1And He said to Moses, “Come up to YHWH: you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of Israel’s elders, and bow from a distance.
24:1. from a distance. This account has a multitude of parallels to the account of the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22): Moses says the same words to the elders that Abraham says to the servant boys: “Sit here … we’ll come back to you.” The Exodus account has servant boys (n
‘
rîm) as well. Both accounts use the term “from a distance” (m
r
q). Both use the term “to bow” (hištawôt). Both Moses and Abraham come up a mountain. Both have a burnt offering (ha‘lôt ‘ôlh). The two accounts share a chain of ten verbs: “and he said,” “and he took … and he set,” “and he got up early,” “and he built an altar,” “and he put out his hand,” “and he/it was,” “and he/they got up,” “and he/they came,” “and he/they saw.” All these parallels alert us to the fact that some important connection exists here. The culminating parallels indicate what that connection is: Abraham is rewarded at the end “because you did this thing”; and the people in Exodus promise that “We’ll do all the things.” Abraham is rewarded because “you listened to my voice”; and Exodus reports that “they said with one voice,” and they say, “we’ll listen.” So (1) this is a reminder that the merit of Abraham remains the basis on which all of this now happens. (2) This is a fulfillment of promises made following Abraham’s acts of extraordinary obedience. And (3) Abraham’s obedience is an example for the people to emulate.
The contrast is striking as well. Abraham’s obedience is the centerpiece of the first story. In this second story, the people will soon commit their worst act of disobedience, the golden calf event.
Note also: The first story is at “the mountain of YHWH.” The second is at “the mountain of God.” And both state that they are about divine appearances. The divine appearances mark the sacredness of the two mountain locations. The “mountain of God” is Horeb/Sinai. The identity of the “mountain of YHWH” is uncertain, although elsewhere it refers to the location of the Temple in Jerusalem. The parallels of these two stories connect the mountain where the greatest revelation takes place to the mountain where the divine promise was confirmed in the past—and where the Temple will stand in the future. (The location of the Temple is identified with the place of the binding of Isaac—Moriah—in 2 Chr 3:1.) The two sacred mountains are connected; the patriarch and his descendants are connected; past, present, and future are connected—all in the embroidery of the Torah’s wording.
2And Moses will come over alone to YHWH, and they shall not come over, and the people shall not come up with him.”
3And Moses came and told the people all of YHWH’s words and all the judgments. And all the people answered, one voice, and they said, “We’ll do all the things that YHWH has spoken.”
4And Moses wrote all of YHWH’s words. And he got up early in the morning and built an altar below the mountain and twelve pillars for twelve tribes of Israel.
5And he sent young men of the children of Israel, and they made burnt offerings, and they made peace-offering sacrifices to YHWH: bulls.
6And Moses took half of the blood and set it in basins and threw half of the blood on the altar.
7And he took the scroll of the covenant and read in the people’s ears. And they said, “We’ll do everything that YHWH has spoken, and we’ll listen.”
24:7. We’ll do … and we’ll listen. It has been noted that the word order here seems backward: doesn’t one have to listen to the command before one can do it?! The promises to do and to listen come together in the order of this sentence in the Hebrew, so it may be that they were a known formula, constituting an oath of absolute obedience. But I understand them to be separate: The people’s promise to do the commandments is a repetition of what they had said before in v. 3. They repeat it formally now because Moses has just read them the written document. The people’s promise to listen is, as Rashbam wrote, a further promise, a commitment to follow the things that their God will say to them in the future. In Hebrew as in English, words for “listening” also imply obeying, as in: “Listen to your mother!” “Do you hear me?!” (As an alternative and more banal explanation of the seemingly backward order: the Septuagint has the two words in reverse order.)
8And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people, and he said, “Here is the blood of the covenant that YHWH has made with you regarding all these things.”
9And Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of Israel’s elders went up.
10And they saw the God of Israel. And below His feet it was like a structure of sapphire brick and like the essence of the skies for clarity.
24:10–11. And they saw God. … And they envisioned God. Some have taken this to mean that they literally, physically see God. But, as Ibn Ezra properly observed, the verb for “they saw” (Hebrew r’h) is also used to refer to seeing in a vision, as when Isaiah says, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne” (Isa 6:1). This meaning of “they saw” here is confirmed by the parallel use in v. 11 of the word “envisioned” (Hebrew zh), which regularly means to have a vision (as, for example in Isa 1:1). Also, this is consistent with the idea that no one ever sees the actual form of God except Moses on a single occasion. This idea is understood throughout the Tanak, without exception. (On the distinction between vision and regular experience, see The Hidden Face of God, pp. 17–18, 62–63.)
11And He did not put out His hand to the chiefs of the children of Israel. And they envisioned God. And they ate and drank.
24:11. He did not put out His hand. Those who take the passage to mean that this group actually sees God understand “He did not put out His hand” to mean that God does not kill them for seeing God. But the text says “He did not put out His hand to the chiefs …” The phrase “to put out one’s hand” followed by the preposition “to” (Hebrew ’el) never refers to killing in the Tanak. (When referring to killing, the phrase occurs with the preposition b.) And, in any case, there are other cases of the expression of God putting out a hand to humans that are meant positively. In Ps 144:7, this refers to God saving someone. And there is an even closer parallel in Jer 1:9, where it takes place in a vision and refers to God reaching out to touch Jeremiah’s mouth to enable him to speak. Here in Exodus, perhaps it means that in their vision they see but are not touched by God.
12And YHWH said to Moses, “Come up to me, to the mountain, and be there, and I’ll give you stone tablets and the instruction and the commandment that I’ve written to instruct them.”
13And Moses and Joshua, his attendant, got up, and Moses went up to the Mountain of God.
14And he said to the elders, “Sit for us here until we’ll come back to you. And here, Aaron and Hur are with you. Let whoever has any matters go over to them.”
15And Moses went up to the mountain. And the cloud covered the mountain.
16And YHWH’s glory settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And He called to Moses on the seventh day from inside the cloud.
17And the appearance of YHWH’s glory was like a consuming fire in the mountaintop before the eyes of the children of Israel.
18And Moses came inside the cloud and went up into the mountain. And Moses was in the mountain forty days and forty nights.
