Exodus 24 commentary

EXODUS 24 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
The Covenant Confirmed
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to the
Lord, you and Aaron, adab and Abihu, and
seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship
at a distance,
BAR ES, "Are placed by some with great probability between Exo_24:8-9.
CLARKE, "Come up unto the Lord - Moses and Aaron were already on the
mount, or at least some way up, (Exo_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 Exo_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.”
GILL, "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:
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.
HE RY 1-2, "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.
K&D 1-2, "These two verses form part of the address of God in Ex 20:22-23:33; for
‫ר‬ ַ‫מ‬ፎ ‫ה‬ ֶ‫ּשׁ‬‫מ‬ ‫ל‬ ֶ‫א‬ְ‫ו‬ (“but to Moses He said”) cannot be the commencement of a fresh address,
which would necessarily require ‫מ‬ ‫ל‬ ֶ‫א‬ ‫ר‬ ֶ‫ּאמ‬ ַ‫ו‬ (cf. Exo_24:12; Exo_19:21; Exo_20:22). The
turn given to the expression ‫מ‬ ‫ל‬ ֶ‫א‬ְ‫ו‬ presupposes that God had already spoken to others, or
that what had been said before related not to Moses himself, but to other persons. But
this cannot be affirmed of the decalogue, which applied to Moses quite as much as to the
entire nation (a sufficient refutation of Knobel's assertion, that these verses are a
continuation of Exo_19:20-25, and are linked on to the decalogue), but only of the
address concerning the mishpatim, or “rights,” which commences with Exo_20:22, and,
according to Exo_20:22 and Exo_21:1, was intended for the nation, and addressed to it,
even though it was through the medium of Moses. What God said to the people as
establishing its rights, is here followed by what He said to Moses himself, namely, that
he was to go up to Jehovah, along with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders. At the
same time, it is of course implied that Moses, who had ascended the mountain with
Aaron alone (Exo_20:21), was first of all to go down again and repeat to the people the
“rights” which God had communicated to him, and only when this had been done, to
ascend again with the persons named. According to Exo_24:3 and Exo_24:12 (? 9), this
is what Moses really did. But Moses alone was to go near to Jehovah: the others were to
worship afar off, and the people were not to come up at all.

CALVI ,"1.Come up unto the Lord, thou, and Aaron, adab and Abihu. Before
Moses erected the tabernacle and consecrated it by a solemn ceremony, it was
necessary for him to fetch the Tables of the Covenant, which were a pledge of God’s
favor; otherwise, if the ark had nothing in it, the sanctuary would have been in a
manner empty. For this reason, he is commanded to go up into the mount, but not
without a splendid train of companions, in order that an appropriate preparation
might arouse their minds for a fit reception of this especial blessing. He is, therefore,
commanded to take with him Aaron his brother, and adab and Abihu, together
with seventy of the elders of the people. This was the number of witnesses selected to
behold the glory of God. Before, however, they ascended the mount, a sacrifice was
offered by the whole people, and the Book of the Law was read. Finally, Moses alone
was received into the top of the mount, to bring from thence the Tables written by
the hand of God.
Here, however, (See this subject further discussed on umbers 11:16, infra.) arises a
question respecting the seventy elders; for we shall see elsewhere that the seventy
were not chosen till the people had departed from Mount Sinai; whereas mention is
made of them here, before the promulgation of the Law, which seems to be by no
means consistent. But this difficulty is removed, if we allow, what we gather from
this passage, that, even before they came to Mount Sinai, each tribe had appointed
its governors (praefectos), who would make up this number, since there were six of
every tribe; but that when Moses afterwards desired to be relieved of his burdens,
part of the government was transferred (305) to these seventy persons, since this
number was already sanctioned by custom and use. Certainly, since it is plainly
stated that there were (306) seventy from the very first, it is probable that this
number of coadjutors was given to Moses in order to make as little change as
possible. For we know that, when a custom has obtained, men are very unwilling to
depart from it. But it might have also been that the desire and intention of the
Israelites was thus to celebrate the memory of their origin; for seventy persons had
gone down into Egypt with Jacob, and, in less than two hundred and twenty years
after they went there, their race had increased to six hundred thousand, besides
women and children. It is not, therefore, contrary to probability that seventy
persons were appointed to preside over the whole people, in order that so marvelous
a blessing of God might continue to be testified in all ages, as if to trace the
commencement of their race up to its very source.
BE SO , "Exodus 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, adab 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.
COFFMA , "Verse 1
ESTABLISHI G THE COVE A T
"This chapter with its account of the ratification of the covenant could well be called
the climax of the Book of Exodus. .T. passages (Hebrews 9:10,18-21) use this scene
as the prototype of the ratification of the ew Covenant."[1] This is true, and the
most important deductions derive from it.
(1) The true understanding of the passage appears especially in the .T., not in the
O.T. This also accounts for the astounding blindness of the critical scholars to the
most obvious features of the chapter. Only "in Christ" is the veil taken away in the
interpretation of the O.T.
(2) There are not two ratifications here, only one. This passage cannot be a garbled
amalgamation of diverse "traditions" from different sources. Critical affirmations
to that effect are essentially naive and unlearned. "They became vain in their
reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be
wise, they became fools!" (Romans 1:21,22).
As we have seen, the critics are especially infuriated by those unusually important
portions of the O.T., such as this chapter, and redouble their foolish efforts to
confuse or deny. As Fields said, "Those chapters of the deepest spiritual significance
and meaning are the very ones upon which the critics concentrate their attacks.
`The devil has blinded the minds of the unbelieving' (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)."[2]
Allegations of foolish, blinded men are unworthy of any detailed examination. "The
Exodus account is too harmonious with itself to permit us to accept extreme ideas
about its production"[3]
"And he said unto Moses, Come up unto Jehovah, thou, and Aaron, adab, and
Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship ye afar off: and Moses alone
shall come near unto Jehovah; but they shall not come near; neither shall the people
go up with him."
At some time prior to these instructions to Moses, he had returned to the people,
with whom he had remained until this order upon a later occasion only a short time
after the pronouncement by God Himself of the Decalogue in the hearing of all the
people. These verses are the key to understanding that "Only Moses went to the
fiery clouded summit."[4] Moses was a type of Christ in that exclusive privilege.
"Moses alone as the mediator of the covenant (Galatians 3:19) was allowed to
approach the Divine presence."[5] The specific persons mentioned here were the
chosen representatives of the people, and they would ascend a little higher than the
people who remained at the foot of the mountain. The fact that only those chosen
persons, including the seventy elders, would witness the theophany is a type of the
fact that Christ showed himself alive unto men following his resurrection, " ot to
all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God" (Acts 10:41).

The appearance of adab and Abihu in this list of the chosen representatives is the
equivalent of a whole library contradicting the foolish notion of some critics that
some "priesthood in the Babylonian era, circa 550 B.C." composed this portion of
Exodus. Their appearance here proves that the evil for which they later died had
not been, at this time, committed. This record was therefore written before the sons
of Aaron died.
Huey mentioned a number of ways in which covenants were made in ancient times:
(1) they ate salt together (Leviticus 2:13; umbers 18:19); (2) they ate a sacrificial
meal together (Genesis 31:54); (3) they exchanged articles of clothing (1 Samuel
18:1-4); (4) they walked between the divided pieces of slaughtered animals (Genesis
15:10,17).[6] However, it must not be thought that the covenant act here would
necessarily have conformed to any one pattern.
TWO CEREMO IES; OR O LY O E?
The greatest misunderstanding of this chapter is in a failure to see that only one
ceremony is involved throughout, namely, that of the blood-shedding and the
sprinkling of the altar and of the representatives of the people. That act was the
making and sealing of the covenant. The sacrificial meal afterward had the same
status as the one between Jacob and Laban (Genesis 31:54) which came a day or two
after the covenant had already been made. The efforts of critics to find a separate
account of "the covenant" in that sacrificial meal recorded here are frustrated
completely by this Biblical example. There was only one covenant made here, and
only one ratification and sealing of it.
COKE, "Exodus 24:1. And he said unto Moses— Moses was now upon the Mount
with the Lord: the meaning, therefore, here must be, that God enjoins Moses
respecting his future coming up to the Mount with Aaron, &c. after he had
delivered to the people the laws mentioned in the former chapters, and confirmed
the covenant with them, as is mentioned in the subsequent part of this. These things
being done, we find, Exodus 24:9 that Moses, Aaron, &c. ascended the mount,
according to the order delivered in these two verses. Houbigant renders and
understands these verses differently: Exodus 24:1. He said unto Moses, Come up,
thou, &c. Exodus 24:2. And Moses alone came near unto the Lord; but they came
not nigh, neither did the people come up with them. He is of opinion, that Moses
now went up to the Lord to receive those commands, which, in the third verse, he
delivers to the people. Possibly, as Moses, during the delivering the laws in the
foregoing chapters, was with God in the Mount, see ch. Exodus 20:21 these verses,
introductory to the subsequent covenant, may be considered as a repetition; and so
the first clause may be rendered, ow, he [the Lord] had said unto Moses, Come up,
&c.
Seventy of the elders— Lowman supposes, that these seventy elders were twelve
princes of the twelve tribes, and fifty-eight heads of the first families in the twelve
tribes. See his Civil Government of the Hebrews, page 76.

CO STABLE, "Verses 1-8
The remaining verses in this section contain God"s directions to Moses personally.
Hebrews , Aaron, Aaron"s two eldest sons, and70 of the elders of Israel were to
ascend the mountain to worship God. God permitted only Moses to approach Him
closely, however.
Moses first related the content of God"s covenant with Israel orally, and the people
submitted to it ( Exodus 24:3). Then he wrote out God"s words to preserve them
permanently for the Israelites ( Exodus 24:4). The altar he built memorialized this
place as where God had revealed Himself to His people. The12pillars were probably
not part of the altar but separate from it. They probably represented the permanent
relationship of the12tribes with God that God established when He made this
covenant.
"In the ceremony to be performed, the altar will represent the glory of the Lord,
whilst the pillars will represent the tribes of Israel; the two contrasting parties will
stand facing each other." [ ote: Cassuto, p311.]
The12pillars may also have served as memorial standing stones to commemorate the
occasion (cf. Genesis 31:45). [ ote: John W. Hilber, "Theology of Worship in
Exodus 24 ," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society39:2 (June1996):181.]
The young men ( Exodus 24:5) were probably assistants to Moses chosen for this
special occasion to serve as priests (cf. Exodus 19:22; Exodus 19:24).
"In the blood sprinkled on the altar [ Exodus 24:6], the natural life of the people
was given up to God, as a life that had passed through death, to be pervaded by His
grace; and then through the sprinkling upon the people [ Exodus 24:8] it was
restored to them again, as a life renewed by the grace of God. In this way the blood
not only became a bond of union between Jehovah and His people, but by the blood
of the covenant, it became a vital power, holy and divine, uniting Israel and its God;
and the sprinkling of the people with this blood was an actual renewal of life, a
transposition of Israel into the kingdom of God, in which it was filled with the
powers of God"s spirit of grace, and sanctified into a kingdom of priests, a holy
nation of Jehovah ( Exodus 19:6)." [ ote: Keil and Delitzsch, 2:158.]
"The throwing of half of the blood of the offerings against the altar, which
represented the Lord, and half on the people, or that which represented them,
signifies a joining together of the two contracting parties (communio), and
symbolized the execution of the deed of covenant between them.
"Between one blood-throwing and the other, the content of the covenant was finally
and solemnly ratified by Moses" reading from the Book of the Covenant and by the
people"s expression of consent." [ ote: Cassuto, p312.]
This ritual constituted the formal ratification of the Mosaic Covenant by which
Yahweh adopted Israel as His "son" (cf. Genesis 15). The parallel with the

inauguration of the ew Covenant is striking (cf. Matthew 26:28; 1 Corinthians
11:25).
"In all such ceremonies the oath of obedience [ Exodus 24:7] implied the
participants" willingness to suffer the fate of the sacrificed animals if the covenant
stipulations were violated by those who took the oath." [ ote: Youngblood, p110.]
"Virtually every sovereign-vassal treaty incorporated a list of deities before whom
the solemn oaths of mutual fidelity were sworn. These "witnesses" could not, of
course, be invoked in the case of the biblical covenants, for there were not gods but
Yahweh and no higher powers to whom appeal could be made in the event of
covenant violation. The counterpart of this is not lacking, however, for the
ceremony of covenant-making described in Exodus 24clearly includes "witnesses"
to the transaction. These are in the form of the altar, which represented Yahweh,
and the twelve pillars, which represented the twelve tribes. Although there is no
explicit word to the effect that these objects were witnesses as well as
representations, the use of inanimate objects in that capacity elsewhere certainly
allows for that possibility here." [ ote: Merrill, "A Theology . . .," pp34-35. Cf.
Deuteronomy 4:26; 30:19; 31:28. See also Kline, The Treaty . . ., p15.]
"This is the covenant meal, the peace offering, that they are eating there on the
mountain. To eat from the sacrifice meant that they were at peace with God, in
covenant with him. Likewise, in the new covenant believers draw near to God on the
basis of sacrifice, and eat of the sacrifice because they are at peace with him, and in
Christ they see the Godhead revealed." [ ote: The ET Bible note on24:11.]
There is some disagreement among the commentators about the meaning of "the
Book of the Covenant" ( Exodus 24:7). Most take it to mean the "Bill of Rights"
that God had just given ( Exodus 20:22 to Exodus 23:33). [ ote: Wolf, p153.] Some
feel it included "the whole corpus of Sinai laws." [ ote: Childs, p506; Johnson,
p74.] Others hold that ". . . it denotes a short general document, a kind of testimony
and memorial to the making of the covenant." [ ote: Cassuto, p312.] I prefer the
view that it refers to the covenant stipulations God had made known to the Israelites
at this time including the Decalogue and the "Bill of Rights." This seems most
consistent with other references to this book in the text. [ ote: See Kaiser, " Exodus
," p449.]
ELLICOTT, "Verse 1
XXIV.
THE RATIFICATIO OF THE COVE A T.
(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. Exodus 24:1 of Exodus 24 probably followed
originally on Exodus 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, adab, 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.
adab, and Abihu.—Aaron’s two elder sons. (See Exodus 6:23.)
Seventy of the elders.—These are not the “judges” of Exodus 18:21-26, who were
not yet appointed (see ote on Exodus 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 Exodus 3:16; Exodus
4:29; Exodus 12:21; Exodus 17:5-6.)
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY, "THE COVE A T RATIFIED. THE
VISIO OF GOD.
Exodus 24:1-18
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 (Exodus
24:1, Exodus 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, Sakya-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"
(Hebrews 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.
ow 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, adab 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" (Exodus 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" (Exodus 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 ew 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 " o 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? ay,
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.
ot 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. evertheless 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 Galilean
lake Jesus sat down, and His disciples came unto Him, and He opened His mouth
and said "Blessed."
ow, 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?" (Isaiah
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.
PARKER, "Moses In the Mount
Exodus 24
This account would seem to be supernatural and miraculous. What is supernatural?
What is miraculous? We are fond of using these great words, but it is one thing to
employ them and another rightly to measure and apply their meaning. What is
miraculous to one man is commonplace to another. We should not be astounded by

the miracles if we had correlative faith. The surprise of the disciples at the miracles
did not throw any doubt upon the miracles themselves, but showed only too plainly
the want of faith on the part of the observers. "How is it," said the Master, "that ye
have no faith?" If we had faith there would be no miracles in the present narrow
conception of that term; all our course would be lifted to a new level. Our wonder is
the measure of our ignorance; our scepticism expresses the lack in our hearts of that
wondrous power of interpretation and assimilation which is known by the name of
faith. What is supernatural? and to whom is it supernatural? What is the standard?
By what scales do you weigh things? We do not all stand upon one mental level. We
must, therefore, go into individuality of heart, mind, attribute, and general
condition, before we can understand the particular uses of so marvellous a term.
What is supernatural to one man would seem to be the natural climate of another
man"s soul. When we read the large words of advanced philosophy,—when these
words are brought under the attention of a great variety of persons, to some they
will appear to be almost supernatural. They are so odd, so wholly unknown; they
bear upon their faces lineaments not strange only but almost repellent; their image
awakens no recognition in the consciousness of the reader; they are words that
might be dismissed without the consciousness of loss. But to another kind of reader
the words are friends, the longest of them is short, the most out-of-the-way term is a
well-known companion in many a long day and night"s study. So when we come
upon incidents in the Scriptures which appear to be uncommon to a degree
involving what is generally known as the supernatural and the miraculous, we ought
to find out the quality of the reader before we determine the quality of that which is
read. All men do not read the Bible with the same eyes. Some men can read the
Bible through at one perusal: they eat and drink abundantly at God"s table, and the
festival never sates the appetite, but rather whets it and makes it long for further
revelation and satisfaction. Other men cannot read the Bible at all. The very first
verse is a gate they cannot open: they are puzzled, bewildered, discouraged: in them
is no answering spirit; when the Bible and they meet, a process of indignation seems
to be instantly set up. Beware, therefore, of the indiscriminate and lavish use of such
terms as supernatural, miraculous, transcendental, and fall back upon the mystery
of your own constitution as explaining a good many of the difficulties which rise like
mountains in your way. If ye had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye would say to
these mountains "Begone!" and they would vanish, like mist in the dissolving sun.
But we must, in the spirit of decency and justice, protest against a man bringing his
no-faith as the standard and measure of Divine revelation. The more spiritual we
are, the less we shall be affrighted by the supernatural; the more carnal we are—
loving the dust and living in it—the more we shall be alarmed by what is termed the
miraculous element in the Bible. Sometimes by our criticism we rebuke ourselves—
it may be unconsciously, but not the less severely. It is the reader who has fallen
from the upper level; the Divine revelation has never lost its line. Suppose we regard
this marvellous incident as setting forth the possibility and blessedness of rapturous
communion with God, we lose nothing of the moral grandeur and scenic majesty of
the occasion. Even as a historical record it may only transcend reason as poetry
transcends arithmetic. If you take away the poetry of life, you take away the vowels
from the alphabet. What is left when you have taken away the few from the many,
the speakers from the dumb? You have a cluster of consonants, but no language.

The consonants are dumb, the consonants cannot utter a tone, the consonants wait
until the vowels breathe into them the breath of life. It is the same with the Bible
and the spiritual element. It is no Bible when the supernatural element, so called, is
removed. Take out the spiritual, and the Bible is but a framework of consonants;
insert the spiritual, and the Bible becomes a revelation. Many of us are waiting for
the vowels. We feel as if we had something to say, but could only set the lips in a
certain attitude, but utter no articulate speech. We have much because the
consonants are more in number than the vowels. We have thought that bulk was
wealth; we have said that it is more important to have many than to have few.
Therein we have made a foolish speech. We must have both consonants and vowels
if we are to have language, Song of Solomon , true music. So the spiritual or
miraculous element plays the part of the vowels in this wondrous Book of God.
But Moses was called to solitary vision and communion of a spiritual kind. So he
was. We need not stumble at that. "Aaron, adab, and Abihu, and seventy of the
elders" were not called to the same summit as Moses. Quite true. This is happening
every day. The peaks of the mountain are less populated than the base. We must not
deny the mountain because we have never climbed it. More persons have admired
the Matterhorn than have stood upon its pinnacles. It is always the one man who
sees first, hears most clearly, and is gifted with special utterance. It is so in all
departments and ranges of life. Each of us has some prince who leads our thought—
ay, and who gives speech to our heart"s dumb desire. The hireling waits for the
clock; the poet longs for the dawn. Dawn!—what language is that? ot a hireling"s.
Say "bell," say "clock," "hour," and you speak the hireling"s measurable terms.
But what is the "dawn"? Who made that sweet, liquid, tender word, without one
line of hardness in it, requiring a woman"s softness of heart and speech to utter it as
it ought to be spoken? Many a man has risen in the morning who has never seen the
dawn. Others have gone up into the dawn, and have seen much and pledged the soul
in many a holy oath and covenant before coming down into the marketplace to do
life"s rough day"s work. The prophet is always alone. You cannot pluralise him.
When he is near you, he is not one of you. The prophet is always—mad. When a
man is solitary in scientific investigation, when he is far ahead of "Aaron, adab,
and Abihu, and seventy of the elders," we call him a philosopher; when the daring
traveller goes out alone over sea and land and finds a river, a hill, a village, a colony,
that no man of his country or speech ever saw before, we call him a discoverer;—
when a man ascends the hills of religious contemplation and communion and is shut
up with God forty days and forty nights, not knowing the pain of hunger or the
silence of solitude, we call him an enthusiast, a fanatic, a dreamer. Thus we
distribute our tinsel honours! There will be a better judgment some day,—the first
shall be last and the last shall be first. He will be most philosopher who has prayed
most, most a discoverer who has brought to bear upon the inspired record the
keenest insight and quickest sympathy; he shall be a prince who has had power with
God. We must not judge the acquisitions of others by the meanness of our own
spiritual results. Do not blame Moses for the rapture,—let us blame ourselves for
the want of it.
We need not stumble even at the tenth verse, which reads thus: "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 his clearness." The soul has eyes. There
are hours not related to the clock; there are birthdays for which the calendar
provides no line of registry. How natural is this endeavour to make the conception
plain by a visible picture, and how visible pictures are lifted up to new meanings
and clothed with new solemnities by such sacred uses. There have been times, even
in our cold experience, when nature has had to be called in to help the expression of
the soul"s delight. We too have made comparisons; we too have been inventors of
parables, sometimes roughly outlined, but still having jewels in their meaning, even
"sapphire stones "and the "body of heaven." We have compared our supreme love
to a company of horses in Pharaoh"s chariot; we have chosen the apple-tree
amongst the trees of the wood, and have said that best images our soul"s one Love,
and he in his turn looking round has seen a lily among the thorns and said, "That
sweet lily represents my chosen one." Every heart has its own image, or parable, or
symbol, by which it sets forth to itself the best aspect of its supreme delight. When
we want to represent God, and our view of him, how naturally we turn to the
heavens. o earthly object will suffice. There burns in us a sacred contempt for all
things measurable. We want all the broad brilliance of noonday, all the tender glory
of the midnight, all the pomp of the summer sky. There is verily a natural religion;
it is a poor deity that can be set forth in clay, and iron, and carved stone. Find any
race that has lifted up its religious conceptions so as to require for their imaging all
heaven, and surely you have found a race that may at any moment alight upon the
true God. What Ezekiel saw was as the appearance of the likeness of a throne. John
said that the face he saw was like a jasper and a sardine stone, and the rainbow
which gave tenderness to the throne was in sight like unto an emerald. When Jesus
was transfigured, his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the
light. Do not take these as equivalents, but as hints,—some idea of the majesty which
must have beamed upon the eyes of worship as they gazed with religious awe upon
sights for which there is no language. It does us good to be wrought into passions
which transcend all adequate speech,—yes, it does the soul good to pray itself into
silence. We may have clear vision of God to such an extent as to have every word
taken away from our use and be left dumb in the eloquence of silence.
or need we stumble at the twelfth verse, where the law is promised and where the
written commandments were given. When we are most religious we are most
inclined to proclaim the law. It is a poor rapture that does not come down upon
legislation with a new force, a firmer grip, and a deeper conception of its moral
solemnity. Know whether you have been with God upon the mount by knowing how
much law you have brought back with you; and when you would read the law, read
it after you have been long days and nights with the Lawgiver. Then there will be no
harshness in the tone, nothing terrific, repellent, unsympathetic, but the laws, the
commandments, the stern words will be uttered with a suppressed power equal to
tenderness, with an awe equivalent to an interpretation, with a quiet solemnity that
will have in it none of the sophism or violence of threatening. The commandments
have not been rightly read: they have been pronounced in a judicial tone. How
much better to speak them in tender whispers. Thou shalt not have any God before
the true Jehovah,—I have seen him. Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother,

for God is both, and I have been a long time with the Father and have studied and
felt his motherliness. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou
shalt not kill. All these things grieve him, are opposed to him excite not the petty
anger of vindictiveness but the ineffable grief of wounded holiness. Thou shalt not—
thou must not In the name of righteousness, holiness, tenderness, beauty, harmony,
music, truth, do not on the one hand, and do on the other.
Moses was absorbed in holy vision. The visible is not always the most real—may we
say that the visible is sometimes not real at all? We must be in certain mental moods
before we can understand that speech. People speak about believing their eyes. I
know not of less credible witnesses than our eyes! Discredit them and distrust them
at once. You will be duped by many a sophism if you trust to your eye for sight. The
eyes are within—faculties spiritual, themselves unseen but always seeing. We
ourselves have been so transported with sacred rapture or have been so absorbed in
deep thought as not to have known where we were, by what circumstances we were
environed. Speak of environment!—it has a thousand times been burst asunder or
transcended by consciousness for which there is no adequate name. These give us
hints of the sublime future of disembodiment We shall be clothed upon with our
house from heaven. The leaden flesh that keeps us tethered to one place shall go
back to the dust whence it came, and the spirit-winged fire shall go back to the God
who gave it. We shall not always be slaves, or prisoners, bound to particular places
and fastened down by particular chains.
These absorptions, raptures, supernatural communions, if you so please to term
them, give us hints of jubilee, festival, immortality. Do not dissipate their meaning
by a superficial criticism of the letter, but magnify and glorify their meaning by
giving to them all the sympathy and adoration of the spirit From the level of every
life there is a way up to the mount of God.
MACLARE , "‘THE LOVE OF THI E ESPOUSALS’
Exodus 24:1 - - Exodus 24:12.
An effort is needed to feel what a tremendous and unique fact is narrated in these
words. ext 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. ote 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 Exodus 20:22, and containing the
fundamental laws as spoken by God, is closed by our Exodus 24:1 - - Exodus 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. ote 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 Exodus 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. ote 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.
or 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.
PETT, "Verse 1-2
The People Respond to the Covenant and Confirm Their Acceptance of Its Terms
(Exodus 24:1-11).
This passage can be analysed as follows:
a Moses, Aaron and his eldest sons, and the seventy are called up to worship ‘afar
off’ (Exodus 24:1).
b Only Moses may approach Yahweh (as the mediator) (Exodus 24:2).
c Moses declares the words of Yahweh and all His judgments and the people
respond, ‘All the words which Yahweh has said we will do’ (Exodus 24:3).
d Moses writes all the words of Yahweh (preparing the covenant document for the
people) (Exodus 24:4 a).
e Moses builds an altar and erects twelve pillars in accordance with the tribes of
Israel (Exodus 24:4 b).
e Moses sends young men who offer whole burnt offerings and sacrifice peace
offerings to Yahweh (Exodus 24:5).
d Moses takes of the blood and sprinkles it on the altar (committing the covenant to
Yahweh) (Exodus 24:6).
c The covenant having been accepted by the Overlord Moses takes the book of the
covenant and reads it to the people and they respond, ‘All that Yahweh has said we
will do and be obedient’ (Exodus 24:7).
b Moses sprinkles the people with the blood of the covenant sealing the covenant
with them (as the mediator) (Exodus 24:8).
a Moses, Aaron and his eldest sons, and the seventy go up to behold Yahweh and to
eat and drink before Him (Exodus 24:9-11).
We note that the first five references refer to preparation for the covenant and the
second five refer to the application of the covenant. In ‘a’ the representatives of
Israel are called together to worship (preparation), and in parallel eat and drink the
covenant meal before Yahweh (application). In ‘b’ Moses approaches Yahweh as the
mediator (preparation), and in parallel sprinkles the people as the mediator
(application). In ‘c’ the covenant is declared and accepted (preparation) and in the
parallel it is read out (having meanwhile been written down) and accepted
(application), with in both cases a willing response from the people. In ‘d’ the
covenant words of Yahweh are written down for presentation to the people
(preparation) and in parallel the blood of the written covenant is presented to
Yahweh (application). And central to all in ‘e’ is the preparation for and offering of
the offerings and sacrifices.
We can now look at it in more detail.

Exodus 24:1-2
‘And he said to Moses, “Come up to Yahweh, you and Aaron, and adab and
Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and you will worship afar off. And Moses
alone will come near to Yahweh, but they shall not come near, neither shall the
people go up with him.” ’
This is the commencement of the covenant procedure, the call of the Overlord for
the people’s representatives to approach. It is then followed by the selection of the
mediator who alone can approach the Overlord.
“And He said to Moses.” The use of ‘He’ instead of ‘Yahweh’ (contrast Exodus
20:22 with which it therefore connects, see also Exodus 24:12), demonstrates the
close connection between this and the previous words, stressing that this is a
continuation of the theme. He had been speaking to all Israel through Moses
(Exodus 21:1), now He speaks to Moses in his own right. Exodus 24 is integrally
connected with what has gone before,
The change of person in the sentence from ‘you’ to ‘him’ appears to be a pattern
(compare Exodus 23:23), and here indicates a firm and emphasised movement from
the general welcome of all to the particular access provided to the chosen mediator.
The purpose here would seem to be to stress the names of Yahweh and of Moses,
and the latter’s unique privilege of access.
A group of ‘seventy of the elders of Israel’, as the people’s representatives, together
with Moses, Aaron, adab and Abihu, were to ascend the lower mount so as to
‘worship afar off’. But they were not to go up higher. That was to be left for Moses
alone. And the people were excluded altogether. This feasting before Yahweh would
seal the covenant.
adab and Abihu were two sons of Aaron (Exodus 28:1; see also Exodus 6:23). Here
they were given a huge privilege and were being prepared for great responsibility.
But they would shortly sadly die before they had fulfilled themselves because they
dealt lightly with sacred things (Leviticus 10:1-2). Great privilege brings great
responsibility of many kinds.
“Seventy of the elders of Israel.” These would seem to represent specifically the
combined leadership (compare umbers 11:16; umbers 11:24-25). The number
seventy signifies divine completeness (compare Exodus 1:5), and the leading elders
were possibly limited to that number. Compare umbers 11:24-25 with 26. The two
were ‘of those who were written’ and therefore part of ‘the seventy’. But it may be
that this means that at that stage there were seventy two, although ‘gathered the
seventy’ might simply be describing the group as a whole without saying that they
were all present. The group was probably known as ‘the seventy’ regardless of exact
numbers. On this number was patterned the later Sanhedrin, the governing body of
the Jews in the time of Christ. Compare also Luke 10:1; Luke 10:17.

The purpose of this event was as a ceremony at which Yahweh would receive the
response of the people to His covenant and would seal it by handing over the official
covenant documents, just as a great overlord would when sealing his suzerainty
treaty. But before this could be done there were things that Moses had to do.
PULPIT, "Verses 1-8
COMPLETIO OF THE COVE A T, A D ASCE T OF MOSES I TO THE
CLOUD O SI AI.
EXPOSITIO
THE RATIFICATIO OF THE COVE A T. The giving of the Book of the
Covenant being now completed, Moses, having received directions with respect to
another ascent into the mount (Exodus 24:1, Exodus 24:2), descended to the people,
and in the first instance declared to them the main heads of the Covenant, which
they received with favour, and expressed their willingness to obey (Exodus 24:3).
ot, however, regarding this as a sufficiently formal ratification, the Prophet
proceeded to write out in a "Book" the whole of the commands which he had
received, He then built an altar, erected twelve pillars, offered sacrifice, and having
collected half the blood of the victims in basins, summoned the people to an
assembly. At this, he read over solemnly all the words of the Book to them, and
received their solemn adherence to it (Exodus 24:7); whereupon, to complete the
ceremony, and mark their entrance into covenant, he sprinkled the blood from the
basins on the twelve tribes, represented by their leaders, and declared the
acceptance complete (Exodus 24:8). The ceremony was probably modelled on some
customary proceedings, whereby important contracts between man and man were
ratified among the Hebrews and Syrians.
Exodus 24:1, Exodus 24:2
It has been supposed that these verses are out of place, and suggested to remove
them to the end of Exodus 24:8. 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. adab 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" (Le
Exodus 10:1, Exodus 10:2). They had been mentioned previously, in Exodus 6:23.
Seventy of the elders. On the elders of Israel, see Exodus 3:16, and Exodus 18:21.
The "seventy" eiders may, together with adab 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.
BI 1-8, "Behold the blood of the covenant.
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
sinner’s 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 Lord’s 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 Jehovah’s 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.)
God’s 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 God’s 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.
God’s 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 world’s Redeemer. (J. E. Twitchell.)
The strictness of God’s law
“The Bible is so strict and old-fashioned,” said a young man to a grey-haired friend who
was advising him to study God’s 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 children’s 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
Father’s 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 God’s 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 Christ’s atonement. Life,
capacity, faculty, are all given back now to be man’s 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.)
2 but Moses alone is to approach the Lord; the

others must not come near. And the people may
not come up with him.”
CLARKE, "Moses alone shall come near - The people stood at the foot of the
mountain. Aaron and his two sons and the seventy elders went up, probably about half
way, and Moses alone went to the summit.
GILL, "And Moses alone shall come near the Lord,.... Into the cloud where he
was, and talk with him face to face, as a man talketh with his friend; which was great
nearness indeed, and a peculiar favour and high honour was this:
but they shall not come nigh; Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and the seventy elders of
Israel:
neither shall the people go up with him; not any of them, much less the whole
body. It seems, by this account, that Moses had been down from the mount after he had
received the laws recorded in the two preceding chapters; though as yet he had not
related them to the people, but did before he went up again by the above order, as
appears from what follows.
CALVI ,"2.And Moses alone shall come near the Lord. Three gradations are here
marked. A station is prescribed for the people, from whence they may “worship afar
off;” the elders and the priests are appointed to be the companions of Moses, to
come closer, and thus to be witnesses to the people of all the things which we shall
afterwards see to be shewn them; whilst, as they were separated from the multitude,
so finally Moses alone was received up into the higher glory; for he was caught up
on high in the covering of the cloud. This (307) distinction is marked in the words,
“Moses alone shall come near...; but they shall not come nigh; neither shall the
people go up.” Some translators render the verbs in the past tense; but improperly,
in my opinion; for Moses is not yet relating what was done, but only what God had
commanded, as is plain from the next verse, wherein also the modesty and humility
of the people is commended, because they received with reverence a command
which was not in itself very agreeable or likely to be approved. For, such is the
ambition of men, that it might have appeared insulting that they should be set afar
off and prohibited from approaching the mountain, like strangers and heathens. It
is, therefore, an evidence of their pious reverence, that they should submit to be
placed at a distance, and should be contented with a position apparently less
honorable. And Moses more clearly expresses their promptitude to obey, when he
reports their words, that they would do all that he had declared to them from the
mouth of God

BE SO , "Exodus 24:2. And Moses alone shall come near — Being therein a type
of Christ, who, as the high-priest, entered alone into the most holy place. In the
following verse we have the solemn covenant made between God and Israel, and the
exchanging of the ratifications: typifying the covenant of grace between God and
believers through Christ.
3 When Moses went and told the people all the
Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one
voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.”
CLARKE, "And Moses alone shall come near the Lord,.... Into the cloud where
he was, and talk with him face to face, as a man talketh with his friend; which was great
nearness indeed, and a peculiar favour and high honour was this:
but they shall not come nigh; Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and the seventy elders of
Israel:
neither shall the people go up with him; not any of them, much less the whole
body. It seems, by this account, that Moses had been down from the mount after he had
received the laws recorded in the two preceding chapters; though as yet he had not
related them to the people, but did before he went up again by the above order, as
appears from what follows.
GILL, "And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and
all the judgments,.... Which according to Jarchi were the seven commands given to
the sons of Noah, the laws concerning the sabbath, and honouring parents, the red
heifer, and the judgments at Marah; but all these they were acquainted with before,
excepting that of the red heifer, and the law, for that was not yet delivered to Moses, nor
were these the ten commands, for they had heard them from the Lord themselves; but
they doubtless were the judgments, or judicial laws, which he was ordered to set before
the people, contained in the two preceding chapters, which were chiefly of the judicial
kind, and related to the civil polity of the people of Israel:
and all the people answered with one voice; one speaking for, and in the name of
the rest, or they all lift up their voice together, and being unanimous in their sentiments,
expressed them in the same words:

and said, all the words which the Lord hath said will we do; that is, they would
be careful to observe all the laws, statutes, judgments, and commands which the Lord
had enjoined them; and less than this they could not say, for they had promised Moses,
that if he would draw nigh to God, and hear what he should say, and deliver it to them,
they would hearken to it, and obey it, as if they had heard God himself speak it; only they
entreated the Lord would speak no more to them, as he did the ten commands, it being
so terrible to them.
HE RY, "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.
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,
JAMISO ,"Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord — The
rehearsal of the foregoing laws and the ten commandments, together with the promises
of special blessings in the event of their obedience, having drawn forth from the people a
unanimous declaration of their consent, it was forthwith recorded as the conditions of
the national covenant. The next day preparations were made for having it (the covenant)
solemnly ratified, by building an altar and twelve pillars; the altar representing God, and
the pillars the tribes of Israel - the two parties in this solemn compact - while Moses
acted as typical mediator.
K&D, "The ceremony described in Exo_24:3-11 is called “the covenant which
Jehovah made with Israel” (Exo_24:8). It was opened by Moses, who recited to the
people “all the words of Jehovah” (i.e., not the decalogue, for the people had heard this
directly from the mouth of God Himself, but the words in Exo_20:22-26), and “all the
rights” (ch. 21-23); whereupon the people answered unanimously (‫ד‬ ָ‫ח‬ ֶ‫א‬ ‫ּול‬‫ק‬), “All the
words which Jehovah hath spoken will we do.” This constituted the preparation for the
conclusion of the covenant. It was necessary that the people should not only know what
the Lord imposed upon them in the covenant about to be made with them, and what He
promised them, but that they should also declare their willingness to perform what was
imposed upon them. The covenant itself was commenced by Moses writing all the words

of Jehovah in “the book of the covenant” (Exo_24:4 and Exo_24:7), for the purpose of
preserving them in an official record. The next day, early in the morning, he built an
altar at the foot of the mountain, and erected twelve boundary-stones or pillars for the
twelve tribes, most likely round about the altar and at some distance from it, so as to
prepare the soil upon which Jehovah was about to enter into union with the twelve
tribes. As the altar indicated the presence of Jehovah, being the place where the Lord
would come to His people to bless them (Exo_20:24), so the twelve pillars, or boundary-
stones, did not serve as mere memorials of the conclusion of the covenant, but were to
indicate the place of the twelve tribes, and represent their presence also.
BE SO , "Exodus 24:3. Moses told the people all the words of the Lord — He laid
before them all the precepts, in the foregoing chapters, and put it to them, whether
they were willing to submit to these laws or not? And all the people answered, All
the words which the Lord hath said will we do — They had before consented in
general to be under God’s government; here they consent in particular to these laws
now given.
COFFMA , "Verse 3-4
"And Moses came and told the people all the words of Jehovah, and all the
ordinances: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words
which Jehovah hath 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
mount, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel."
"Moses told the people ..." It was absolutely necessary that the people should have
been told specifically exactly what was expected of them. It is not clear whether
these words refer to something Moses had already done (which he certainly had
done) or to a recapitulation of"all the ordinances." Either way, it was thoroughly
and effectively done.
"All the words which Jehovah hath spoken will we do ..." Esses, a believing Rabbi,
renders this: "All that the Lord has spoken and all that he will speak we will do and
obey."[7] Even if this rendition should not be allowed, it is certain that the
acceptance on the part of the people of God's commands was unanimous,
enthusiastic, and complete. What a tragedy that their subsequent actions cast a dark
shadow over what they did here. Within a month they would reject Moses, make a
golden calf, and rebel against God!
"And Moses WROTE ALL THE WORDS OF JEHOVAH ..." We have capitalized
these letters because, apparently, no critic on earth has ever noticed them. The
ridiculous fancy that the Exodus record is dependent upon "oral traditions" handed
down for centuries until some self-serving priests decided to write it can be nothing
except nonsense. Writing had been known for a least five or six centuries at this
time. The Code of Hammurabi (2100-2000 B.C.) is written in the most detailed and
circumstantial fashion, and to suppose that Moses, brought up in the palace of
Pharaoh was unfamiliar with writing is merely an elephant error that only a fool

could swallow. "MOSES WROTE IT ALL DOW ." Of course, he did! Only Moses
knew the facts presented here; only Moses was present when the events mentioned
occurred. Have oth, Clements, Davies, or any of the unbelieving critics established
"their favorite authors," such as E, J, P, or D, as having been present at these
events? Certainly not! The following words of Allis are appropriate:
"Hammurabi, writing centuries BEFORE Moses, codified his laws and reduced
them to writing. He had them carved on blocks of diorite stone. Would Moses have
done anything less? The neocritic who PREFERS oral tradition is forced to admit
that a written code was quite possible."[8]
We marvel at the "possible" in Allis' quotation above. The written record was not
merely possible but certain, being the only possible way that the exceedingly
extensive and complicated records of the O.T. could ever have reached down the
centuries. "MOSES WROTE ALL THE WORDS OF JEHOVAH!" (Exodus 24:3).
It is an axiom of true O.T. interpretation that EVERY APPEAL to "oral tradition"
or "tradition," by which the same thing is meant, is merely a confession on the part
of critics that they prefer their own vain imaginations to God's written record. The
fact of Moses' actually writing down the laws of God is here affirmed: "hence the
laws received the designation `Book of the Covenant'"[9]
"And builded an altar under the mount ..." The ratification of the covenant took
place not on Mount Sinai, but at the foot of it. That is where the blood was
sprinkled.
"Twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel ..." The mention of these has
the utility of proving that there were indeed "twelve tribes of Israel" who
participated in the Exodus. The erroneous view that some of the tribes of Israel did
not descend into Egypt is denied by this. To be sure the critics find all kinds of
superstitions about those pillars, but that their use was symbolic only, and not
superstitious, is indicated by the fact that, "The blood was dashed over the people
themselves, and not upon the pillars (Exodus 24:8)."[10] Dummelow's opinion that
the "pillars were smeared with blood"[11] is unsupported by the Biblical account
here.
ELLICOTT, "(3) Moses . . . told the people all the words of the Lord.—Moses gave
them an outline of the legislation which he subsequently committed to writing
(Exodus 24:4) and formed into “the Book of the Covenant” (Exodus 24:7). Its
general purport and main heads were communicated, but probably not all its
details. Otherwise it would scarcely have been necessary to read the contents of the
book to them. The people willingly gave in their adhesion, feeling the laws to be
“holy, just, and good,” and not yet knowing how difficult they would find it to
render a perfect obedience.
PETT, "Verse 3
‘And Moses came and told the people all the words of Yahweh and all the
judgments, and all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words

which Yahweh has spoken we will do.”
Moses called the people together for the explanation of the treaty. He declared to
them Yahweh’s offer and detailed Yahweh’s requirements as contained in Exodus
20-23. Then the people ‘with one voice’ declared their acceptance. The words
appear to be in accepted phraseology (compare Exodus 19:8). It was unanimous.
“All the words of Yahweh.” These are described mainly in Exodus 20:1-17 with a
codicil in Exodus 20:22-26.
“And all the judgments.” These are described in Exodus 21:1 to Exodus 23:19. They
are then followed by the reconfirmation of what Yahweh will do for His people
(Exodus 23:20-33).
“And all the people answered with one voice.” This was their confirmation that as
one people they were willing to enter into the covenant.
PULPIT, "And Moses came. Moses descended from the mount, and reported to the
people all the words of the Lord—all the legislation contained in the last three
chapters and a half (Exodus 20:19, to Exodus 23:33), not perhaps in extenso, but as
to its main provisions. And all the people answered with one voice, promising
obedience. In times of excitement, a common impulse constantly animates an entire
multitude, and an exaltation of feeling leads them to make pledges, which they are
very unwilling to stand by afterwards. Hence Moses requires something more than a
verbal assent.
4 Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had
said.
He got up early the next morning and built an
altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve
stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of
Israel.
BAR ES, "Twelve pillars - As the altar was a symbol of the presence of Yahweh, so
these twelve pillars represented the presence of the Twelve tribes with whom He was
making the covenant.

CLARKE, "Moses wrote all the words of the Lord - After the people had
promised obedience, (Exo_24:3), and so entered into the bonds of the covenant, “it was
necessary,” says Calmet, “to draw up an act by which the memory of these transactions
might be preserved, and confirm the covenant by authentic and solemn ceremonies.”
And this Moses does.
1. As legislator, he reduces to writing all the articles and conditions of the agreement,
with the people’s act of consent.
2. As their mediator and the deputy of the Lord, he accepts on his part the resolution
of the people; and Jehovah on his part engages himself to Israel, to be their God,
their King, and Protector, and to fulfill to them all the promises he had made to
their fathers.
3. To make this the more solemn and affecting, and to ratify the covenant, which
could not be done without sacrifice, shedding and sprinkling of blood, Moses
builds an altar, probably of turf, as was commanded, Exo_20:24, and erects twelve
pillars, no doubt of unhewn stone, and probably set round about the altar. The
altar itself represented the throne of God; the twelve stones, the twelve tribes of
Israel. These were the two parties, who were to contract, or enter into covenant, on
this occasion.
GILL, "And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord,.... Jarchi says, all from the
creation, to the giving of the law, and the commands at Marah; but though these were
written by him, yet not at this time; but as Aben Ezra more truly observes, what are
mentioned in this "parashah", or section, or what is contained in the two preceding
chapters, he not only related to them from his memory, but he wrote them in a book,
which is after mentioned, that they might be seen and read hereafter; for these were not
the ten commands, they were written as well as spoken by the Lord himself, but the
judicial laws before mentioned:
and rose up early in the morning: not on the fifth of Sivan, as Jarchi, the day before
the giving of the law, but on the eighth of that month, two days after it:
and built an altar under the hill: under Mount Sinai, about the place where the
bounds were set, beyond which the people were not to go:
and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel: to answer to them,
and which were to represent them, as seems by the following account; these probably
were made of marble stone, of which Mount Sinai consisted, and of which there was
plenty thereabout.
HE RY, "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

Exodus 24 commentary

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Exodus 24 commentary