Exodus 24:1

Confirming the Covenant

1 And to Moses he said, "Go up to Yahweh--you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy from the elders of Israel--and you will worship at a distance.

Exodus 24:1 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 24:1

And he said unto Moses
Who said? no doubt a divine Person, and yet what this Person said is,

come up unto the Lord;
meaning either to himself, or one divine Person called to Moses to come up to another: according to the Targum of Jonathan, it was Michael, the prince of wisdom; not a created angel, but the eternal Word, Wisdom, and Son of God; who said this on the seventh day of the month, which was the day after the giving of the law, or ten commands; though Jarchi says this paragraph was before the ten commands, and was said on the fourth of Sivan; but the Targumist seems most correct:

come up unto the Lord, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy
of the elders of Israel;
Nadab and Abihu were the two eldest sons of Aaron, ( Exodus 6:23 ) and the seventy elders were not all the elders of Israel, but were so many of them selected out of them, the chief and principal; who were heads of tribes and families, and were no doubt many, if not all of them, of those who by the advice of Jethro were chosen to be rulers of thousands, hundreds, and fifties; these were called to come up to the Lord on the mountain, but not to the top of it, only Moses went thither:

and worship ye afar off:
from the people, and even at a distance from Moses; for he only was admitted near to God, as the following verse shows.

Exodus 24:1 In-Context

1 And to Moses he said, "Go up to Yahweh--you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy from the elders of Israel--and you will worship at a distance.

2 And Moses {alone} will come near to Yahweh, and they will not come near, and the people will not go up with him."

3 And Moses came, and he told the people all the words of Yahweh and all the regulations. And all the people answered with one voice, and they said, "All the words that Yahweh has spoken we will do."

4 And Moses wrote all the words of Yahweh, and he rose early in the morning, and he built an altar at the base of the mountain and [set up] twelve memorial stones for the twelve tribes of Israel.

5 And he sent young men from the {Israelites}, and they offered burnt offerings, and they sacrificed sacrifices [as] fellowship offerings to Yahweh [using] bulls.