Exodus 24: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD calls Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders up the mountain, with Moses alone allowed to come near. Moses tells the people the LORD's words, and they say they will do them; he writes the words down, builds an altar with twelve pillars, has offerings made, and sprinkles blood on the altar and on the people, calling it the blood of the covenant. The leaders go up and see the God of Israel, and they eat and drink. The LORD then calls Moses up to receive the stone tablets, and Moses goes into the cloud on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.

Claim by Claim

1. 24:1
   • Someone said to Moses to come up to the LORD.
   • The ones told to come up were Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel.
   • They were told to bow down in worship from a distance.
2. 24:2
   • Moses alone was to come near to the LORD.
   • The others were not to come near.
   • The people were not to go up with Moses.
3. 24:3
   • Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the LORD.
   • Moses recounted to the people all the ordinances.
   • All the people answered with one voice.
   • The people said they would do all the words the LORD had spoken.
4. 24:4
   • Moses wrote all the words of the LORD.
   • Moses rose early in the morning.
   • Moses built an altar at the foot of the mountain.
   • Moses set up twelve standing stones for the twelve tribes of Israel.
5. 24:5
   • Moses sent young men of the children of Israel.
   • The young men offered burnt offerings.
   • The young men sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the LORD.
6. 24:6
   • Moses took half of the blood.
   • Moses put that half of the blood in basins.
   • Moses dashed the other half of the blood against the altar.
7. 24:7
   • Moses took the book of the covenant.
   • Moses read the book of the covenant in the hearing of the people.
   • The people said they would do all that the LORD had spoken.
   • The people said they would obey.
8. 24:8
   • Moses took the blood.
   • Moses dashed the blood on the people.
   • Moses said this was the blood of the covenant.
   • Moses said the LORD had cut this covenant with them concerning all these words.
9. 24:9
   • Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up.
10. 24:10
    • They saw the God of Israel.
    • Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire stone.
    • What was under his feet was like the substance of the sky for clearness.
11. 24:11
    • God did not lay his hand on the nobles of the children of Israel.
    • The nobles beheld God.
    • The nobles ate and drank.
12. 24:12
    • The LORD said to Moses to come up to him on the mountain.
    • The LORD told Moses to remain there.
    • The LORD said he would give Moses the tablets of stone.
    • The LORD said he would give Moses the law and the commandment.
    • The LORD said he had written the law and the commandment.
    • The purpose was that Moses might teach the people.
13. 24:13
    • Moses rose up.
    • Joshua, Moses' attendant, rose up.
    • Moses went up into the mountain of God.
14. 24:14
    • Moses told the elders to wait there for them until they returned.
    • Moses said Aaron and Hur were with the elders.
    • Moses said anyone who had a dispute should go to Aaron and Hur.
15. 24:15
    • Moses went up into the mountain.
    • The cloud covered the mountain.
16. 24:16
    • The glory of the LORD settled upon Mount Sinai.
    • The cloud covered the mountain six days.
    • On the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.
17. 24:17
    • The appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain.
    • This appearance was in the sight of the children of Israel.
18. 24:18
    • Moses entered into the midst of the cloud.
    • Moses went up into the mountain.
    • Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

24:1

"Elders" here are not clergy but the senior heads of the families and clans, the men who spoke and acted for the tribes in public matters. Nadab and Abihu are Aaron's two oldest sons. "Worship from a distance" is a boundary instruction: the group is to bow down at a set remove from the mountain rather than climb it.

24:2

This sets up a ladder of access: the people stay at the bottom, the seventy-three leaders climb partway, and Moses alone goes to the top. Since chapter 19 a boundary had been drawn around Sinai that ordinary Israelites could not cross on pain of death, so the invitation to the elders in verse 1 is an unusual concession.

24:3

"Rulings" translates a Hebrew word (mishpatim) for case law, decisions of the "if a man does this, then this follows" kind, like the laws set out in the three preceding chapters. It is a different word from the broad "words" or commands, and the verse deliberately names both.

24:4

The twelve pillars are upright standing stones. In the ancient Near East stones were set up at the site of an agreement to mark it and to stand as permanent witnesses to it. The twelve tribes are the family groups descended from the twelve sons of Jacob.

24:5

The formal priesthood described later in Exodus has not been set up yet, so ordinary young Israelites do the slaughtering. A burnt offering was consumed entirely on the altar; a peace offering (Hebrew shelamim) had only certain portions burned, with the rest eaten by the worshipers in a shared meal, which is why the men on the mountain eat and drink in verse 11.

24:6

Blood was the standard medium for putting an agreement formally into force. Splitting it in two and applying half to the altar and half to the people (verse 8) binds both parties to the same terms.

24:7

The "book" is a scroll, a written document, not a bound book. Reading it aloud was the ordinary way of publishing a legal text to a population that mostly could not read, and hearing it read is what makes the people's spoken assent binding.

24:8

A covenant is a formal, binding agreement with sworn obligations on both sides, closer to a treaty or contract than to a promise. "The blood of the covenant" names the blood as the thing that ratifies it, the way a seal or signature ratifies a document.

24:9

They did not go all the way to the top. They stopped partway up the mountain.

24:10

The Hebrew word rendered "sapphire" (sappir) most likely refers to lapis lazuli, a deep blue stone prized in the ancient world. The description works from the ground up, the writer says what was under God's feet and does not describe God.

24:11

"Did not lay his hand on" is a Hebrew idiom for not striking down or harming. The remark is made because the assumption elsewhere in these texts is that seeing God would be fatal. "Nobles" and "leading men" render a term for the same distinguished group named in verse 9. Their eating and drinking is the meal from the peace offerings of verse 5, the customary way of concluding an agreement.

24:12

Writing on stone made a text permanent and publicly displayable, as opposed to a scroll that could be altered or destroyed. The Hebrew is open about how "the law and the commands" relate to the tablets: it can be read as saying the tablets contain them, or that God will give them along with the tablets.

24:13

"Helper" (Hebrew mesharet) means a personal attendant or assistant to an important person, a position of standing, not slavery.

24:14

Hur appears earlier holding up Moses' hands during the battle at Rephidim. "A matter to settle" means a legal dispute; the elders functioned as judges, so Moses is naming who holds that authority while he is gone.

24:15

The thick cloud was a sign that God was there. It also hid the mountaintop so no one could see in.

24:16

"The glory of the LORD" translates a Hebrew word whose root sense is weight or heaviness. Used of God it means his presence made visible and unmistakable, here as blazing light inside the cloud. "Abode" means settled and stayed, not merely passed by. The six days of waiting before God speaks are part of the point: Moses sits outside the cloud for nearly a week before he is called in.

24:17

"Devouring fire" means fire that consumes or burns up whatever it touches. The verse is careful to say this is how it looked "in the eyes of the children of Israel," that is, from where the people stood at the bottom, watching.

24:18

"Forty days and forty nights" is a set expression in Hebrew for a long, complete stretch of time, the same span used for the flood and later for Elijah's journey and Jesus in the wilderness. "Gat him up" is old English for got himself up, meaning climbed.