The Book of Exodus

Hebrew Study

Explanation

God calls Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders to come up, but only Moses may "come near the LORD." First, though, the covenant must be presented to the people. Moses tells them "all the words of the LORD, and all the judgments," everything from the Ten Commandments through the ordinances, and the people answer "with one voice ... All the words which the LORD hath said will we do." Then Moses "wrote all the words of the LORD," putting the covenant in permanent form, and rose early to build "an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel." The altar spoke of God; the twelve pillars stood for the people. The covenant was to be a solemn, recorded agreement between the LORD and all Israel, entered with open eyes and a whole-hearted vow.

Gospel Focus

The people again vow, "All the words which the LORD hath said will we do," and again the vow is sincere yet rests too much on their own strength. It is right to consecrate ourselves to obey God; it is dangerous to trust our own resolve to do it. The very covenant they were entering would soon be broken at the golden calf. This is why God promised a better covenant, one written not on stone but "in their hearts" (Jeremiah 31:33), with the Spirit given to work in us what we could never do alone. And notice that Moses "wrote all the words of the LORD." God's covenant was committed to writing, not left to memory or feeling, for His word endures and can be checked, taught, and obeyed across generations. The people of God are a people of the written Word. We do not build our faith on shifting impressions but on what God has spoken and recorded, and we enter His covenant not on our own strength but trusting the grace that writes His law upon the heart.

Explanation

Now comes the sealing of the covenant, and it is sealed in blood. Young men offer burnt offerings and peace offerings, and Moses takes the blood and divides it: half he "sprinkled on the altar," the place that stood for God, and half he kept in basins. He reads "the book of the covenant" aloud, the people again pledge to obey, and then Moses sprinkles the reserved blood "on the people," saying, "Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you." The blood on the altar and the blood on the people bound the two parties together in a solemn bond. A covenant with God was not a mere agreement of words; it was ratified by sacrifice, sealed by shed blood. Life had to be given to bind God and man in covenant.

Gospel Focus

"Behold the blood of the covenant." These very words come again from the lips of Jesus in the upper room, when He took the cup and said, "For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matthew 26:28). The old covenant was sealed with the blood of oxen; the new covenant is sealed with the blood of Christ Himself. The book of Hebrews draws the line directly, quoting this scene, "This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you" (Hebrews 9:20), and showing that the blood of animals only pointed to the better blood to come. We are brought into covenant with God not by our vows, which we cannot keep, but by the sprinkled blood of Jesus, "the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel" (Hebrews 12:24). What the sprinkled blood at Sinai foreshadowed, the cross fulfilled. Every believer stands in covenant with God tonight not by works but by the blood of the Lamb sprinkled on the heart, and that blood binds us to Him for ever.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Now the covenant is celebrated in God's very presence. Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders go up and "saw the God of Israel." They could not gaze on His unveiled being, but they beheld a manifestation of His glory, and "under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone," a pavement of shining blue like the clear sky. It was an awesome sight, and it might have killed them, yet "upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand." Instead of destroying them, God let them see Him and live, and "they did eat and drink" in His presence. It was a covenant meal, the fellowship offering shared before the LORD, the sign that peace had been made and God's people were welcomed at His table. They had passed from terror at the foot of the mountain to eating and drinking with God.

Gospel Focus

"They saw the God of Israel." Yet Scripture also says, "No man hath seen God at any time" (John 1:18). Both are true, for what the elders saw was not the invisible essence of God, which no eye can bear, but a visible manifestation of His glory. The one God, who is Spirit, has always made Himself seen in forms His people could behold, and He would do so fully and finally in Christ, "the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person" (Hebrews 1:3). To see the God of Israel was to see God stooping to reveal Himself, the same mystery that came to its height when "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). And mark the wonder of the covenant meal: sinners ate and drank in the presence of a holy God and were not consumed, because the blood of the covenant had just been sprinkled. This is our story at the Lord's table, where by the blood of Jesus we have fellowship with God and are welcomed rather than destroyed. It points onward to the day the redeemed will sit at "the marriage supper of the Lamb" (Revelation 19:9), seeing God and eating and drinking in His presence for ever. The blood makes the meal possible.

Explanation

God calls Moses higher still, "Come up to me into the mount, and be there," to receive "tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written." Leaving the elders with Aaron and Hur to judge the people, Moses and his minister Joshua go up, and "a cloud covered the mount." For six days the glory of the LORD rested on Sinai, and "the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud." To the watching people below, "the sight of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount." Then Moses "went into the midst of the cloud," entering the very glory the people could only behold from afar, and stayed there "forty days and forty nights." The mediator went in where no one else could go, to bring back the words of God for the people.

Gospel Focus

Moses entering the cloud is a picture of the mediator going into the presence of God on behalf of the people. While Israel waited below, Moses passed through the fire into the glory where they could not go, to receive God's word for them and return. This foreshadows a greater Mediator. Christ has "entered ... into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us" (Hebrews 9:24), passing into the true holy place where we could never go, on our behalf. And the forty days and forty nights mark a solemn time of communion and preparation, the same span the Lord Jesus would spend fasting in the wilderness. The glory that looked to the people "like devouring fire" is the glory of the God who is "a consuming fire," and yet the mediator entered it and lived. So Christ entered the holy presence for us and lives to bring us the covenant word and the covenant blessing. We wait below no longer in terror but in hope, for our Mediator has gone into the glory for us, and He will surely come again.