From the beginning of Exodus, Yahweh has been intent on fulfilling His promise to Abraham of freeing Israel from slavery, giving them the land of Canaan, and dwelling with them as their God. The first fourteen chapters of Exodus displayed how the LORD delivered His people from Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. God then brought His people through the wilderness like a great and good shepherd to Mount Sinai. At the base of the mountain, God declared that He would make His covenant with them and that they would be His treasured possession among the nations, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. After three days of consecrating themselves, Yahweh then descended upon the mountain and began to speak His commandments, but the people shrank back in fear and begged Moses to mediate between them and Yahweh. Thus, for the last several chapters, we have been studying the Book of the Covenant that the LORD dictated to Moses.

In the chapter before us, we come to the ratification of the covenant. A covenant, of course, is a legally binding agreement between two parties. Two kings might make a covenant with one another to be allies. A man and woman make a covenant with one another whenever they marry. Here Yahweh is making a covenant with Israel that He will be their God and they will be His people.

THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT // VERSES 1-8

Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. Moses alone shall come near to the LORD, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.”

Here at the beginning of our text, we are met with the command for Moses, Aaron, Aaron’s two eldest sons, and seventy of Israel’s elders to ascend the mountain for worship. Recall that when Yahweh descended upon Sinai, He ordered Moses to make a barrier around the mountain, for anyone who touched the mountain would be immediately put to death. Yet after speaking the Ten Commandments, Moses ascended into the cloud of God’s presence upon the mountain, and now seventy-three other men of Israel were being summoned to ascend the mountain. Just as we today send senators and representatives to make laws on our behalf, these men represented all of Israel, and their summons to Sinai is a sign that some significant and solemn, legal and formal was about to take place.

As we studied chapter 19 and throughout our study of Hebrews, we have called the Mosaic Covenant a come-but-stay-away covenant, and that is very much the case here. They have been summoned apart from the rest of the people; however, even as they are commanded to come up the mountain, we are also told that they will worship from afar. Even upon Sinai, Moses will uniquely go into the presence of God. There is a wonderful connection to Christ here, but we will explore it after we have observed the chapter as a whole.

Verse 3: Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.”

In this covenant ratification ceremony, we here have the first hearing of the terms of Yahweh’s covenant. All the words of the LORD likely refer to the Ten Commandments or the Ten Words, while all the rules refer to the other commands that God gave throughout chapters 20-23, which 21:1 called “the rules.” At this hearing, all of Israel answered in unison, All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.”

Verses 4-5: And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD.

The ceremony continues with Moses writing down the words of Yahweh and building an altar. Douglas Stuart notes:

Writing down the law was important if it were to be permanent and an accurate basis for continuing instruction of newer members of the community. Children would need to be instructed in the covenant as fully as their parents initially had been. Newcomers to the community from foreign places who accepted Yahweh’s worship and integrated themselves properly into the Israelite nation needed to have the clearest possible understanding of everything the law required. Judges who would have to extrapolate from the covenant stipulations to decide difficult cases required precision in recalling exactly how God had given his commandments. Thus regular reading and rereading of the written covenant at appointed times served to keep it alive in the minds of the people as the basis for their life together with the one true God.

Exodus, 553

After building an altar at the foot of the mountain, Moses oversaw that both kinds of sacrifices were made to Yahweh. Burnt offerings were made for the sins of Israel, and the peace offerings were sacrificed as a picture of Israel’s fellowship with God. Since no priesthood has been formally established, it is youths who perform these sacrifices. I think this is likely meant to be seen as a further representation of all the people. While the presence of the elders makes the covenant ceremony official, the youths are summoned to perform the necessary rites.

Verses 6-8: And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Notice that these three verses have a chiastic structure to them. In verse 6, Moses threw half of the blood of the sacrifices upon the altar. In verse 8, he threw the other half of the blood upon the people. As Ryken notes:

God’s relationship with his people was maintained on the basis of a sacrifice. Since there were two sides to this relationship, the blood was sprinkled on both parties, tying them together. The covenant was a blood relationship, “a bond in blood” between God and his people. It is significant that the blood was put on God’s altar first. For the people to have any kind of relationship with God at all, God had to accept the sacrifice they made for their sins. Notice as well the way Moses describes this relationship: “the covenant that the Lord has made with you” (Exod. 24:8). There were two sides to the relationship, but it all started with God. The Israelites did not go to God and say, “Look, Lord, we’d really like to have a relationship with you.” On the contrary, the whole arrangement was his idea in the first place. Peter Enns thus notes that “this covenant is essentially not a matter of a mutual agreement or pact made between God and the Israelites. It is, as we read, ‘the covenant that the Lord has made with you.’ It is by his initiative. He is the instigator. What the Israelites are to do is to accept and agree to live by the terms of the covenant that God and God alone has stipulated.”

Exodus, 739

Jeffery Leonard also notes:

In a modern wedding ceremony, it is quite common to see an exchange of rings… Though it is not accomplished with rings, the bond between YHWH and Israel is nevertheless symbolized by the shared mark of blood each receives in the ceremony.

Exodus 15:22-40:38, 256

Verse 7 stands between these two buckets of blood with another hearing of God’s words from the Book of the Covenant.

Why did he read it twice, and why did they promise to obey twice? The first time was so they could understand and accept it. They declared their intent. The second time was so they could promise to obey and confirm it. They took their vows. This is not foreign to us. We do the same thing in our wedding ceremonies. First, you declare your intent (“I will” or “I do”); second, you say your vows.

Just as before the people emphatically declare their promise to obey all of God’s commands. Of course, such obedience was ultimately beyond their capacity, yet their response is correct, for God deserves and is worthy of our complete and total obedience.

THE COVENANT MEAL // VERSES 9-11

Verses 9-11: Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.

After the covenant ceremony came the covenant meal. In these verses, Moses and the seventy-three other men with him ascended the mountain, saw God, and had a meal with Him. Covenants were regularly concluded with meals in the ancient world. As Stuart notes, “in the ancient world (and many places in the modern world) people would not eat together if they were not somehow allies or family. Eating was understood to convey acceptance, to declare approval of those with whom one dined” (Exodus, 555). That is, of course, why the Pharisees were so indignant at Jesus’ eating with sinners.

Twice we are told that they saw the God of Israel and they beheld God. On this marvel, Philip Ryken writes:

This makes some Bible scholars uncomfortable, and there is a long history of trying to “fix” these verses to make them say something else. When the Old Testament was translated into Greek (the version known as the Septuagint), words were added to make the text read, “They saw the place where the God of Israel stood.” Some ancient rabbis claimed that the elders did not see God but “the glory of God.” Similarly, the great medieval scholar Moses Maimonides said that seeing “must be understood as intellectual perception, but in no way as a real perceiving with the eye.”

The problem with trying to evade what the Bible says is that the text is perfectly clear. It simply reads, “They saw…God.” They looked at him. They beheld him. And as John Currid writes, “The verb translated ‘beheld’ is not the normal Hebrew word meaning ‘to see.’ It is a stronger, more intense term.” These men fixed their gaze upon God.

Exodus, 746

Ryken goes on to point out that Moses only gives a description of the pavement beneath God’s feet, and even then, the prophet seems to be grasping for words, only able to describe the likeness of the pavement to sapphire, though it was as clear as the sky. Indeed, they could likely look little higher than the splendor of the ground beneath His feet. Without venturing too far into speculations, I believe that they were likely looking up Christ in fraction of His divine glory. I say this because John says in John 12:41 that Isaiah’s vision of Yahweh upon His throne was a sight of the glory of Christ. This would fit with Colossians 1:15 and Hebrews 1:3, as well as Jesus’ statement to Philip in John 14:9: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

THE NEW & BETTER WAY // VERSES 12-18

This whole passage is full of grace and wonder, but we should also take note of Moses’ statement at the beginning of verse 11: And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel. As Ryken used earlier, the Septuagint can be a helpful tool for learning how Jews nearing the time of Christ interpreted the Hebrew Old Testament. Of this part of verse 11, it reads (in the NES): “And not even one of the chosen of Israel perished.” Although that is clearly not a literal translation, it does capture the idea being expressed. As the LORD will say to Moses in 34:20, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” Thus, it was a marvel that these seventy-four men were invited to behold God, have a meal in presence, and continue to live.

Again, this highlights the limitations of the old covenant. It was full of grace, but it did not cleanse of sins. It displayed God’s glory but could not bring us into that glory. Indeed, consider the final verses of this chapter:

The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. And he said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them.”

Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the LORD dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Here we have Moses being summoned up the mountain again, where he will receive the tablets of stone with God’s law written upon them. But it took seven days for Him to pass into the cloud of God’s glory that covered the mountain, and then he would be in that cloud for forty days and forty nights. It is over the course of those forty days that God will give to Moses the instructions for the tabernacle, which as we will begin discussing next week is where God will come to dwell with His people. Indeed, the book of Exodus will end with the cloud of glory leaving Sinai and resting upon that tent of meeting. Yet things will not go smoothly along the way. In verse 14, Moses left Aaron and Hur as judges in the peoples’ disputes; however, Aaron will quickly cave into the people’s idolatrous demands in chapter 32.

As we have said throughout our discussion of the laws, God’s people needed something far more glorious than the writing of God’s law upon tablets of stone. We need what only the new covenant can offer; we need the law of God to be written upon our hearts. But that could only be accomplished through a mediator who is far greater than Moses.

As has been the case throughout Exodus, Moses was uniquely privileged to enter the presence of God and then to speak on God’s behalf. Recall that in 4:16 that Yahweh even told Moses that he would be as God to Aaron. Indeed, in 33:11, we read: “Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” He was graciously invited to have special access to God that no one else in the Old Testament ever had. Yet Moses could never be the perfect mediator that God’s people needed, for he had his own sin and needed a mediator himself.

While Moses was invited to come near to the Yahweh, John introduces Jesus as the One who has been with God from the very beginning and who is Himself God. This is why the author of Hebrews made the point of Jesus being greater even than Moses, for Moses was faithful as a servant of God’s house but Jesus was faithful as God’s Son and as the One who built the house.

Being the sinless God-man, Jesus alone was qualified to make the true, once for all sacrifice for our sins. Even though the overall tenor Exodus 24 is a joyful covenant with God, there is no escaping the sobering reality that it was inaugurated through death and buckets of blood.

Again, even though we can behold God’s grace toward Israel here, it is as the author of Hebrews said only a shadow and a copy of what was to come. Under the old covenant, death continued to come upon many more animals, millions upon millions of animals. But again, the fact that those animal sacrifices needed to be made over and over again testified to their insufficiency to actually cover sin’s debt. A greater sacrifice with great blood was needed. Thus, Hebrews 9:24-26 is the greatest news ever proclaimed:

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Christ’s once for all sacrifice ratified the new and better covenant for us. He has fully paid the debt of our sins and clothed us in His perfect righteousness, so there is no need for further sacrifice. Indeed, any attempt at further sacrifice is blasphemy against the sufficiency of Jesus’ substitutionary death. In canceling the guilt and penalty for our breaking of God’s law, He has already given us the Spirit to write His laws upon our heart, giving us a new desire to obey, not through fear of punishment but from love for Savior.

Under this new covenant, we also have greater access and greater communion. As our text began, only Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders were allowed to come up the mountain, but even then only Moses was permitted to enter the cloud of God’s presence. Here is the invitation of the new covenant:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:15–16

And while only the elders of Israel were permitted to share in the covenantal meal in the presence of Yahweh, in the Lord’s Supper, we have a marvelous picture of the invitation into communion with God that is extended now to each of us. Indeed, Moses’ prayer in Numbers 11:29 that all of God’s people would be His prophets and that all would have His Spirit has become a reality. Therefore, as we eat this bread and drink this cup, let us taste and see the goodness of God who has brought us into covenant and fellowship with Him through the blood and work of our Lord Jesus.