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24:10 There they saw . . . God: This statement must be interpreted in the light of 33:20. They saw some representation of God, the description of which is limited to the surface under his feet. When Isaiah saw God, the only description given was of the hem of his robe (Isa 6:1).
24:11 Around the world, then and now, the act of eating a meal together is often a sign of peace and good relations.
24:1-18 Israel agreed to the terms of the covenant (24:3), which was then ratified in several ceremonial activities. This included the formal writing and reading of the covenant (24:4, 7), the splattering of blood (24:6), a covenant meal (24:11), and the appearing of the glory of the Lord on the mountain (24:15-18).
24:12 The instructions and commands to be inscribed on the tablets of stone were the ten basic principles of 20:3-17 (see 34:28) on which the specific stipulations of 21:1–23:33 depended.
Moses
Moses Moses was the founding leader of Israel as a nation. God used Moses at a critical juncture in the history of his people. He was the prophet who received the law and mediated God’s covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai (Exod 19:3-6). He was also the first known writer of Scripture. The younger brother of Miriam and Aaron, Moses was born in Egypt under dangerous circumstances (Exod 1:15–2:2). The Egyptian pharaoh, fearing a rebellion, had decreed that all Hebrew boys be killed at birth. Moses’ mother, Jochebed, entrusted her infant son to God and set him afloat in the Nile in a reed basket. Pharaoh’s daughter found him and took him into the palace to raise as her own child (Exod 2:3-10). Little is known about Moses’ upbringing. Jewish tradition holds that he received both administrative and military training in Pharaoh’s household. When he was about forty years old, he killed an Egyptian to rescue a Hebrew slave, and then he fled to Midian (2:11-15; cp. Acts 7:23-29). There he rescued some young women who were being harassed as they watered their flocks. Their father (Jethro) invited him home. Moses married one of the women, Zipporah, and began a family as he cared for h...
genesis 15:9-18
exodus 3:2
exodus 20:3-17
exodus 21:1-33
exodus 24:3
exodus 24:4
exodus 24:6
exodus 24:7
The Purpose of the Sinai Covenant
The Purpose of the Sinai Covenant Nearly everything the Israelites had learned about ultimate reality from the Egyptians was wrong. There are not many gods; there is only one God. The Creator is perfectly good, and evil is the result of rebellion against him. God’s blessings cannot be obtained through magic and manipulation; instead, they are free to those who lovingly submit to him. Upon leaving Egypt, the Israelites did not yet know God in the way that he intended. In the plagues and the Red Sea crossing, they learned of God’s unique power. In the wilderness, they learned about God’s providential care. But they still did not know God’s character. The covenant at Sinai was designed to teach the Israelites about God’s nature and character as they lived out his Torah, his instructions. The covenant used a familiar political form, the suzerain-vassal treaty, in which a great king (the suzerain) made a treaty with a nation he had subjected as a vassal people. In such a treaty, the conquered people would declare their absolute loyalty to the king and obedience to his demands. The king, for his part, would promise to care for the conquered people and protect them from any enemi...