenant: Moses wrote the words of the Lord (Exo 24:4), that there might be no mistake; probably he had written them as God dictated them on the mount. As soon as ever God had separated to himself a peculiar people in the world, he governed them by a written word, as he has done ever since, and will do while the world stands and the church in it. Moses, having engrossed the articles of agreement concluded upon between God and Israel, read them in the audience of the people (Exo 24:7), that they might be perfectly apprised of the thing, and might try whether their second thoughts were the same with their first, upon the whole matter. And we may suppose they were so; for their words (Exo 24:7) are the same with what they were (Exo 24:3), but something stronger: All that the Lord hath said (be it good, or be it evil, to flesh and blood, Jer 42:6) we will do; so they had said before, but now they add, "And will be obedient; not only we will do what has been commanded, but in every thing which shall further be ordained we will be obedient." Bravely resolved! if they had but stuck to their resolution. See here that God's covenants and commands are so incontestably equitable in themselves, and so highly advantageous to us, that the more we think of them, and the more plainly and fully they are set before us, the more reason we shall see to comply with them.
2. How it was sealed by the blood of the covenant, that Israel might receive strong consolations from the ratifying of God's promises to them, and might lie under strong obligations from the ratifying of their promises to God. Thus has Infinite Wisdom devised means that we may be confirmed both in our faith and in our obedience, may be both encouraged in our duty and engaged to it. The covenant must be made by sacrifice (Psa 50:5), because, since man has sinned, and forfeited his Creator's favour, there can be no fellowship by covenant till there be first friendship and atonement by sacrifice.
(1.) In preparation therefore for the parties interchangeably putting their seals to this covenant, [1.] Moses builds an altar, to the honour of God, which was principally intended in all the altars that were built, and which was the first thing to be looked at in the covenant they were now to seal. No addition to the perfections of the divine nature can be made by any of God's dealings with the children of men, but in them his perfections are manifested and magnified, and his honour is shown forth; therefore he will not be represented by an altar, to signify that all he expected from them was that they should do him honour, and that, being his people, they should be to him for a name and a praise. [2.] He erects twelve pillars, according to the number of the tribes. These were to represent the people, the other party to the covenant; and we may suppose that they were set up against the altar, and that Moses, as mediator, passed to and fro between them. Probably each tribe set up and knew its own pillar, and their elders stood by it. [3.] He appointed sacrifices to be offered upon the altar (Exo 24:5), burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, which yet were designed to be expiatory. We are not concerned to enquire who these young men were that were employed in offering these sacrifices; for Moses was himself the priest, and what they did was purely as his servants, by his order and appointment. No doubt they were men who by their bodily strength were qualified for the service, and by their station among the people were fittest for the honour.
(2.) Preparation being thus made, the ratifications were very solemnly exchanged. [1.] The blood of the sacrifice which the people offered was (part of it) sprinkled upon the altar (Exo 24:6), which signifies the people's dedicating themselves, their lives, and beings, to God, and to his honour. In the blood (which is the life) of the dead sacrifices all the Israelites were presented unto God as living sacrifices, Rom 12:1. [2.] The blood of the sacrifice which God had owned and accepted was (the remainder of it) sprinkled either upon the people themselves (Exo 24:8) or upon the pillars that represented them, which signified God's graciously conferring his favour upon them and all the fruits of that favour, and his giving them all the gifts they could expect or desire from a God reconciled to them and in covenant with them by sacrifice. This part of the ceremony was thus explained: "Behold the blood of the covenant; see here how God has sealed to you to be a people; his promises to you, and yours to him, are both yea and amen." Thus our Lord Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant (of whom Moses was a type), having offered up himself a sacrifice upon the cross, that his blood might be indeed the blood of the covenant, sprinkled it upon the altar in his intercession (Heb 9:12), and sprinkles it upon his church by his word and ordinances and the influences and operations of the Spirit of promise, by whom we are sealed. He himself seemed to allude to this solemnity when, in the institution of the Lord's supper, he said, This cup is the New Testament (or covenant) in my blood. Compare with this, Heb 9:19, Heb 9:20.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–17 And he said unto Moses,.... Who said? no doubt…
And he said unto Moses,.... Who said? no doubt a divine Person, and yet what this Person said is:
come up unto the Lord; meaning either to himself, or one divine Person called to Moses to come up to another: according to the Targum of Jonathan, it was Michael, the prince of wisdom; not a created angel, but the eternal Word, Wisdom, and Son of God; who said this on the seventh day of the month, which was the day after the giving of the law, or ten commands; though Jarchi says this paragraph was before the ten commands, and was said on the fourth of Sivan; but the Targumist seems most correct:
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come up unto the Lord, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; Nadab and Abihu were the two eldest sons of Aaron, Exo 6:23 and the seventy elders were not all the elders of Israel, but were so many of them selected out of them, the chief and principal; who were heads of tribes and families, and were no doubt many, if not all of them, of those who by the advice of Jethro were chosen to be rulers of thousands, hundreds, and fifties; these were called to come up to the Lord on the mountain, but not to the top of it, only Moses went thither:
and worship ye afar off: from the people, and even at a distance from Moses; for he only was admitted near to God, as the following verse shows.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 18 Moses as mediator between God and Israel, having received…
Moses as mediator between God and Israel, having received divers laws and ordinances from God in the foregoing chapters, in this chapter,
I. Comes down to the people, acquaints them with the laws he had received, and takes their consent to those laws, ver. 3. writes the laws, and reads them to the people, who repeat their consent, ver. 4, 7. and then by sacrifice, and the sprinkling of blood ratifies the covenant between them and God, ver. 5, 6, 8.
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II. He returns to God again, to receive farther directions. When he was dismissed from his former attendance, he was ordered to attend again, ver. 1, 2. He did so with seventy of the elders, to whom God made a discovery of his glory, ver. 9-11. Moses is ordered up into the mount, ver. 12, 13. the rest are ordered down to the people, ver. 14. The cloud of glory is seen by all the people on the top of Mount Sinai, ver. 15-17. and Moses is there with God forty days and forty nights, ver. 18.
Worship ye afar off - Before they came near, they must worship. Thus we must enter into God's gates with humble and solemn adorations.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18 Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy…
CHAPTER XXIV
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders, are
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commanded to go to the mount to meet the Lord, 1.
Moses alone to come near to the Divine presence, 2.
He informs the people, and they promise obedience, 3.
He writes the words of the Lord, erects an altar at the foot of
the hill, and sets up twelve pillars for the twelve tribes, 4.
The young priests offer burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, 5.
Moses reads the book of the covenant, sprinkles the people with
the blood, and they promise obedience, 6-8.
Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel, go up
to the mount, and get a striking display of the majesty of God, 9-11.
Moses alone is called up into the mount, in order to receive the
tables of stone, written by the hand of God, 12.
Moses and his servant Joshua go up, and Aaron and Hur are left
regents of the people during his absence, 13, 14.
The glory of the Lord rests on the mount, and the cloud covers it
for six days, and on the seventh God speaks to Moses out of the
cloud, 15, 16.
The terrible appearance of God's glory on the mount, 17.
Moses continues with God on the mount forty days, 18.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXIV
Verse 1. Come up unto the Lord] Moses and Aaron were already on the mount, or at least some way up, (Ex 19:24), where they had heard the voice of the Lord distinctly speaking to them: and the people also saw and heard, but in a less distinct manner, probably like the hoarse grumbling sound of distant thunder; see Ex 20:18. Calmet, who complains of the apparent want of order in the facts laid down here, thinks the whole should be understood thus: - "After God had laid before Moses and Aaron all the laws mentioned from the beginning of the 20th chapter to the end of the 23d, before they went down from the mount to lay them before the people, he told them that, when they had proposed the conditions of the covenant to the Israelites, and they had ratified them, they were to come up again unto the mountain accompanied with Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron, and seventy of the principal elders of Israel. Moses accordingly went down, spoke to the people, ratified the covenant, and then, according to the command of God mentioned here, he and the others reascended the mountain. Tout cela est raconté ici avec assez peu d'ordre."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 18 Exo 24:1. Come up unto the Lord — Moses…
Exo 24:1. Come up unto the Lord — Moses being already on the mount, the meaning is, “After thou hast gone down and acquainted the people with my will, and received their answer, then come up again.” He was to bring with him Aaron and his two eldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, who, by this special favour, were to be prepared for that office to which they were to be called. Seventy of the principal elders of Israel also were to accompany him, probably that they might be witnesses of Moses’s immediate intercourse with God, and that they themselves might be possessed with a greater reverence for the laws to be received from him. Worship ye afar off — Before they came near they must worship. Thus we must enter into God’s gates with humble and solemn adorations.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 18 Are placed by some with great probability between Exo…
Are placed by some with great probability between Exo 24:8-9.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 8, 11, 14, 16, 18 You, Aaron, &c. The people had heard the voice…
You, Aaron, &c. The people had heard the voice of the Lord, as it were the sound of thunder, giving the foregoing commands; which Moses explains to them distinctly (ver. 3,) by the mouth of Aaron; and afterwards draws up a memorial of their solemn ratification. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 d.—The feast of the covenant commanded
d.—The feast of the covenant commanded
Exo_24:1-2
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1And he said unto Moses, Come up unto Jehovah, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship ye afar off. 2And Moses alone shall [let Moses alone] come near Jehovah: but they shall not [let them not] come nigh; neither shall [and let not] the people go up with him.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The connection of this passage with the foregoing is correctly stated by Keil in opposition to Knobel. In Exo_20:22 God spoke through Moses to the people. What He now speaks at the end of the giving of the law is for Moses himself, although he must communicate with the people about it. After Jehovah has proclaimed the law of the covenant to the people, the feast of the covenant must be celebrated. It is presupposed, first, that God has spoken from Sinai the ten commandments to Moses and the people at the foot of the mountain (Exo_19:25). Then that He gave the ceremonial laws and the civil laws for the people, while the latter had removed from the mountain, but Moses was standing in the darkness of the mountain; by which, however, is not exactly meant that he was on the mountain (Exo_20:21). It is therefore not to be supposed (with Keil and Knobel) that Moses, according to Exo_20:21, had again betaken himself to the mountain; for in this case it would have to be assumed that the descent had been forgotten. But now an ascending to Jehovah takes place, with most significant distinctions. Moses, the prophet, alone is permitted to go to the top of the mountain, and approach Jehovah. At the declivity of the mountain the priests must stop, represented by Aaron and his sons, Nadab and Abihu; and with a like limitation, but also with a like right, the state, the popular assembly, represented by the seventy elders. They occupy a middle position between the prophet above and the people below. On Nadab and Abihu vid.Lev_10:1 sqq.
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e.—Ratification of the covenant
Exo_24:3-8
3And Moses came and told the people all the words of Jehovah, and all the judgments 4[ordinances]: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which Jehovah hath said [spoken] will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of Jehovah, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill [mountain], and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5And he sent young [the young] men of the children of Israel, which [and they] offered burnt-offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen [bullocks] unto Jehovah. 6And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. 7And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience [hearing] of the people: and they said, All that Jehovah hath said [spoken] will we do, and be obedient. 8And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold, the blood of the covenant which Jehovah hath made with you concerning all these words.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Exo_24:3. And Moses came.—That is, out of the darkness of the mountain, not exactly from the mountain itself. And told the people.—“Not the decalogue (as Delitzsch holds, Hebräerbrief, p. 414), for the people had heard this immediately from the mouth of God, but the words of Exo_20:22-26, and all the laws” (Keil). But evidently the report must have included the whole threefold law (therefore not only the decalogue), because the covenant now to be concluded was to relate to the whole law. But it is also self-evident that Moses was a better hearer of the ten commandments than the people were, and had to be for them a mediator of the law which they themselves had heard. Once more the assent of the people is given to the law of the covenant unanimously—with one voice; practically, the third expression of compliance (vid.Exo_20:19 and Exo_19:8). How then can there be any more thought of despotic subjection of the people? Thus far everything has been done orally; and for the first time Moses makes a provisional copy of the law.
Exo_24:4. The covenant is concluded, and now it is sealed by the feast of the covenant. Moses builds early on the following morning an altar (for Jehovah), and in addition twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. “As the altar,” says Keil, “being the place where the Lord comes to bless His people (Exo_20:24), indicates the presence of Jehovah, so the twelve pillars, or signal stones, were not to serve as mere memorial signs of the ratification of the covenant, but, as the dwelling-place of the twelve tribes, to represent their presence.” Vid.Gen_28:18; Gen_31:45 (Knobel on Gen_21:31), Joshua 4 (memorial stones), Jos_22:11 sqq. (the altar a symbol of unity).
Exo_24:5. And he sent the young men. The young men must officiate in offering the sacrifices of ratification. Why? Different views: (1) As first-born children, who constitute the natural basis for the priesthood (Onkelos), or even the sons of Aaron (Augustine). (2) Vigorous men, as Moses’ assistants in making the offering (Knobel: first-born youths). (3) As representatives of the youthful people (Kurtz III., p. 143). The young men of the nation stand midway between the children and the men; they share with the first their innocence, and with the latter their strength, and, as being the bloom of the national life, are the fittest representatives of an incipient national life. When the national life is to be restored by wars of liberation or defence, the young men enter the lists. Thus Israel concludes its covenant with Jehovah through the bloom of its national life, the young men—according to a general law of the life of nations, which Kurtz has at least suggested (but criticised by Keil, note 1, p. 157).1 It is, however, an observation needed only by the high-churchly, when Kurtz lays stress on the fact that the bringing and slaying of the victims was not a sacerdotal function. For as yet “the universal priesthood” officiates, although Moses alone as yet exercises the function of high-priest. Archæological notes on the young men offering, vid. in Knobel, p. 242.—Burnt-offerings and peace-offerings. The burnt-offerings symbolize Jehovah’s part of the festive solemnities; the peace-offerings that of the people.—Bullocks. The great covenant cannot be ratified by the sacrifice of sheep or goats.—Half of the blood. On the division of the blood, vid. Keil, p. 158.2 We have no hesitation, in spite of superstitious interpretations of the Lord’s Supper and of the ritual, to conceive of the one-half of this blood as a sacrifice, and the other as a sacrament typically foreshadowed. In accordance with this reference the sacrificial element is traceable in the burnt-offering, the sacrament in the שְׁלָמִים, peace-offerings, or thank-offerings. Keil, referring to Bähr and Knobel, rightly opposes the adducing of the analogy of heathen usages, in so far as thereby an identification of the usage is intended (vid. Knobel, p. 243); but an affinity of the profane with the theocratic sacrificial usages cannot be denied. Keil is also incorrect, when, in reference to these offerings, he speaks of expiation in the proper sense of the word. This could least of all be applied to the peace-offerings, or festive-offerings. The offerings in general, it is true, rest on the consciousness of the sinfulness which leads man, with his good will, and in symbolic form, to bring to God, as confession, prayer, and vow, what in his real condition as sinful in his spiritual life he cannot bring Him—in the burnt-offering the sinless consecration of his whole life, in the peace-offering the sinless consecration of all his prosperity and enjoyment. It is quite in accordance with the legal stand-point that Moses at first pours out the blood designed for God at the altar of God; thereby he symbolically effects a general and complete surrender of the people to God. But not till after he has read the book of the covenant, the laws of chs. 20–23, and the people have given their fullest assent (vid. the translation), does he sprinkle the people with the other half of the blood of the offering, which till then was kept in the basin, while he calls it the blood of the covenant that has been completed. It can hardly be correct, with Keil, to understand the blood to have been halved only because the blood sprinkled on the altar could not be again taken from it and sprinkled on the people; but he is right in assuming that the halves belong together. Clearly there is formed out of the identity of the blood a contrast in actu. In this contrast, however, the thought comes out that surrender in general, in accordance with the conditions of grace, must precede obedience in particular, according to the law. This is the patriarchal and evangelical seal impressed on the law, such as also introduces the decalogue—the language about the redeeming God. The expression, “blood of the covenant,” is, it is true, a marked one, denoting an ideally symbolical exchange of blood, as a foundation for blood relationship. But no human blood is here used, and still less can there be any thought of real blood of God, although, as sacrificial blood, it comes from God (and so far forth is a typical mystery), and is sprinkled upon men, symbolically expiating them and devoting them to sanctification, vid.Exo_29:21, Lev_8:30.
f.—Feast of the covenant
Exo_24:9-11
9Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: 10And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone [as it were work of bright sapphire], and as it were the body of heaven [the very heaven] in his clearness [for clearness]. 11And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also [and] they saw God, and did eat and drink.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
A wonderfully beautiful, sublime, but also mysterious feature of the history of the giving of the law. In it we see the significance of the sprinkling of the blood further carried out. It is the communion festival of the law—a communion of the Israelites, in the persons of their noblest representatives, with Jehovah,—the other side of the picture presented by the communion of Moses, his brother Aaron, and the elders, with Jethro, Moses’ heathen father-in-law, after the latter offered burnt-offerings and sacrifices, and doubtless also, as here, peace-offerings, Exo_18:12.—A prophetic form of the communion feast is given by Isaiah, Exo_25:6-8. The first realization of it, the celebration of the Lord’s supper, frequently made to point figuratively to the last supper of the kingdom of Christ (Mat_19:28), finds its last fulfilment in the marriage of the Lamb, Rev_19:7-9.
Exo_24:9. Therefore the representatives of Israel went up, according to the prophetic, ceremonial, and political elements of the community. Aaron’s sons mark the genealogical succession of the Levitical priesthood; the prophets have no genealogical succession; the elders must grow up to attain their dignity, and from the whole of them seventy are chosen as representatives, according to the sacred number seventy. Vid.Gen_46:27.
Exo_24:10. And they saw the God of Israel. It is not said that they saw Jehovah, though He is meant; for Jehovah is the God of Israel. Therefore not כְּבוֹד יְהוָֹה, as Knobel conceives, referring to Exo_16:10. He says, “According to the chief narrator this favor was shown only to Moses, and that too later than this, and at his special request.” Two discrepancies are said to be found here: (1) That Moses “does not see the glory of Jehovah till afterwards, Exo_33:18; ” (2) That “according to the chief narrator the people themselves at the proclamation of the ten commandments perceived only thunder, lightning, clouds, noise of trumpets, and the voice of Jehovah;” but here also the כְּבוֹד וְהוָֹה [glory of Jehovah], according to Exo_24:17! The narrative evidently brings out two marked contrasts. The first is the seeing of Elohim, and the seeing of Jehovah; the second is the heavenly clearness above the mountain during the feast of the covenant, and the subsequent darkening of the mountain by cloud and fire which took place when the law was drawn up. The vision of Jehovah in its several stages of development is marked by Isa_6:1 and Eze_1:26, Dan_7:9-13 (comp. Num_12:8). During the feast of the covenant at the declivity of the mountain (according to Exo_24:1 prescribed before the covenant was formed) the representatives of Israel saw the God of Israel. It was a vision, for which no objective image is furnished. But the sign of the objective image is called the image of a work or footstool under God’s feet, of brilliant sapphire, of sky blue therefore, like the heaven in its full brightness, as is added by way of further explanation. This ethereally delicate picture of the vision of the covenant God of Israel in His grace and covenant faithfulness has been coarsened and obscured in two directions. According to Knobel, the figure under God’s feet is “like a work of sapphire slabs;” and he refers to Eze_1:26, and reads לְבֵנָה. vid. p. 244. According to Baumgarten there was no image of God, because the vision of the men was imperfect. According to Hofmann the fire was separated from the cloud and turned into a form. According to Keil they saw also a form of God, which, however, is not described, “inasmuch as Moses, according to Num_12:8, saw the form of Jehovah.” But here we are told of a vision of the supermundane God as the God of Israel, not of a vision of Jehovah becoming incarnate. This is the first contrast. The second is the fact that at the feast of the covenant the cloud and the darkness are entirely gone, that the heavens open themselves, as it were, to the transported gazers in the full splendor of the heavenly blue, as at the baptism of Jesus; whereas immediately afterwards, at the beginning of the drawing up of the law, the mountain was obscured again, even more than before, as was the case when the ten commandments were first proclaimed. This is now again a phenomenal image of the glory of Jehovah as a law-giver, the same one who also in Exodus 33 does not show Moses, the law-giver, the face of His glory, but only its reflected splendor. The exegetical assumption that an external image must correspond to a vision of God, or that the sight must always be an external seeing, has no Biblical basis, although even here the inward vision is connected with the sight of an outward corresponding sign.
Exo_24:11. He laid not his hand. It is dangerous for sinful man to approach God, because the holiness and justice of God repel him; hence the true priest is he who can summon courage to approach God (Jer_30:21). But the view of the countenance of Jehovah annihilates, as it were, the sinful man (slays the old man); hence the Jewish popular saying, that no one can see God without dying, vid.Jdg_13:22. At that very place the error in the popular notion is corrected by Manoah’s wife; yet the full revelation of Jehovah is still dangerous and agitating even for one who sacerdotally approaches and sees Him (vid.Revelation 1). Hence to the legal mind of the narrator it is an astonishing and joyous wonder of grace that the God of Israel did not punish the nobles of Israel for their temerity. In the enjoyment of this theocratic peace of God “the nobles of the children of Israel” received a pledge that the people of Israel themselves were also called to this dignity. They received this peace for the benefit of Israel. And they saw God.—Luther’s translation makes the sentence describe two successive events: “and when they had seen God, they ate and drank.” But the two are simultaneous; the seeing of God and the eating and drinking are intimately connected, forming a prelude of sacramental enjoyments. Fear might report: “they saw God and died;” but instead of that faith reports: “they saw God, and ate and drank.” In Exo_24:14 is found an indication that the nobles of Israel were on a declivity of the mountain, which, as contrasted with the summit, might be regarded as in the valley, and from which they could keep up their connection with the people. According to Keil, Moses also had first left the mountain with them, and afterwards ascended it again. This assumption may be favored by the fact that Joshua now comes into company with Moses. Moses needed his servant, since there was now to be a longer stay on the mountain. Knobel also understands the command, “Tarry here,” of the stay at the foot of Sinai.
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g.—The summons to commit the law to writing
Exo_24:12-18
12And Jehovah said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee [thee the] tables of stone, and a [the] law, and commandments [the commandment] which I have written, that thou mayest teach [written, to teach] them. 13And Moses rose up, and his minister Joshua: and Moses went up into the mount of God. 14And he said unto the elders, Tarry ye here for us, until we come again [back] unto you: and behold, Aaron and Hur are with you: if any man have any matters to do [whosoever hath a suit], let him come unto them. 15And Moses went up into the mount, and a [the] cloud covered the mount. 16And the glory of Jehovah abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the [on the] seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. 17And the sight [appearance] of the glory of Jehovah was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel. 18And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Exo_24:12. And Jehovah said. The particular legislative relation of Jehovah here becomes again prominent, whereas heretofore the seventy elders of Israel may have represented Israel’s vocation to become a shepherd of the nations in their relation to Elohim. Moses is now summoned to a longer stay on the summit of the mountain. The mere reception of the tables is related in Exo_31:18. No very long stay was needed for that. What Moses as mediator of the law did upon the mountain, Jehovah did indeed do through him.3 But besides this there was added a new, grand task: the construction of the tabernacle. The law (or, the instruction) and the commandment. Not as two parts, but as two fundamental forms of the legislation. The law is originally oral instruction (thorah), but is written down as commandment only by Jehovah as the proper author, and is again to be transferred into living instruction for the people by the mouth of the prophet.
Exo_24:13. And Joshua.Vid.Exo_17:9, Exo_32:17, Exo_33:11. Mount of God.Vid.Exo_3:1.
Exo_24:14. Tarry ye here for us. At the foot of the mountain? That they were not to go any further with the people must have been quite self-evident. Moses goes now through the flame and the darkness as it were to death; he therefore institutes for the interim a government, which, standing between the mountain and the people, represents the outward sanctuary which was still wanting, and at the same time governs the people. Aaron and Hur (vid.Exo_17:12) are nominated as chief magistrates to settle suits that might arise.
Exo_24:15 sqq. Moses ascends the mountain, and is concealed by the cloud for six days. It is the cloud which at once reveals and conceals the glory of Jehovah, identical in significance with the pillar of cloud, but different from it in form, since it covers the mountain. On the seventh day Jehovah calls Moses to Himself out of the cloud, and the cloud is now transformed, to the people at the foot of the mountain, in its outward appearance, into the radiance of a consuming fire. Into this fiery radiance Moses enters, through the fiery flame, as it were, of the unapproachable justice of God (Heb_12:18; Heb_12:29), as it were, through the lightnings of the flaming sword of the cherubim (Genesis 3), in order to receive the fiery law (Deu_33:2) which goes through the world’s history under the protection of the cloudy darkness and of the fire (Psa_18:8-13; Psa_104:4, Isa_6:2-4, Zep_1:15, Zec_14:7, Mal_4:1, Mat_24:29, 2Pe_3:10, Revelation 18), in order to sanctify the people of God by means of judgment and deliverance, and to prepare for the reconstruction of the old world. The lawgiver had to be familiar with this design of the sacred fire, whose typical significance reaches its climax and turning-point in the life of Elijah. So then he seemed to the people to have disappeared; and after his stay of forty days and nights on the mountain where he had a vision of the tabernacle, the image of the kingdom of God, the people might imagine that he had perished in the terrors of the mountain. Knobel confounds the first stay of forty days on the mountain with the second. The origin of the idea of the tabernacle on the mountain coincides in time with the origin of the golden calf, and so there arises a contrast, in which nevertheless the tabernacle outweighs the golden calf. On the significance of the forty days, vid. the Introduction, as also the Introduction to Revelation.
Footnotes:
[1]The English edition omits the note. Keil argues that there is nowhere any indication that a nation in general approaches Jehovah through an offering. These young men officiated, he thinks, merely as Moses’ assistants, as is indicated by the circumstance that he sent them (Exo_24:5).—Tr.
[2][Keil, l. c. says: “The halving of the blood has nothing in common with the heathen customs cited by Bähr (Symbolik, II., p. 421) and Knobel (on this passage) according to which the contracting parties mingled their own blood. For it is not two different kinds of blood that are mixed together, but one blood, and that, sacrificial blood, in which animal life is taken away instead of human life..… Inasmuch as the blood is divided only because what is sprinkled on the altar cannot be taken up again from the altar and sprinkled on the people, the two halves of the blood are to be regarded as belonging together and so forming one blood, which is first sprinkled on the altar and then on the people, as was really done at the consecration of the priests, Exo_29:21, Lev_8:30.”—Tr.]
[3][In representing the commandments as committed to Writing by Moses, and not by Jehovah, Lange certainly has to strain the language of the text. It is true that God may be said to do what He commands Moses to do. But that would not justify the narrator in declaring with such particularity that the two tables were “written with the finger of God” (Exo_31:18), and that “the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God” (Exo_32:16). A man may be said to write what an amanuensis writes at his dictation; but if he expressly states that certain things are written with his own hand, it is unreasonable to suppose that they are written by the hand of another.—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18 young men--priests (Exo 19:22), probably the oldest sons of…
young men--priests (Exo 19:22), probably the oldest sons of particular families, who acted under the direction of Moses.
oxen--Other animals, though not mentioned, were offered in sacrifice (Heb 9:18-20).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18 RATIFICATION OF THE COVENANT, Exo_24:1-11.
RATIFICATION OF THE COVENANT, Exo_24:1-11.
1. He said unto Moses — That is, after having given unto him the judgments recorded in the book of the covenant, and before he went down to communicate them to the people. Moses had gone into the thick darkness to receive these laws, (Exo_20:21,) and now, before he returned to the people, (Exo_24:3,) he is instructed to bring with him, when he comes up into the mountain again, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. These persons, namely, Moses’s brother and the two oldest sons of the latter, and seventy of the most distinguished representatives of the people, (comp. Exo_18:25,) would thus stand between Moses and the people.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 1. And unto Moses he said] so the Heb.…
1. And unto Moses he said] so the Heb. The emphasis on ‘Moses’ implies that Jehovah had before, in a part of the narrative now lost, been speaking to someone else. The last preceding passage from J was Exo_19:20-25, ending abruptly, in the middle of a sentence. It may be inferred that the intermediate lost parts of J contained the words ‘said’ (Exo_19:25) by Moses to the people, and after those some commands given by Jehovah to the people,—perhaps (cf. Di., C.-H. ii. 134, McNeile, 32, Bä. XII, and the lucid statement in the Interpreter, Oct. 1908, p. 9 f.), Exo_34:1-5; Exo_34:10-28, in its original form (see p. 364 f.),—with which the instructions now given by Him to Moses are contrasted.
unto Jehovah] Jehovah speaking of Himself in the third person, as Exo_9:2, Exo_19:11; Exo_19:21-22; Exo_19:24.
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Nadab and Abihu] Aaron’s sons: Exo_6:23, Exo_28:1, Lev_10:1 ff.
seventy of the elders] representing the people generally.
worship ye afar off] in preparation, as it were, for the vision which they were to have afterwards, vv. 9–11.
1–2 (J). Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, are summoned up into the mountain, to Jehovah. The sequel follows in vv. 9–11.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 (1) And he said.—We should have expected “And God…
XXIV.
THE RATIFICATION OF THE COVENANT.
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(1) And he said.—We should have expected “And God said,” or “And Jehovah said.” The omission of the nominative is probably to be accounted for by the insertion into Exodus at this point of “the Book of the Covenant,” which was originally a distinct document. Exo_24:1 of Exodus 24 probably followed originally on Exo_20:21 of Exodus 20. The sequence of the words was then as follows: “And Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was. And he said unto Moses,” &c.
Come up.—The ascent of Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders seems to have been commanded in order to give greater solemnity to the ratification of the covenant between God and Israel, which is the main subject of this section. Moses received instructions on the subject before descending, and no doubt was divinely guided in the steps which he took previously to ascending with them.
Nadab, and Abihu.—Aaron’s two elder sons. (See Exo_6:23.)
Seventy of the elders.—These are not the “judges” of Exo_18:21-26, who were not yet appointed (see Note on Exo_18:24-25), but rather the heads of tribes and families who had exercised authority over the Israelites in Egypt, and through whom Moses had always communicated with the people. (See Exo_3:16; Exo_4:29; Exo_12:21; Exo_17:5-6.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Exodus 24
Exodus 24
This chapter opens with an expression remarkably characteristic of the entire Mosaic economy. "And he said unto Moses, Come up unto the Lord, thou and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship ye afar off . . .. they shall not come nigh, neither shall the people go up with him." We may search from end to end of the legal ritual, and not find those two precious words, "draw nigh." Ah! no; such words could never be heard from the top of Sinai, nor from amid the shadows of the law. They could only be uttered at heaven’s side of the empty tomb of Jesus, where the blood of the cross has opened a perfectly cloudless prospect to the vision of faith. The words, "afar off," are as characteristic of the law, as "draw nigh" are of the gospel. Under the law, the work was never done, which could entitle a sinner to draw nigh. Man had not fulfilled his promised obedience; and the "blood of calves and goats" could not atone for the failure, or give his guilty conscience peace. Hence, therefore, he had to stand "afar off." Man’s vows were broken and his sin unpurged; how, then, could he draw nigh The blood of ten thousand bullocks could not wipe away one stain from the conscience, or give the peaceful sense of nearness to God.
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However, the "first covenant" is here dedicated with blood. An altar is erected at the foot of the hill, with "twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel." "And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt-offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar .... And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words although, as the apostle teaches us, it was "impossible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin," yet did it "sanctify to the purifying of the flesh," and, as "a shadow of good things to come," it availed to maintain the people in relationship with Jehovah.
"Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God and did eat and drink." This was the manifestation of "the God of Israel," in light and purity, majesty and holiness. It was not the unfolding of the affections of a Father’s bosom, or the sweet accents of a Father’s voice, breathing peace and inspiring confidence into the heart. No; the "paved work of a sapphire stone " told out that unapproachable purity and light which could only tell a sinner to keep off Still, "they saw God and did eat and drink." Touching proof of divine forbearance and mercy, as also of the power of the blood!
Looking at this entire scene as a mere illustration, there is much to interest the heart. There is the defiled camp below and the sapphire pavement above; but the altar, at the foot of the hill, tells us of that way by which the sinner can make his escape from the defilement of his own condition, and mount up to the presence of God, there to feast and worship in perfect peace. The blood which flowed around the altar furnished man’s only title to stand in the presence of that glory which "was like a devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes or the children of Israel."
"And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount; and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights." This was truly a high and holy position for Moses. He was called away from earth and earthly things. abstracted from natural influences, he is shut in with God, to hear from his mouth the deep mysteries of the Person and work of Christ; for such, in point of fact, we have unfolded in the tabernacle and all its significant furniture!’ the patterns of things in the heavens." The blessed One knew full well what was about to be the end of man’s covenant of works; but He unfolds to Moses, in types and shadows, His own precious thoughts of love and counsels of grace, manifested in, and secured by, Christ.
Blessed, for evermore, be the grace which has not left us under a covenant of works. Blessed be He who has "hushed the law’s loud thunders and quenched mount Sinai’s flame" by "the blood of the everlasting covenant," and given us a peace which no power of earth or hell can shake. " Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 CHAPTER 8. But no change is necessary. It is…
SECTION XIV CHAPTER 24.
CHAPTER 8. But no change is necessary. It is quite natural that God should have given the directions before Moses descended from the mount, and that he should have deferred executing them until the people had accepted the covenant. Nadab and Abihu were the two eldest of Aaron"s sons, and so his natural successors in the priesthood, had they not sinned by offering "strange fire". (Lev_10:1, Lev_10:2) They had been mentioned previously, in Exo_6:23. Seventy of the elders. On the elders of Israel, see Exo_3:16, and Exo_8:21. The "seventy" eiders may, together with Nadab and Abihu, have represented the twelve tribes, six from each. Worship ye afar off. Though all were to ascend the mount to a certain height, only Moses was to go to the top. The others, being less holy than Moses, had to worship at a distance.
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HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Vers. 1-2, 9-11. The vision of God for the selected few.
I THOSE SELECTED FOR THIS VISION. That Moses himself went up was a matter of course. It was good for him to be there for the strengthening of his own faith. He himself would rejoice in the assurance thus given that the promise of the people was accepted. As to those who went up with him, it is clear that in the revelation something was being done to prepare them for official positions afterwards. They got this glorious sight not because they deserved it more than others, but because they needed it more. Moses required helps in order that he might be a mediator between God and the whole nation, and so these men, the seventy elders in particular, needed help in acting as mediators between Moses and the people. Doubtless it was intended that they should go down again among the people and be witnesses as to what they had seen. Would it not give an elder greater influence in after days if the people took knowledge of him that he had been with Moses in the mount? Notice, that in spite of this great revelation, Aaron soon fell away into the great transgression of the golden calf, and a little later Nadab and Abihu perished before the Lord for their disobedience. And may we not say that their sin was all the greater, just because they had been favoured with a privilege which they had failed to profit by?
II THE VISION ITSELF. "They saw the God of Israel." There is a mysterious yet most instructive reticence as to exactly what it was that they saw. As to what shape and form were seen nothing is said; and even concerning the circumstances nothing more is ventured than an indication o! the sapphire work on which he stood. And since we find this reticence of description it behoves us to put corresponding restraint on our conjectures: we may infer that the purpose of this vision was to give a plain and encouraging contrast between what was now seen and what had been seen before. When God"s people are at peace with him and there was a symbolic peace at this time then there is a cessation of such terrorising manifestations as we read of in ch. 19. When we see all that strange mingling of terrible darkness, light, and sound, which make up the thunderstorm, we know that Nature is striving to recover her balance. That balance recovered, the body of heaven resumes its clearness; nay it often appears in even more than its accustomed beauty. All the dark and frowning appearances of God, all things that shake and confuse the soul, are meant to lead on to a calming and attracting revelation of God such as this revelation to Aaron and his companions but feebly typifies. First, the presence of God is made known amid thunder, lightning and smoke, and everything trembles to its centre at but the touch of his feet: then there is the change to where he is lifted clean above the polluting earth. Instead of disturbance there is unruffled peace, the beauty and profundity of the cloudless heaven. Thus by this outward symbol should we think of the quiet, untroubled heart where dwells the reconciled God. The more complete that reconciliation, the more settled the peace which we have with God, the more may the state of our hearts be indicated by the language which is here employed.
III THE EXPERIENCES OF THIS CHOSEN COMPANY DURING THE VISION.
1. They were made to feel unmistakably God"s benignity towards them. He did not lay his hand upon them. That they were not swiftly stretched in death upon the mountain side is spoken of as if in itself a subject of congratulation. The negative must come before the positive. The thought of complete salvation from danger must precede the thought of positive growth and enrichment. It was scarcely credible that men should see God and live. How dependent we are for our conclusions on narrow experiences, sometimes on most superstitious fears! The day is coming when, if we only accept all purifying ministrations, we shall not only see God and live, but also wonder that so long we should have been able to live without seeing him.
2. This benignity is particularly experienced in their being allowed to eat and drink before God. It is in the companionship of the table that social intercourse is commonly supposed to reach its perfection. This eating and drinking before God indicated that a certain composure of mind had been attained, and that the company had some real enjoyment of the position in which it was placed. There is a setting forth of the Divine blessing which ever rests on true fellowship of the saints. As many as are right with God personally are drawn together for united enjoyment as well as for united service. There is no place where the hearts of men are really one but when they are gathered before him who has the sapphire work under his feet. There, and there only, do we find the secret of that penetrating harmony which dissolves and utterly destroys all discords. Y.
HOMILIES BY H. T. ROBJOHNS
Vers. 1, 2, 9-11. The Covenant made.
1. THE VISION OF GOD (1, 2, 9, 11).
1. It is for the called alone. God manifests himself only to the repentant andthe believing.
2. These are commanded to approach. This is our warrant for confident boldness of access: he has called us.
3. The vision is bestowed upon those from whose midst the mediator hasgone into God"s immediate presence and who wait his return (ver. 2).
4. It is given as they go upwards into the mount where the Lord"s will isdeclared (9). The heart which seeks after holiness admits the light in which God will by-and-by be manifested.
5. The vision is sure: "they saw the God of Israel.
6. For the called the vision of God is not destruction, but safety and joy.We meet the unveiling, not only of infinite holiness, but also of infinite love. The vision of the Divine glory was a wonder and delight; and the place of vision became a place of feasting.
II THE RATIFYING OF THE COVENANT.
1. It was made with a willing people: "all the words which the Lord hathsaid will we do.
2. It was made with a people who were in possession of God"s testimonies:he "told them all the words of the law," he "wrote all the words of the Lord." God"s light must reveal sin and need before it may manifest his salvation.
3. God and his people are bound together by the blood of acceptedsacrifice. The blood of sprinkling is peace and power to the saved. U.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Vers. 1, 2, 9-12. A vision of God.
Prior to the ratification of the covenant, God had given Mosesinstructions that, immediately on the conclusion of the ceremonies, he, together with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu (representatives of the future priesthood), and seventy of the elders of Israel (representatives of the body of the people), should again ascend the mountain (vers. 1, 2). The design was to partake of a sacrificial feast, perhaps held on the flesh of the peace-offerings of ver. 5, by way of solemn conclusion to the proceedings of the day. Another part of the design was that the eiders might receive a new revelation of Jehovah, setting forth the milder glories of his character as a God reconciled with Israel, in contradistinction to the manifestations on Sinai, which revealed him solely as the God of law and terror. The later revelation was the counterbalance of the earlier. It does that justice to the character of God, as standing in friendly relations to his people, which was not possible in harmony with the special design, and within the special limits, of the revelation from the summit of the mount. It showed him as the God of grace. It taught Israel to think of him, to love him, to trust him, and to worship him as such. It kept them from being overwhelmed by the remembrance of the former terrors. It forestalled that view of the graciousness of God which was afterwards peculiarly associated with the mercy-seat and with Mount Zion, and is now the aspect of his character predominant in the Gospel. (see on Sinai and Zion, Exo_19:16-19) We are told, accordingly, that when the company ascended the mount, "they saw the God of Israel" (ver. 10). What they did see is not further described than that "there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness" (ver. 10). The vision, however, was plainly one addressed to the outer or inner sense, an "appearance" of God in some recognisable way. So mild and beneficent was the spectacle, nevertheless, that it seems to have disarmed all terror; and Aaron and his sons, with the "nobles," ate and drank while still witnessing it. We may regard the vision, in its relation to the situation of Israel, as
1. Declarative. It gave a view of the character of God.
(1) To some extent of his essential character. The blue of the sapphire symbolised his holiness, while in the deep, clear ether was mirrored his untroubled purity, his superiority to earthly passion and disturbance, his perfect blessedness, his transcendency over creation, etc.
(2) More especially of his gracious character. The idea suggested was that of a God at peace with Israel reconciled. The vision would be read in its contrast with the previous revelation. The terrors of the law-giving were now laid aside; all is sweetness, beauty, mildness, serenity, love. This vision of God as a God at peace with Israel, is mediated by the offering of sacrifice. It is so also under the Gospel. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself". (2Co_5:19)
2. Symbolic ofprivilege.
(1) The "nobles," though in God"s presence, suffered no harm. "Upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand" (ver. 11). He might have done so, for they were by nature sinners. But they were safe, as sprinkled with blood of atonement, and as in presence of a God of mercy. Though sinners, we are permitted in Christ to draw nigh to God. He will not harm us; he will welcome, accept of, and bless us.
(2) Though in God"s presence, they "did eat and drink" (ver. 11). They had this freedom before him; this feeling of confidence. It is only the revelation of God as a God of grace which can inspire this confidence. Their eating and drinking was symbolical of the privilege of every pious Israelite, sheltered from his sin in God"s mercy, and taking confidence from his word of grace. Much more is it symbolic of the privilege of Christians, in whom perfect love casts out fear. (1Jn_4:18)
1. Prefigurative of future blessedness. The goal of the kingdom of God is the feast of perfected bliss in glory, where the saints shall eat and drink and see God with no intervening veils, and in the full beauty of his love and holiness.
2. A warning. These seventy elders ate and drank in God"s presence, yet at last perished in the desert. Nadab and Abihu were consumed by fire. Cf. the warning. (Luk_13:26, Luk_13:27)
Lessons
1. The vision of God in Christ disarms fear.
2. Let us try to see God, even in our eating and drinking. (1Co_10:31)
3. Those sheltered by Christ"s blood are safe. Note the following
(1) There are those who eat and drink, and do not see God.
(2) There are those who see God, and cannot eat and drink.
(3) There are those who eat and drink, and see God" (Rev. W.B. Robertson, D.D.). J.O.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 9, 12 Behold the blood of the covenant.
Exo_24:1-8
Behold the blood of the covenant.
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The sprinkling of blood
I. He sprinkled the book in his hand. It was the Bible of his day, and yet it needed sprinkling. And we hold our Bibles--do they need sprinkling? The Bible is the transmitted mind of God--it is perfect truth, it is essential holiness--must it be sprinkled? Human words are all unclean. The mind of God must pass to men through the organs of the human voice--and that humanity mingling even with the revelation of God, wants washing. The materials of which the book is made are human. And again and again with our defiled hands we have soiled it--and we never open the book but it is a sinners hand that touches it. Our Bibles need the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.
II. And he sprinkled the altar--for he had reared it. The altar was a holy thing--dedicate, consecrated, yet for the manhood which was associated with it, it needed the sprinkling of the blood. And we have our altars. You rise in the morning, and you set up your altar on your bedside-and when you rise from your knees, how many wandering thoughts, what coldness and dulness of soul, what mixture of motive, calls out for mercy. The altar of the bedroom--it must be sprinkled. You come down, and you gather round the family altar. But is there no one there, in that little assembly, whose heart is wrong with God? Does the worship of the family all go up in purity? Is it not a dull thing--that family prayer each morning--a mere routine? And does not it want the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus?
III. Moses sprinkled the people. There is no part of man that does not need that sprinkling.
IV. The sprinkling of the blood was the token that whatever it touched became covenant. We have our covenanted Bibles and our covenanted altars; we ourselves are in covenant with Christ. Do you know that the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is on you? And all that you must recognize if you would obey God. You must not rely upon All the words that the Lord hath spoken we will do. But you must go as a sprinkled and covenanted people, or you will not go at all. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The blood of the covenant
I. The sacredness of blood. This is taught both in Old and New Testament.
II. The Christian covenant is a covenant of blood. The blood of the eternal Son of God, shed on Calvary, sprinkled on the high altar of heaven and on all who approach with penitence and faith.
III. The covenant which Christ has instituted with His people is the most sacred covenant which God ever made with man.
IV. The Lords supper is a memorial and a solemn public ratification of this Divine blood covenant. It sprinkles us afresh with the blood of the great atonement. (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)
The covenant
I. Divinely revealed.
1. Revealed faithfully.
(1) Words. for direction and encouragement.
(2) Judgment, for warning.
2. Revealed intelligently.
(1) Not an appeal to superstition and credulity.
(2) In language which all could understand.
(3) Under circumstances attesting Divine origin.
(4) An appeal to reason, piety, interest.
II. Accepted by man.
1. Unanimously.
2. Heartily.
3. Specifically.
4. Speedily.
III. Permanently embodied. A written revelation is--
1. Necessary.
2. Advantageous.
3. Important.
IV. Arrangements carefully and impressively prepared.
1. Altar and pillars--representing God and people.
2. Young men--symbolizing strength and earnestness that should be exerted in keeping covenant engagement.
3. Sacrifices.
(1) Burnt-offerings, to signify dedication of people to Jehovah.
(2) Peace-offerings, as typifying Jehovahs reconciliation with people.
V. Ratified with blood. In conclusion--
1. Christ is the Mediator of a better covenant.
2. That His blood is sprinkled on the altar of God (Heb_9:12), and in the heart of His people (Heb_9:13-15).
3. That He has instituted a perpetual memorial of His precious death until His coming again (1Co_9:25). (J. W. Burn.)
Gods covenant with Israel
I. The preparation and separation. God and Israel were to bind themselves in sacred oath. God was ready. Was man ready? Reverence and humility were required, a deep sense of the full meaning of all that was to be said and done. Special preparation is always demanded for special exhibitions of the Divine glory and power, and for special seasons of covenanting with God. Man is never ready for pledges of love and loyalty until he has sanctified himself through penitence and prayer.
II. The people informed. Let the leaders of Gods host plainly point out the path. The need of our age is not speculation but declaration of things revealed by those who have been on the mount with God, have beheld His glory, and have received a message for dying men. The people would know what God has said, not what men imagine or guess. How about our Father in heaven? What are His purposes of grace? What are the conditions of blessing? These are the burning questions of our age and of all ages. If any one has been on the mount and heard the voice, let him come down and tell us what he knows. The world is waiting.
III. Ratification of the covenant. Deliberation is always demanded before pledges of acceptance and obedience are made. No act of human life is more solemn than that of covenanting with God. Before men begin to build, they should count the cost. Many who run well for awhile afterwards halt and turn back because they started under the impulse of a sudden and ill-considered emotion. Christianity is righteous principle put in practice.
IV. Sealing the covenant. Remember the hour, the spot, all the circumstances attending your public avowal of faith in Jesus Christ, and your covenanting with God and with His people. How have these vows been kept? How have the conditions of blessing been fulfilled? God has never failed you. Have you failed Him? Oh, these covenants! How many have been broken! These vows! How many have been slighted! We should frequently go back to the altar under the hill, and recall the sealing blood.
V. New visions of God. This doubtless was a far more distinct vision than the former, when the law was given amid clouds and darkness and tempest. That was a display of majesty; this is of love. The language of the former was: Obey and thou shalt live. The language of the latter is: Love and confide. A little while before the vision was of a Law-giver. Now it is of a Saviour, inspiring confidence and peace. The mercy-seat appears. Gods glory is seen in the face of Jesus Christ, typified by the sapphire stone and, as I suppose, by the dimly outlined form of the worlds Redeemer. (J. E. Twitchell.)
The strictness of Gods law
The Bible is so strict and old-fashioned, said a young man to a grey-haired friend who was advising him to study Gods Word if he would learn how to live. There are plenty of books written now-a-days that are moral enough in their teaching, and do not bind one down as the Bible. The old merchant turned to his desk, and took out two rulers, one of which was slightly bent. With each of these he ruled a line, and silently handed the ruled paper to his companion. Well, said the lad, what do you mean? One line is not straight and true, is it? When you mark out your path in life, do not take a crooked ruler! (S. S. Chronicle.)
Belief and disobedience
Suppose, says the late Archbishop Whately, two men each received a letter from his father, giving directions for his childrens conduct; and that one of these sons hastily, and without any good grounds, pronounced the letter a forgery, and refused to take any notice of it; while the other acknowledged it to be genuine, and laid it up with great reverence, and then acted without the least regard to the advice and commands contained in the letter: you would say that both of these men, indeed, were very wrong; but the latter was much the more undutiful son of the two. Now this is the case of a disobedient Christian, as compared with infidels. He does not like them pronounce his Fathers letter a forgery; that is, deny the truth of the Christian revelation; but he acts in defiance in his life to that which he acknowledges to be the Divine command.
The sealing of the covenant
I. What occurred? The Law had been given, amplified (chaps. 21-23), and endorsed by the people (Exo_24:3). Necessary now to uncover that atonement which is ever the ground of Gods dealings with man. Hence the altar. No soul was to touch it, for the atonement is the creation of God. Still man had a part in these covenantal transactions, hence twelve pillars = twelve tribes. But sacrifice on the altar--the burnt offering = life surrendered--and the peace offering = communion with God and one another. The sacrifices were slain by young men = the flower of Israel. The Levitical priesthood not yet. Every age has its own special service for God. The blood was preserved. Now the blood stands for life. Half disappeared in fire on the altar. Gone! = forfeited life of the sinner. Half thrown back upon the people = life restored to man. How Israel ascended to a higher plane of life (Exo_24:9). In the only possible way--representatively. Then came the vision of God (Exo_24:10). Then the banquet (see Son_2:3-4).
II. What did it mean?
1. Salvation has its ground in God and God alone. Calvary potentially before the Christian era, actually since, the Divine ground of salvation.
2. Forfeited life is given back to man on the ground of Christs atonement. Life, capacity, faculty, are all given back now to be mans very own.
3. Now again to be given back to God in consecration. Being now my very own (in the sense just hinted), I give my own to God. This self-surrender is vital. The surrender is to be complete in intent and purpose. And the obligation presses now. Delay is disloyalty.
4. There will then be peace. With God; with ourselves; with men.
5. Life will move on a higher level (Exo_24:9; Exo_24:12-13). (Emphasize the meaning in the words And BE there: And Moses went up into the Mount of God.) Valley men have no idea of the bracing atmosphere, the brilliant light, the wider view, the grander visions, to be found on the mountain-plateau. It is so in Switzerland; so with the mountains celestial.
6. There shall be visions of God (Exo_24:10). Bushnell says: So gloriously has my experience of God opened His greatness to me, I seem to have got beyond all physical images and measures, even those of astronomy, and simply to think God is to find and bring into my feeling more than even the imagination can reach. I bless God that it is so. I am cheered by it, encouraged, sent onward, and, in what He gives me, begin to have some very faint impression of the glory yet to be revealed.
7. And banquetings and satisfactions of soul (Exo_24:11). As the body has its nutriment, so the soul. No more husks. High thought befitting immortal man. Manna: Hidden manna. Here on earth. At the marriage supper of the Lamb. Thereafter to all eternity. (H. T. Robjohns, B.A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Exodus 24
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE COVENANT RATIFIED. THE VISION OF GOD.
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Exodus 24
The opening words of this chapter ("Come up unto the Lord") imply, without explicitly asserting, that Moses was first sent down to convey to Israel the laws which had just been enacted.
This code they unanimously accepted, and he wrote it down. It is a memorable statement, recording the origin of the first portion of Holy Scripture that ever existed as such, whatever earlier writings may now or afterwards have been incorporated in the Pentateuch. He then built an altar for God, and twelve pillars for the tribes, and sacrificed burnt-offerings and peace-offerings unto the Lord. Sin-offerings, it will be observed, were not yet instituted; and neither was the priesthood, so that young men slew the offerings. Half of the blood was poured upon the altar, because God had perfected His share in the covenant. The remainder was not used until the law had been read aloud, and the people had answered with one voice, "All that the Lord hath commanded will we do, and will be obedient." Thereupon they too were sprinkled with the blood, and the solemn words were spoken, "Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words." The people were now finally bound: no later covenant of the same kind will be found in the Old Testament.
And now the principle began to work which was afterwards embodied in the priesthood. That principle, stated broadly, was exclusion from the presence of God, relieved and made hopeful by the admission of representatives. The people were still forbidden to approach, under pain of death. But Moses and Aaron were no longer the only ones to cross the appointed boundaries. With them came the two sons of Aaron, (afterwards, despite their privilege, to meet a dreadful doom,) and also seventy representatives of all the newly covenanted people. Joshua, too, as the servant of Moses, was free to come, although unspecified in the summons (Exo_24:1, Exo_24:13).
"They saw the God of Israel," and under His feet the blueness of the sky like intense sapphire. And they were secure: they beheld God, and ate and drank.
But in privilege itself there are degrees: Moses was called up still higher, and left Aaron and Hur to govern the people while he communed with his God. For six days the nation saw the flanks of the mountain swathed in cloud, and its summit crowned with the glory of Jehovah like devouring fire. Then Moses entered the cloud, and during forty days they knew not what had become of him. Was it time lost? Say rather that all time is wasted except what is spent in communion, direct or indirect, with the Eternal.
The narrative is at once simple and sublime. We are sometimes told that other religions besides our own rely for sanction upon their supernatural origin. "Zarathustra, S‰kya-Mooni and Mahomed pass among their followers for envoys of the Godhead; and in the estimation of the Brahmin the Vedas and the laws of Manou are holy, divine books" (Kuenen, Religion of Israel, i. 6). This is true. But there is a wide difference between nations which assert that God privately appeared to their teachers, and a nation which asserts that God appeared to the public. It is not upon the word of Moses that Israel is said to have believed; and even those who reject the narrative are not entitled to confound it with narratives utterly dissimilar. There is not to be found anywhere a parallel for this majestic story.
But what are we to think of the assertion that God was seen to stand upon a burning mountain?
He it is Whom no man hath seen or can see, and in His presence the seraphim veil their faces.
It will not suffice to answer that Moses "endured as seeing Him that is invisible" (Heb_11:27), for the paraphrase is many centuries later, and hostile critics will rule it out of court as an after-thought. At least, however, it proves that the problem was faced long ago, and tells us what solution satisfied the early Church.
With this clue before us, we ask what notion did the narrative really convey to its ancient readers? If our defence is to be thoroughly satisfactory, it must show an escape from heretical and carnal notions of deity, not only for ourselves, but also for careful readers from the very first.
Now it is certain that no such reader could for one moment think of a manifestation thorough, exhaustive, such as the eye receives of colour and of form. Because the effect produced is not satisfaction, but desire. Each new vision deepens the sense of the unseen. Thus we read first that Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and the seventy elders, saw God, from which revelation the people felt and knew themselves to be excluded. And yet the multitude also had a vision according to its power to see; and indeed it was more satisfying to them than was the most profound insight enjoyed by Moses. To see God is to sail to the horizon: when you arrive, the horizon is as far in front as ever; but you have gained a new consciousness of infinitude. "The appearance of the glory of the Lord was seen like devouring fire in the eyes of the children of Israel" (Exo_24:17). But Moses was aware of a glory far greater and more spiritual than any material splendour. When theophanies had done their utmost, his longing was still unslaked, and he cried out, "Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory" (Exo_33:18). To his consciousness that glory was still veiled, which the multitude sufficiently beheld in the flaming mountain. And the answer which he received ought to put the question at rest for ever, since, along with the promise "All My goodness shall pass before thee," came the assertion "Thou shalt not see My face, for no man shall see Me and live."
So, then, it is not our modern theology, but this noble book of Exodus itself, which tells us that Moses did not and could not adequately see God, however great and sacred the vision which he beheld. From this book we learn that, side by side with the most intimate communion and the clearest possible unveiling of God, grew up the profound consciousness that only some attributes and not the essence of deity had been displayed.
It is very instructive also to observe the steps by which Moses is led upward. From the burning bush to the fiery cloud, and thence to the blazing mountain, there was an ever-deepening lesson of majesty and awe. But in answer to the prayer that he might really see the very glory of his Lord, his mind is led away upon entirely another pathway: it is "All My goodness" which is now to "pass before" him, and the proclamation is of "a God full of compassion and gracious," yet retaining His moral firmness, so that He "will by no means clear the guilty."
What can cloud and fire avail, toward the manifesting of a God Whose essence is His love? It is from the Old Testament narrative that the New Testament inferred that Moses endured as seeing indeed, yet as seeing Him Who is inevitably and for ever invisible to eyes of flesh: he learned most, not when he beheld some form of awe, standing on a paved work of sapphire stone and as it were the very heaven for clearness, but when hidden in a cleft of the rock and covered by the hand of God while He passed by.
On one hand the people saw the glory of God: on the other hand it was the best lesson taught by a far closer access, still to pray and yearn to see that glory. The seventy beheld the God of Israel: for their leader was reserved the more exalting knowledge, that beyond all vision is the mystic overshadowing of the Divine, and a voice which says "No man shall see Me and live." The difference in heart is well typified in this difference in their conduct, that they saw God and ate and drank, but he, for forty days, ate not. Satisfaction and assurance are a poor ideal compared with rapt aspiration and desire.
Thus we see that no conflict exists between this declaration and our belief in the spirituality of God.
We have still to ask what is the real force of the assertion that God was in some lesser sense seen of Israel, and again, more especially, of its leaders.
What do we mean even by saying that we see each other?--that, observing keenly, we see upon one face cunning, upon another sorrow, upon a third the peace of God? Are not these emotions immaterial and invisible as the essence of God Himself? Nay, so invisible is the reality within each bosom, that some day all that eye hath seen shall fall away from us, and yet the true man shall remain intact.
Man has never seen more than a hint, an outcome, a partial self-revelation or self-betrayal of his fellow-man.
"Yes, in the sea of life in-isled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
God bade betwixt 'our' shores to be
The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea."
And yet, incredible as the paradox would seem, if it were not too common to be strange, the play of muscles and rush of blood, visible through the skin, do reveal the most spiritual and immaterial changes. Even so the heavens declare that very glory of God which baffled the undimmed eyes of Moses. So it was, also, that when rended rocks and burning skies revealed a more immanent action of Him Who moves through all nature always, when convulsions hitherto undreamed of by those dwellers in Egyptian plains overwhelmed them with a new sense of their own smallness and a supreme Presence, God was manifested there.
Not unlike this is the explanation of St. Augustine, "We need not be surprised that God, invisible as He is, appeared visibly to the patriarchs. For, as the sound which communicates the thought conceived in the silence of the mind is not the thought itself, so the form by which God, invisible in His own nature, became visible, was not God Himself. Nevertheless it was He Himself Who was seen under that form, as the thought itself is heard in the sound of the voice; and the patriarchs recognised that, although the bodily form was not God, they saw the invisible God. For, though Moses was conversing with God, yet he said, 'If I have found grace in Thy sight, show me Thyself'" (De Civ. Dei, x. 13). And again: "He knew that he saw corporeally, but he sought the true vision of God spiritually" (De Trin., ii. 27).
It has still to be added that His manifestation is exactly suited to the stage now reached in the education of Israel. Their fathers had already "seen God" in the likeness of man: Abraham had entertained Him; Jacob had wrestled with Him. And so Joshua before Ai, and Manoah by the rock at Zorah, and Ezekiel by the river Chebar, should see the likeness of a man. We who believe the doctrine of a real Incarnation can well perceive that in these passing and mysterious glimpses God was not only revealing Himself in the way which would best prepare humanity for His future coming in actual manhood, but also in the way by which, meanwhile, the truest and deepest light could be thrown upon His nature, a nature which could hereafter perfectly manifest itself in flesh. Why, then, do not the records of the Exodus hint at a human likeness? Why did they "behold no similitude"? Clearly because the masses of Israel were utterly unprepared to receive rightly such a vision. To them the likeness of man would have meant no more than the likeness of a flying eagle or a calf. Idolatry would have followed, but no sense of sympathy, no consciousness of the grandeur and responsibility of being made in the likeness of God. Anthropomorphism is a heresy, although the Incarnation is the crowning doctrine of the faith.
But it is hard to see why the human likeness of God should exist in Genesis and Joshua, but not in the history of the Exodus, if that story be a post-Exilian forgery.
This is not all. The revelations of God in the desert were connected with threats and prohibitions: the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And with the different tone of the message a different aspect of the speaker was to be expected. From the blazing crags of Sinai, fenced around, the voice of a trumpet waxing louder and louder, said "Thou shalt not!" On the green hill by the Galil¾an lake Jesus sat down, and His disciples came unto Him, and He opened His mouth and said "Blessed."
Now, the conscience of every sinner knows that the God of the commandments is dreadful. It is of Him, not of hell, that Isaiah said "The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling hath surprised the godless ones. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" (Isa_33:14).
For him who rejects the light yoke of the Lord of Love, the fires of Sinai are still the truest revelation of deity; and we must not deny Sinai because we know Bethlehem. We must choose between the two.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 9, 12 Exo_24:1. “And he said unto Moses.”] These words should…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Exo_24:1. “And he said unto Moses.”] These words should be read in connection with Exo_20:18. The order of events seems to be this—After Moses had received the ten commandments, he drew near again “where God was,” and then he received the book of the covenant (Exo_20:19 to Exo_23:33); and before leaving the presence of God he was asked to appear again, accompanied by Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, together with seventy of the elders of Israel (Exo_24:1, &c.)
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Exo_24:6. And half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.] This preliminary to the act of communication of the book of the covenant to the people signifies that God pledged Himself to fulfil His part of the covenant independently of the acceptance of it by the people.
Exo_24:7. And he took the book, &c], i.e., after God had declared Himself bound to the fulfilment of the covenant.
Exo_24:8. And sprinkled it on the people,] i.e., after the book of the covenant had been read out “in the audience,” bê-osney = into the ears. Thus they were not asked to declare their willingness to do and obey the words until they had heard them distinctly read. Amid all the awful grandeur of the scene God dealt with them as intelligent agents. The objection that Moses could not have made himself heard by so vast a multitude, 600,000, besides children, is met by the fact that the covenant was made not with individuals but with the whole Jewish nation, so that there could be no ground found for dissent on the part of individuals from the engagements of those who heard the words of the covenant and promised obedience to them. The same argument is applicable to the sprinkling of the blood “on the people,” which, in all probability, was only sprinkled on some few individuals who were considered as representatives of the whole nation.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exo_24:1-8
THE RATIFICATION OF THE DIVINE COVENANT
There are divine regulations in nature, but these are not sufficient for man’s guidance. Nature teaches only in symbol, and these symbols cannot always be clearly read and interpreted. Nature’s teachings are not adequate as a rule of life for man as a moral agent. The scientific man and the philosopher would not be satisfied without a book revelation. And the moralist, who should be the true philosopher, will ask for a direct revelation on morals. And this requirement is met. The true guide for man in the realm of morals is the revelation of God as found in the Bible; taken in its completeness, read and interpreted under the guidance of a discriminating wisdom. The old covenant will tend to illustrate the new; and the new will declare what part of the old is perpetually binding.
I. God makes a covenant with His people. Though the terms of the old covenant were strict and severe, yet they were evidently designed for the good of the people to whom they were delivered. We cannot possibly imagine any advantage that might accrue to the Divine Being from this ancient covenant. But from time to time we have seen that great advantage would result to the people, in so far as they followed the divine rules for life and conduct. Here, again, the divine mercy may be marked in that God makes a covenant with His people. He does not at once destroy, but labours for their social and national prosperity.
II. God reveals the terms of His covenant by specially endowed messengers. Moses was specially endowed as a messenger of God. He displayed the possession of those qualities fitting him in an eminent degree to be a legislator. He ruled with a wise spirit. He stands forth as one of the master spirits of humanity. He was further fitted for his office by special divine communications, and by special disclosures of the divine glory. He alone stands in the divine presence. The people must stand afar off. The elders must worship at a distance. And even the gifted Aaron—the progenitor of a noble priesthood—must not come nigh. In solitude, Moses must approach the mysterious realm. This Moses was the one to tell the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments. Those lips, touched with the divine hand and made reflective of the divine glory, must read the book of the covenant in the audience of the people. The old covenant was given by Moses who reflected the divine glory, but the new is given by Him who was the incarnation and visible manifestation of the divine glory.
III. God gives definiteness and permanence to the covenant. “And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord.” Yea, God Himself is represented as writing, and we find reference made to the commandments which God had written. Oral instruction is not sufficient. The voice of tradition is vague. As time advances that voice becomes feeble and wavering. The moral code must be clear and definite. This writing of the covenant may be taken as symbolical of its permanence. To this day the broad spirit—the true essential—of the covenant is working in all legal codes and religious systems.
IV. God gives solemn emphasis to the covenant by sacred ceremonials. We may suppose that Moses acted under divine direction. The hands of Moses built the altar, but the mind of God directed the human movements. The altar raised as indicative of the divine presence, and the twelve pillars representative of the dwelling place of the twelve tribes. Moses sends the young men, the life and vigour of the people, to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice peace offerings, the divine and human sides of the great solemnity. Part of the blood was sprinkled on the altar, an act of solemn dedication of their humanity in its completeness to God, and then the other part was sprinkled upon the people, which may be regarded as the divine response and acceptance. The first Testament was dedicated with blood. Thus the covenant was rendered emphatic by solemn observances. The blood sprinkled on the altar and on the people would be calculated to inspire deep reverence.
V. God requires a voluntary assent to the terms of His covenant. There was something of the nature of an appeal to the people. In fact, the whole circumstances, in connection with the promulgation of the covenant, constituted an eloquent appeal. The reading of the book of the covenant by such a reader, and on an occasion so deeply impressive and affecting, was plainly calculated to draw forth the universal utterance: “All the words which the Lord hath said will we do.” The whole people joined in the declaration. There was a pleasing unanimity in the promise, but there was unpleasant difference as to the performance. The man who at first refuses and then performs is nobler than the man who too readily acquiesces, and then fails to fulfil his vows.
VI. Man’s highest wisdom is to promise and perform obedience to all the terms of God’s covenant. Well would it have been for these people if they had kept to their brave resolve—“All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.” There are poetical states in peoples, and then they are apt to be free with their promises. But the prosaic condition soon arrives, and then the promises are broken. God’s covenant ever commends itself to man’s higher nature, or to man’s nature in its loftier and holier moods. The temptations of life, and the weakness of the flesh, render us unwilling to practice, and then unbelieving as to the virtue of the divine covenant. Obedience is the pathway of light, the pathway of true divine knowledge, and the pathway to the realisation of divine benedictions. Let us obey, and then shall we know the blessedness of all divine covenants.
There is a slight disarrangement in this chapter, as Ewald and speakers commonly shew. Exo_24:3 logically follows Exo_23:33 of previous chapter, and Exo_24:1-2 should be inserted between Exo_24:8-9.
—W. Burrows, B.A.
THE COVENANT.—Exo_24:3-8
This was one of the most impressive acts of a most impressive dispensation. It was also one of the most important, inasmuch as
(1) God used this opportunity to “avouch Himself to be the God” of Israel, and Israel “avouched themselves to be His people.” And
(2) it is the great fact upon which the New Testament lays stress as typifying the great covenant work of our Lord Jesus Christ (1Co_11:25; Heb_8:9 For some valuable remarks in this latter application, see Dales’ “Jewish Temple and Christian Church,” p. 163).
I. The covenant was divinely revealed. “And Moses came and told the people.”
1. It was revealed faithfully. “All the words of the Lord and all the judgments.”
(1.) It consisted of “words” for their direction and encouragement.
(2.) It consisted of judgment for their warning: so the covenant of Jesus Christ consisted of “beatitudes” and “woes.”
2. It was revealed intelligently. Moses had no interest in suppressing anything. He was a good man, and would not suppress anything.
(1.) It was not an appeal to their superstition and credulity. It consisted of laws upon the wisdom and beneficence of which 2000 years of legislation have not improved.
(2.) It was revealed in language which they could all understand.
(3.) It was revealed under circumstances which attested its divine origin.
(4.) It was an appeal to their reason, piety, and interest.
II. The covenant was accepted by man.
1. Unanimously. “All the people … with one voice.”
2. Heartily. “We will do.”
3. Specifically. “All the words which the Lord hath said.” There had been a general acceptance before (Exo_19:8).
4. Speedily. “Moses rose up early in the morning.”
III. The covenant was permanently embodied. “And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord.”
1. A written revelation is necessary. Memory is not to be trusted. Traditions from a long past are apt to be vague or to diminish or be added to. Books fix facts.
2. A written revelation is advantageous.
(1.) A perpetual direction for obedience and warning against disobedience.
(2.) A standing witness of the divine wisdom and goodness.
3. A written revelation is important. An everlasting record for man’s benefit of what has proceeded from the mind of God.
IV. The arrangements for the covenant were carefully and impressively prepared.
1. (1) An altar was built to represent God, and
(2) pillars to represent His people.
2. Young men were selected for special service as symbolising the strength and earnestness that should be exerted in keeping our covenant engagement.
3. Sacrifices were offered.
(1.) Burnt-offerings, to signify the dedication of the people to Jehovah.
(2.) Peace-offerings, as typifying Jehovah’s reconciliation with His people.
V. The covenant was ratified with blood.
1. Half the blood of the sacrifices was sprinkled on the altar to signify Israel’s dedication to God.
2. One more opportunity was given to the people to withdraw from their engagement. The law was read and the people renewed their vows.
3. Then the other half of the blood was sprinkled on the people, signifying the purification of the people and the certainty of the divine favours, and the whole ceremony closed with the memorable words, Exo_24:8.
In conclusion—
1. Christ is the mediator of a better covenant.
2. That His blood is sprinkled on the altar of God (Heb_9:12), and in the heart of His people (Heb_9:13-15).
3. That He has instituted a “perpetual memorial of His previous death until His coming again” (1Co_9:25).
—J. W. Burn.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exo_24:1-8. Again, I see the seventy left at some little distance; I see Moses alone go up into the mount; and I see the affairs of the people committed to Aaron and Hur. It appears to me this is a beautiful presentment of what is going on in the present dispensation, when the affairs of the Lord’s kingdom are administered through subordinate instrumentality. The 4th of Ephesians tells us that, when the Lord Jesus Christ ascended to the right hand of God, “He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” But, meantime, higher transactions are going on in the mount—transactions of which you and I know nothing except through the precious lattices of the promises. By and by the time will come when we shall see our glorious Head; see Him in His glory, see Him as he is.—Krause.
We may search from end to end of the legal ritual, and not find those two precious words, “draw nigh.” Ah! no; such words could never be heard from the top of Sinai, nor from amid the shadows of the law. They could only be uttered at heaven’s side of the empty tomb of Jesus, where the blood of the cross has opened a perfectly cloudless prospect to the vision of faith. The words, “afar off,” are as characteristic of the law, as “draw nigh” are of the Gospel. Under the law, the work was never done which could entitle a sinner to draw nigh. Man had not fulfilled his promised obedience; and the “blood of calves and goats” could not atone for the failure, or give his guilty conscience peace. Hence, therefore, he had to stand “afar off.” Man’s vows were broken and his sin unpurged; how, then, could he draw nigh? The blood of ten thousand bullocks could not wipe away one stain from the conscience, or give the peaceful sense of nearness to a reconciled God.—C. H. M.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. W. ADAMSON
Elders! Exo_24:1. Pierotti says that, among the Jews, the elders exercised great authority, and were held in high respect. At a later period the word became a regular title, irrespective of age or experience, being conferred generally on those who, by their wealth or wisdom, could head a tribe or lead in public affairs:
1. From Deu_21:2 it would appear that in certain expiatory rites they represented the city or the whole nation. In Deu_22:15 they formed a court for trying crimes; while in Num_11:16 they were selected by Moses to aid in supporting his authority. Joshua, in Jos_7:6, relates how, after Israel’s defeat, he and the elders fell down before the ark.
2. In the New Testament we have the seventy disciples; and in the apocalyptic scenery of heaven are twenty-four lesser thrones around about the throne of God—occupied by four and twenty elders. These, sitting in the symbols of priesthood and royalty, of endurance and victory, clothed in white raiment, and having on their heads crowns of gold, are supposed to be the representatives of the twelve tribes under the Mosaic and Christian dispensations:—
“For the Lord their God hath clothed them with
A new and glorious dress.
With the garments of salvation, with the robes
Of righteousness.”
Covenant! Exo_24:3. Awa, on the lofty mountain-summit is a spring which breaks into two parts, one flowing down one side, the other adown the other. A man, climbing up the wild and rocky side, traces the river up to its source. There he sees the other flowing. He follows down the grassy soft slope, until he traces its descent into the ocean. Even so with Christ’s salvation on the Mount of Love. This is not a new covenant, but the renewal and fuller development of the everlasting covenant with Abraham, Abel, Adam, &c. Its living stream flowed on one side to David and Israel, Abraham and Abel; on the other side to the apostles and martyrs, &c., and so on to the eternal ocean.
“Jehovah’s covenant shall endure,
All ordered, everlasting, sure!
O child of God, rejoice to trace
Thy portion in its glorious grace.”
Law’s Province! Exo_24:3. In Gal_3:17, the apostle says that law, in its Mosaic development, was added because of transgression. He does not say that there was no law before Adam sinned, much less does he assert that there was none before Moses received it here. There is law in heaven, i.e., the moral law of love, and that law Adam had. In the free state of Liberia certain judicial enactments were absent. After the African Republic had existed a few years, some of its subjects committed offences. To prevent their repetition Government passed certain laws. The moral law was there before, and the Liberian freed-men were as morally bound to obey it before as after its judicial enforcement. God renewed the covenant more stringently, because of previous breaches of its provisions. The purpose of the law was to
(1) Point out clearly the rule of human duty to tread the path of righteousness; to
(2) Press home man’s natural inability to keep the law in his own strength; and to
(3) Prepare the way, like John the Baptist, for Christ to enter the sinner’s heart, as the end of the law for righteousness.
“By His life, for that fulfilling God’s command exceeding broad,
By His glorious resurrection, seal and signet of thy God.”
Morning-Prayer! Exo_24:4. Milton speaks of the breath of morning being sweet, “Her rising sweet with charm of earliest birds.” Vaughan quaintly says that mornings are mysteries. Mysteries of good are they when well used, but mysteries of evil when, as too oft, much abused. Mornings are well used when prayer ushers them in. Beecher says, “Let the day have a blessed baptism by giving your first waking thoughts into the bosom of God.” The first hours of the morning is the rudder of the day. Carlyle says we have a proverb among us that “the morning is a friend to the muses,” i.e., a good time for study. Is it not more true that it is a great friend to the graces—that it is a good praying time! Therefore
“Serve God before the world; let Him not go
Until thou hast a blessing; then resign
The whole unto Him, and remember who
Prevailed by wrestling ere the sun did shine.”
—Vaughan.
Gospel and Blood! Exo_24:6. Foss says that he once heard a very earnest and evangelical minister say that he had been accosted by a man who had heard him preach with this remark: “I do not like your creed; it is too bloody,—it savours of the shambles. It is all blood, blood, BLOOD.” To this the faithful ambassador replied, “Well, it is so, for it recognises as its foundation a very sanguinary scene—the death of Christ, with bleeding hands, and feet, and side. And without shedding of blood is no remission of sins.”
“Jesus, our Great High Priest,
Has shed His blood and died;
Our guilty conscience needs
No sacrifice beside.
His precious blood
Did once atone,
And now it pleads
Before the throne.”
—Watts.
Covenant-Obedience! Exo_24:7. Obedience is our universal duty and destiny, says Carlyle, and whoso will not bend must break. Upon which Watson adds that to obey God unwillingly, as Balaam did, is to resemble the devils who came out or the man possessed, at Christ’s command, but with reluctancy and against their will. If a willing mind be wanting, there wants that flower which should perfume our obedience and make it a sweet-smelling savour to God. The hireling prophet’s obedience was deficient in this respect, that it lacked the frequent odours of voluntary or free-will offering. Israel’s apparently full self-surrender to covenant-obedience—however earnest for the nonce—afterwards turned out signally deficient in this voluntary grace. Their vehement covenant-protestations of obedience here are a vivid example of the Divine testimony, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?” None but God, who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins.
“Not the labour of my hands
Can fulfil Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears for ever flow,
All for sin could not atone—
Thou must save, and Thou alone.”
—Toplady.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. Moses sprinkled the book in his hand. It…
Exo 24:8
I. Moses sprinkled the book in his hand. It was the Bible of his day, and yet it needed sprinkling. The mind of God must pass to men through the organs of the human voice, and that humanity, mingling even with the revelation of God, needs washing. Our Bibles need the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.
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II. He sprinkled the altar, for he had reared it. The altar was a holy thing, dedicate, consecrated, yet, for the manhood which was associated with it, it needed the sprinkling of the blood. We have our altars of prayer, at home and in the sanctuary, and these need to be sprinkled with the blood of Christ.
III. Moses sprinkled the people. There is no part of man that does not need that sprinkling.
IV. The sprinkling of the blood was the token that whatever it touched became covenant. We have our covenanted Bibles and our covenanted altars; we ourselves are in covenant with Christ.
J. Vaughan, Meditations in Exodus, p. 38.
References: Exo 24:11.—W. M. Taylor, Limitations of Life, p. 111. Exo 24:12.—H. Wonnacott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 94. Exo 24:13.—E. Mason, A Pastor’s Legacy, p. 166.
Exo 24:18
The great fact that stands out in the text is that Moses spent forty days in solitary communion with God.
I. What is it to be alone with God? (1) In order to be alone with God, we must do as Moses did—we must first get up high enough. Like him, we must go to the mount. If we reach the right standing-point, the converse with God is sure and easy. (2) We must not expect to be always there. Moses went twice, Elijah went once, Peter and James and John only once. (3) Solitude with God is the very opposite of being solitary. To make it there must be two things: we must be alone with God, and God must be alone with us.
II. What are we to do when we are alone with God? (1) We must be still, hush the mind, and listen for voices. (2) We should cultivate a simple and silent prostration of heart before the majesty and beauty of Deity. (3) We may form plans on the mount, or lay out the plans we have formed already. (4) We may go near to God at such times and hold communion with Him, not familiarly, but lovingly and tenderly.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 15th series, p. 61.
References: 24—Parker, vol. ii., p. 199. Exo 25:6.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 241. Exo 25:7.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 302.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v1 Exo 24:1 - - Exo 24:12.
Exodus
‘THE LOVE OF THINE ESPOUSALS’
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Exo 24:1 - - Exo 24:12.
An effort is needed to feel what a tremendous and unique fact is narrated in these words. Next to the incarnation, it is the most wonderful and far-reaching moment in history. It is the birthday of a nation, which is God’s son. It is the foundation stone of all subsequent revelation. Its issues oppress that ancient people to-day, and its promises are not yet exhausted. It is history, not legend, nor the product of later national vanity. Whatever may come of analysing ‘sources’ and of discovering ‘redactors,’ Israel held a relation to God all its own; and that relation was constituted thus.
I. Note the preliminaries of the covenant. The chapter begins with the command to Moses to come up to the mount, with Aaron and other representatives of the people. But he was already there when the command was given, and a difficulty has been found {or, shall we say, made} out of this. The explanation seems reasonable and plain enough, that the long section extending from Exo 20:22, and containing the fundamental laws as spoken by God, is closed by our Exo 24:1 - - Exo 24:2, which imply, in the very order to Moses to come up with his companions, that he must first go down to bring them. God dismisses him as a king might end an audience with his minister, by bidding him return with attendants. The singular use of the third person in reference to Moses in the third verse is not explained by supposing another writer; for, whoever wrote it, it would be equally anomalous.
So he comes down from the stern cloud-encircled peak to that great plain where the encampment lay, and all eyes watch his descent. The people gather round him, eager and curious. He recounts ‘all the judgments,’ the series of laws, which had been lodged in his mind by God, and is answered by the many-voiced shout of too swiftly promised obedience. Glance over the preceding chapters, and you will see how much was covered by ‘all that the Lord hath spoken.’ Remember that every lip which united in that lightly made vow drew its last breath in the wilderness, because of disobedience, and the burst of homage becomes a sad witness to human weakness and changefulness. The glory of God flashed above them on the barren granite, the awful voice had scarcely died into desert silence, nerves still tingled with excitement, and wills were bowed before Jehovah, manifestly so near. For a moment, the people were ennobled, and obedience seemed easy. They little knew what they were saying in that brief spasm of devotion. It was high-water then, but the tide soon turned, and all the ooze and ugliness, covered now, lay bare and rotting. ‘Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.’ We may take the lesson to ourselves, and see to it that emotion consolidates into strenuous persistency, and does not die in the very excitement of the vow.
The pledge of obedience was needed before the Covenant could be made, and, as we shall find, was reiterated in the very centre of the ceremonial ratification. For the present, it warranted Moses in preparing for the morrow’s ritual. His first step was to prepare a written copy of the laws to which the people had sworn. Here we come across an old, silenced battery from which a heavy fire used to be directed against the historical accuracy of the Pentateuch. Alphabetic writing was of a later date. There could not have been a written code. The statement was a mere attempt of a later age to claim antiquity for comparatively modern legislation. It was no more historical than similar traditions in other countries, Sibylline books, etc. All that is out of court now. Perhaps some other guns will be spiked in due time, that make a great noise just at present. Then comes the erection of a rude altar, surrounded by twelve standing stones, just as on the east of Jordan we may yet see dolmens and menhirs. The altar represents the divine presence; and the encircling stones, Israel gathered around its God. The group is a memorial and a witness to the people,-and a witness against them, if disobedient. Thus two permanent records were prepared, the book and the monument. The one which seemed the more lasting has perished; the more fragile has endured, and will last to the world’s end.
II. Note the rite of ratification of the covenant. The ceremonial is complex and significant. We need not stay on the mere picture, impressive and, to our eyes, strange as it is, but rather seek to bring out the meaning of these smoking offerings, and that blood flung on the altar and on the crowd. First came two sorts of sacrifices, offered not by priests, but by selected young men, probably one for each tribe, whose employment in sacrificial functions shows the priestly character of the whole nation, according to the great words of Exo 19:6. Burnt-offerings and peace-offerings differed mainly in the use made of the sacrifice, which was wholly consumed by fire in the former, while it was in part eaten by the offerer in the latter. The one symbolised entire consecration; the other, communion with God on the basis of sacrifice. The sin-offering does not appear here, as being of later origin, and the product of the law, which deepened the consciousness of transgression. But these sacrifices, at the threshold of the covenant, receive an expiatory character by the use made of the blood, and witness to the separation between God and man, which renders amity and covenant friendship impossible, without a sacrifice.
They must have yielded much blood. It is divided into two parts, corresponding to the two parties to the covenant, like the cloven animals in Abraham’s covenant. One half is ‘sprinkled’ on the altar, or, as the word means, ‘swung,’-which suggests a larger quantity and a more vehement action than ‘sprinkling’ does. That drenching of the altar with gore is either a piece of barbarism or a solemn symbol of the central fact of Christianity no less than of Judaism, and a token that the only footing on which man can be received into fellowship with God is through the offering of a pure life, instead of the sinner, which, accepted by God, covers or expiates sin. There can be no question that the idea of expiation is at the very foundation of the Old Testament ritual. It is fashionable to regard the expiatory element of Christianity as ‘Hebrew old clothes,’ but the fact is the other way about. It is not that Christianity has not been able to rid itself of a rude and false conception, but that ‘Judaism’ had its sacrifices appointed by God, in order to prepare the way for the true offering, which takes away sin.
The expiation by blood having been thus made, the hindrances to the nation’s entering into covenant are removed. Therefore follows in logical order the next step, their formal {alas! how purely formal it proved to be} taking on themselves its obligations. The freshly written ‘book’ is produced, and read there, to the silent people, before the bloody altar, beneath the peak of Sinai. Again the chorus of assent from a thousand throats echoes among the rocks. They accept the conditions. They had done so last night; but this is the actual contract on their part, and its place in the whole order of the ceremony is significant. It follows expiation, without which man cannot enter into friendship with God, without the acceptance of which man will not yield himself in obedience. The vows which God approves are those of men whose sins are covered.
The final step was the sprinkling of the people with the blood. The division of the blood into two portions signifies that it had an office in regard to each party to the covenant. If it had been possible to pour it all on the altar, and then all on the people, that would have been done. The separation into two portions was inevitable; but in reality it is the same blood which, sprinkled on the altar, expiates, and on the worshipper, consecrates, cleanses, unites to God, and brings into covenant with Him. Hence Moses accompanies the sprinkling of the people with the explanation, ‘This is the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you, upon all these conditions’ {Rev. Ver. margin}. It ratifies the compact on both sides. God ‘hath made’ it, in accepting the sprinkled blood; they have made it, in being sprinkled therewith. But while the rite sets forth the great gospel truth of expiation, the Covenant moves within the region of law. It is made ‘on the basis of all these words,’ and is voidable by disobedience. It is the Magna Charta of the nation, and its summing up is ‘this do, and thou shalt live.’ Its promises are mainly of outward guardianship and national blessings. And these are suspended by it, as they were in fact contingent, on the national observance of the national vow. The general idea of a covenant is that of a compact between two parties, each of whom comes under obligations contingent on the other’s discharge of his. Theologians have raised the question whether God’s covenant is of this kind. Surely it is. His promises to Israel had an ‘if,’ and the fulfilment of the conditions necessarily secured the accomplishment of the promises. The ritual of the first covenant transcends the strictly retributive compact which it ratified, and shadows a gospel beyond law, even the new covenant which brings better gifts, and does not turn on ‘do,’ but simply on the sprinkling with the blood of Jesus. The words of Moses were widened to carry a blessing beyond his thoughts, which was disclosed when, in an upper chamber, a dying man said to the twelve representatives of the true Israel, ‘This is the new covenant in My blood, drink ye all of it.’ The blood which Moses sprinkled gave ritual cleansing, but it remained outside the man. The blood of Jesus gives true purification, and passes into our veins to become our life. The covenant by Moses was ‘do and live’; that in Christ is ‘believe and live.’ Moses brought commandments, and on them his covenant was built; Christ brings gifts, and His covenant is all promises, which are ours on the simple condition of taking them.
III. Note the vision and feast on the basis of the covenant. The little company that climbed the mountain, venturing within the fence, represented the whole people. Aaron and his sons were the destined priests. The elders were probably seventy, because that number is the product of the two perfect numbers, and perhaps with allusion to the seventy souls who went down into Egypt with Jacob. It is emphatically said that they saw ‘the God of Israel,’ for that day’s covenant had made him so in a new closeness of relationship. In token of that new access to and possession in Him, which was henceforth to be the prerogative of the obedient people, some manifestation of His immediate presence was poured on their astonished eyes. It is needless to inquire its nature, or to ask how such a statement is consistent with the spirituality of the divine nature, or with what this same book of Exodus says, ‘There shall no man see Me, and live.’ The plain intention is to assert that there was a visible manifestation of the divine presence, but no attempt is made to describe it. Our eyes are stayed at the pavement beneath His feet, which was blue as sapphire, and bright as the cloudless sky gleaming above Sinai. It is enough to learn that ‘the secret of the Lord is with them’ to whom He shows ‘His covenant’; that, by the power of sacrifice, a true vision of God may be ours, which is ‘in a mirror, darkly,’ indeed, but yet is real and all sufficing. Before the covenant was made, Israel had been warned to keep afar lest He should break through on them, but now ‘He laid not His hand’ upon them; for only blessing can stream from His presence now, and His hand does not crush, but uphold.
Nor is this all which we learn of the intercourse with God which is possible on the ground of His covenant. They ‘did eat and drink.’ That may suggest that the common enjoyments of the natural life are in no way inconsistent with the vision of God; but more probably it is meant to teach a deeper lesson. We have remarked that the ritual of the peace-offering included a feast on the sacrifice ‘before the Lord,’ by which was signified communion with Him, as at His table, and this meal has the same meaning. They who stand in covenant relations with God, feed and feast on a sacrifice, and thereby hold fellowship with Him, since He too has accepted the sacrifice which nourishes them. So that strange banquet on Sinai taught a fact which is ever true, prophesied the deepest joys of Christian experience, which are realised in the soul that eats the flesh and drinks the blood of Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant, and dimly shadowed the yet future festival, when, cleansed and consecrated by His blood, they who have made a covenant with Him by His sacrifice, shall be gathered unto Him in the heavenly mount, where He makes a ‘feast of fat things and wines on the lees well refined,’ and there shall sit, for ever beholding His glory, and satisfied with the provisions of His house.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Ratification of the Covenant
The Ratification of the Covenant
1. And he said] The first two vv. of this chapter are a continuation of the narrative from Exo_20:21, which was interrupted by the insertion of the Book of the Covenant, originally a separate document. chapter Exo_23:33 is continued in Exo_24:3. Nadab, and Abihu] the two oldest sons of Aaron: see Exo_6:23. Seventy of the elders] a selection from the heads of the tribes and families: see on Exo_3:16.
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3. And Moses came and told the people] after he had ascended the mountain and received the 'words and the judgments 'contained in chapters Exo_20:22 to Exo_23:33 : cp. Exo_21:1.
4. And Moses wrote] see on Exo_17:14. The altar symbolised the presence of Jehovah, the twelve pillars represented the twelve tribes of Israel. These pillars were single unhewn stones which were smeared with the blood of the sacrificial animal or with the oil of a vegetable offering: see on Gen_28:18. The use of pillars is an evidence of the antiquity of the rite of sealing the covenant recorded here, as they were afterwards forbidden owing to their association with heathen worship: see Deu_16:22, and see on Exo_34:13.
5. See on Exo_18:12.
6. The sprinkling of the altar with half the blood and of the people with the other half (Exo_24:8) signified that both parties, Jehovah and Israel, entered into fellowship and bound themselves by the terms of the covenant, the people promising obedience and Jehovah promising His help and blessing. See Exo_23:23-31. In the New Covenant the blood of Christ takes the place of the blood of the sacrificial animal, and by faith in His sacrifice, Christians enter into communion with God: see Mat_26:28; Heb_9:11-28; 1Pe_1:2;
8. Concerning all these words] RM 'upon all these conditions.'
9-11. The ratification of the covenant is concluded with a sacrificial meal (Exo_24:11), which usually followed the peace offering and symbolised the harmonious relationship existing between the offerers and God: see Leviticus 3. At this meal, which took place on the mount, the representatives of the people were vouchsafed a vision of God Himself, not as previously with terrorinspiring accompaniments of thunder, lightning, and smoke (Exo_20:18-19), but in grace, mercy, and peace. The sight of God, otherwise fatal in its effects (see Exo_33:20. and on Exo_19:9), does not injure them. God does not smite them; on the contrary they are able to eat and drink in His presence, having entered into covenant relationship with Him (Exo_24:11).
10. They saw the God of Israel] A very bold anthropomorphic way of describing the experience of these favoured persons, which the Gk. (LXX) Version, made many centuries later, avoids by translating 'they saw the place where God stood.' At the same time it is noticeable that the sacred writer evinces a great reserve in speaking of this vision of God. He makes no attempt to describe the appearance of God, only what was under His feet. Similarly Isaiah, who says that he too 'saw the Lord,' describes only the accompaniments of his vision (Isaiah 6): see Exo_33:18-19, Exo_33:23. In Deu_4:12; Moses is represented as reminding the people that they 'saw no similitude' of God at Horeb; and in Joh_1:18 (cp. Joh_5:37; Joh_6:46) we read that 'no man hath seen God at any time.' The apparent inconsistency between these passages and the present is to be accounted for on the principle of the progressiveness of revelation. Divine truth can only be communicated to men in the measure and in the manner in which they are able to receive it. In early times men were like children in regard to spiritual things, which therefore could only be apprehended by them under material forms of expression. The essential and permanent truth underlying the present representation is that the majesty and the will of the invisible God were brought vividly home to the minds of these men by means of the Moral Law, and that this Law was not a discovery by Moses but a thing revealed to him by God. Cp. what is said on anthropomorphisms in Intro, to Exodus, § 3.
A paved work of a sapphire stone] The ancients regarded the sky as a solid vaulted dome stretched over the earth: see on Gen_1:6-8.
Body of heaven in his clearness] RV 'the very heaven for clearness.'
12. Moses receives another command to come up into the mount and receive the tables of the Law and other directions connected with the outward service of religion.
Tables of stone] From Deu_5:22 we learn that these contained the Ten Commandments, and the same is implied in chapter Exo_34:28, which relates to the second tables, doubtless exact copies of the first which Moses broke. The other regulations which follow in Exodus 25, etc., seem to have been given orally. The words which I have written should perhaps follow tables of stone. The expression may be understood as indicating the immediate divine origin of the Law (cp. Exo_31:18).
13. Minister] servant, attendant; cp. Luk_4:20 RV; Act_13:5.
14. Said unto the elders] not merely the seventy spoken of in Exo_24:1, but all the representatives of the people. They are to see that the camp is not removed from the plain during the absence of Moses.
15. Moses went up] Joshua accompanied him part of the way, and seems to have awaited his return somewhere on the mountain side: see Exo_32:17.
18. Forty days and forty nights] The later account adds that during this time he neither ate nor drank (Deu_9:9). On the number forty see on Exo_2:21.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv4, 11 Cf. Exo 33:7-11. This arrangement for worship was temporarily…
builded
Cf. Exo 33:7-11. This arrangement for worship was temporarily called the "tabernacle."
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 24 The Ratification of the Covenant and the…
CHAPTER 24 The Ratification of the Covenant and the Glory of Jehovah
1. Moses called into Jehovah’s presence (Exo 24:1-2)
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2. The covenant ratified and the sprinkling with blood (Exo 24:3-8)
3. in the presence of God and Jehovah’s glory (Exo 24:9-18)
This chapter is a fitting conclusion of this second section of the second part. It begins with the giving of the law and ends with the glory of the Lord. Moses alone was to come near to Jehovah; Aaron, Nadab and Abihu with the seventy elders of Israel , had to worship afar. Moses is a type of Christ in his exclusive privilege and attitude. Twice the people make the promise to keep the covenant, not realizing what they were doing. Then the blood was sprinkled upon the altar, upon the book of the covenant (Heb 9:19), and on the people. In this way the covenant was ratified. This sprinkling of the blood here has not the meaning of atonement. It rather stands for the penalty of the broken covenant. The blood standing for life given, was a solemn warning that the penalty of disobedience would be death. At the same time the offerings and the blood point to Christ. He came and took the curse of the law upon Himself When He came to give His life a ransom for many, the people, so occupied with the ordinances, the law and the traditions of men, cried, “This blood be upon us and upon our children.” Ever since blood-guiltiness rests upon them and the curse of their own law is their portion till they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced.
The people were afar off, the leaders were not to come nigh, and had to worship afar off. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, however, makes nigh and we can draw nigh. The legal covenant ever puts man into a solemn and guilty distance from God; the covenant of Grace brings man nigh to God. The presence and glory of God appeared. Moses was on the mount forty days and forty nights.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 9 Moses Summoned by God
Moses Summoned by God
v. 1. And he said unto Moses, Come up unto the Lord, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship ye afar off. The emphatic position of the word "Moses" in the Hebrew text shows that this command was given to Moses directly, not addressed to the people, as the Ten Commandments had been. Nadab and Abihu were sons of Aaron, and the seventy elders represented the people. In drawing near to the Lord these men were commanded to bow down, to worship, but only from a distance, Moses alone, as the prophet of Jehovah, being permitted to go to the top of the mountain.
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v. 2. And Moses alone shall come near the Lord; but they shall not come nigh; neither shall the people go up with him. Both Aaron and his sons, representing the priests, and the seventy elders, the government representatives of the popular assembly, were excluded from the intimate privileges of the prophet of the Lord.
v. 3. And Moses, who had been in the darkness at the foot of the mountain, at some distance from the people, came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments, all the ordinances recorded in the preceding Chapters; and all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words which the Lord hath said will we do. Under the influence of the awe-inspiring manifestation of Jehovah which they had witnessed they voiced their unanimous consent, their unconditional agreement.
v. 4. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, he recorded all the laws and ordinances which had been given till now, that none might be overlooked or forgotten, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. The altar indicated the presence of Jehovah, while the twelve pillars symbolized the twelve tribes of Israel, representing their presence.
v. 5. And he sent young men of the children of Israel, chiefly because they possessed the necessary strength and agility to perform the work quickly, which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord, true offerings of salvation, which symbolized the gracious regard of the Lord for the people of His choice, the union effected by His mercy.
v. 6. And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins, saving it for a ceremony shortly to be performed; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar, he poured it out before the Lord with one swift movement.
v. 7. And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people, as containing the terms of the covenant on God’s side; it was called out with a loud voice, so all could hear. And they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do and be obedient; having had another opportunity to hear the ordinances, they willingly consented to all the terms.
v. 8. And Moses took the blood, which had been kept in the basins, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words. The significance of this solemn ceremony was that the people, through the blood of the sacrifice as it was sprinkled upon them, were received into the full fellowship with God, just as the blood poured out at the altar signified the complete surrender of the people to God. But the surrender of the people in general, as they voiced their consent to the Lord’s ordinances, preceded their obedience in particular, the order which is observed to this day. We Christians are brought into true fellowship with God, not by the sacrificial blood of mere animals, but through the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16 Nadab ... Abihu
Nadab ... Abihu
These are men's names. See how you translated these names in Exodus 6:23. (See: How to Translate Names)
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seventy of Israel's elders
"70 of Israel's elders" (See: Numbers)
translationWords
Yahweh
Moses
Aaron
Israel
elder
worship
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 17 24:1-18 Israel agreed to the terms of the covenant…
24:1-18 Israel agreed to the terms of the covenant (24:3), which was then ratified in several ceremonial activities. This included the formal writing and reading of the covenant (24:4, 7), the splattering of blood (24:6), a covenant meal (24:11), and the appearing of the glory of the Lord on the mountain (24:15-18).
24:1-2 Some commentators suggest that Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the elders made two trips up the mountain, here and in 24:9-11. However, this command was probably given in advance and obeyed at the proper time in 24:9.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.