Exodus 24:1-6

The Covenant Ceremony

1 Then He said to Moses, "Go up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and 70 of Israel's elders, and bow in worship at a distance.

2 Moses alone is to approach the Lord, but the others are not to approach, and the people are not to go up with him."

3 Moses came and told the people all the commands of the Lord and all the ordinances. Then all the people responded with a single voice, "We will do everything that the Lord has commanded."

4 And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early the next morning and set up an altar and 12 pillars for the 12 tribes of Israel at the base of the mountain.

5 Then he sent out young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord.

6 Moses took half the blood and set it in basins; the [other] half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.

Exodus 24:1-6 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 24

In this chapter we have an account that Moses was ordered to come up to the Lord alone, Ex 24:1,2, but that before he did go up, he related to the people all the above laws delivered to him, which they promised obedience to, and so a covenant was made between God and the people by sacrifice, and by the sprinkling of blood, Ex 24:3-8, upon which he and Aaron, and his two sons and seventy elders of Israel, went up part of the mountain, and had a vision of God, Ex 24:9-11, when Moses with Joshua was called, and went up higher, until at length he entered into the cloud where the Lord was, and continued forty days and forty nights, Ex 24:12-18.