Law of Moses — Exodus 24

This chapter is critical to understand the Covenant and how God held Israel accountable. Keep in mind that the Hebrew language isn’t very good at description, and translations into English vary widely on this chapter. It’s difficult to get an image of what happened here without referring back to movies, and most of them were based on very poor scholarship.

The previous chapters we’ve looked at were one long monologue between God and Moses. He then came back and related all of it to the nation. Try to understand that even if it were only a few thousand bodies, this wasn’t a speech that touched everyone’s ears. Rather, the leadership of each tribe was clustered close enough to hear it, and they related what they heard to their tribes, but we can’t be sure the exact procedure and how long it may have taken. This was supposed to be at least 250,000 military aged men alone, not to mention all their families back among the tents. The whole nation was assembled and arranged in martial order, rather like their version of a military parade. At any rate, Moses wrote all of this down so that folks could copy it and review it later. They all agreed to it verbally, which was then binding on them.

The Lord called up Moses and his immediate ceremonial staff: Aaron as Chief Priest and the two primary senior priests, his elder sons Nadab and Abihu. Also invited were the ranking Seventy Elders Council, composed of men from the various Twelve Tribes. This was rather analogous to an emperor calling a vassal king into His court; this would be a vassal king’s retinue. In the case of the priests, it would brand them with an unmistakable sense of divine Presence and awe to breathe life into their service. For the elders, it was rather like them witnessing things firsthand so they can insure the rest of the nation knows this is not some imaginary vision of a crazy man, nor a smoke and mirrors show.

This tableau wasn’t on a flat plain. The approach to every mountain in that part of the world is hilly, with ridges cut by seasonal water courses (wadi). Early the next morning, Moses would have hiked up on a suitable ridge in easy view of the crowds, and built an altar according to the ancient traditions he already cited. He also erected a stone pillar for each of the tribes. All of this was likely near the same place Moses stood to receive the initial outline of the Covenant. Note in passing that Moses didn’t perform this labor with his own hands; there would have been high ranking men to handle this for him, with him clearly in charge.

Next, he called for younger adult men chosen by each tribe as representatives, and they brought collected offerings. The offerings would have already been in hand among the tribes, but the ritual called for the men to go and appear to solicit these offerings. Mentioned prominently was a number of oxen. The point was the necessary symbolism of the blood drained from their bodies. Half the blood of each animal was splattered on the altar to sanctify it. The other half of each was collected in basins. Again, the priests on hand would have performed the actual work. Moses read the current iteration of the Covenant to the crowd. Once more, they all verbally agreed to it through their leaders. In response, Moses splattered the blood from the basins in wide arcs over the front of the crowd, perhaps walking part way through the rest of the crowd doing the same thing. It’s almost certain he had the help of Aaron and his sons in this, but it was customary in Hebrew writing that you understand that without having to state it pedantically.

After all this ritual observance of confirming the Covenant, Moses gathered the previously mentioned entourage and climbed a ways up the side of the mountain. There, God gave them a vision, a manifestation of His Presence that they would recognize. He sat on a throne with a green colored pavement as His feet. They could see right through this pavement to whatever was underneath. There’s just too much symbolism here to summarize, but what matters most is that they would have been suitably impressed that this was no mere human. This whole scene was burned into their minds, and not only did they not die from being in His holy Presence, but they were allowed to eat a meal symbolizing being at peace with this, their new Emperor.

God commanded Moses to approach more closely so that he could receive in his hands tablets of thin slabs of stone with writing that symbolized the Covenant. Not previously noted was the presence of Joshua, but that’s not unusual in their culture. Joshua held the same place as Moses’ shield bearer; this was his understudy and presumed successor. Every man of importance had at least one younger fellow hanging around as his apprentice, even if they weren’t mentioned in the text. You can bet almost every man in his entourage up on the mountain had one or more attendants, too. In this case, the identity of Joshua is important, as he went right along behind Moses up to the throne of God. Turning back to the elders, Moses told them to wait, as this was going to take a long time. He left instructions on whom they should trust if anything came up: Aaron who could get a word from God, and Hur as a reliable judge. Again, we see a man named who wasn’t previously mentioned. This is normal.

Moses ascended higher (with Joshua in tow) into the cloud covering the top of the mountain. The two men were there fasting for a week before God called to Moses again. God manifested Himself again, this time as a fire consuming the top part of the mountain, and it was visible to the nation below. Just as a minor note, to these ancient people, all glowing was related to fire. They had no other source of light, so everything that was alight was “fire” to them. What you and I might think of it is impossible to guess, but a “consuming fire” indicates flames of some sort with smoke to match. In this case it would probably look like a volcano without the ash raining down or magma flowing down the sides. It was into this cloud of smoke that Moses (and Joshua) climbed even farther up. They stayed up there for “forty days and nights” — a Hebrew expression meaning longer than a month, but not precisely forty.