The Man Moses #11

The Lord said to me,.."I will test my people with a plumbline. Amos 7:8 (TLB)

The Plumbline is a blog to encourage the Body of Christ.

The Man Moses #11

J. C. Sheridan, 2nd

The Angel and the Promises  Exodus 23:20 (NKJV)“Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.  The communication of these laws, made to Moses and by him rehearsed to the people, was concluded by the addition of many animating promises, intermingled with several solemn warnings that lapses into sin and idolatry would not be tolerated or passed with impunity.  This angel is frequently called Jehovah and Elohim, that is, God.

I will send hornets before thee. (See on Jos 24:12)—Some instrument of divine judgment, but variously interpreted: as hornets in a literal sense; as a pestilential disease; as a terror of the Lord, an extraordinary dejection.

 I will not drive … out … in one year; lest the land become desolate—Many reasons recommend a gradual root out and destroy completely the former inhabitants of Canaan. But only one is here specified—the danger lest, in the unoccupied grounds, wild beasts should inconveniently multiply; a clear proof that the promised land was more than sufficient to contain the actual population of the Israelites.

Exodus 24:3 (NLT) Then Moses went down to the people and repeated all the instructions and regulations the Lord had given him. All the people answered with one voice, “We will do everything the Lord has commanded.

God summoned Moses before Him with Aaron, Aaron’s two eldest sons Nadab and Abihu (cf. Lev. 10), and 70 of the elders (leaders) of the people, though the men, all 73 of them, except for Moses were to keep their distance (cf. Ex. 19:12-13, 24) from the Lord out of respect for His majesty and holiness. Moses went to the top of the mountain, the 73 other leaders were on the mountain but not at the top, and the people were below at the foot of the mountain.

God was now ready to confirm the Mosaic Covenant with His people. Moses rehearsed before the people all the Lord‘s words and laws (20:22-23:33), called “the Book of the Covenant” (24:7). After hearing these laws the people heartily submitted themselves to obey them (cf. 19:8) and Moses … wrote down God’s commands.

Then Moses prepared the people for the ratifying of the Law. First Moses made an altar at the foot of Mount Sinai and erected 12 stone pillars to represent Israel’s 12 tribes. Since the Levitical priesthood had not yet been organized, young Israelite men (perhaps the dedicated firstborn, 13:1-16), and Moses served as priests and offered burnt offerings and … fellowship offerings to the Lord. In the ratification ceremony Moses sprinkled blood … on the altar (24:6) and on the people (v. 8) who had heard Moses read the Book of the Covenant and had promised once again to obey it (v. 7; cf. v. 3). This is the only time in the Old Testament when people were sprinkled with blood. Possibly the people were sprinkled in the sense that the stones which represented them (v. 4) were sprinkled. (On the relationship of obedience and sprinkling of blood see comments on 1 Peter 1:2.) The sprinkled blood, then, symbolized the legal transaction between God (represented by the altar, Ex. 24:6) and the people (represented by the stones). Israel was thus ceremonially set apart through blood (the blood of the covenant) as the people of the true God. Later the New Covenant, established by Jesus, was also ratified by blood, His own (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25-26).

Moses … Aaron, Aaron’s two eldest sons, and the 70 elders … went up the mountain to confirm and ratify the covenant before God. Since no one can see God and live (see comments on 33:11, 20; John 1:18), they probably saw the God of Israel in the sense that they had a vision of Him in which they discerned who He is. Apparently the sight was so grand and awesome that their eyes saw only below His feet. The splendor of God looked like sapphire (cf. the throne of sapphire in Ezek. 1:26). Then they ate a meal before Him. It was common to symbolize the ratifying of a covenant with a meal (cf. Gen. 26:30; 31:54; Luke 22:15-20).