Ratification

Exodus 24:1-18

¹Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. ²Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.” ³Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” ⁴And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. ⁶And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. ⁷Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” ⁸And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” ⁹Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, ¹⁰and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. ¹¹And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank. ¹²The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” ¹³So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. ¹⁴And he said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them.” ¹⁵Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. ¹⁶The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. ¹⁷Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. ¹⁸Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

In our culture whenever we do something that requires a contract there comes a time when the parties involved gather to put their signatures on the deal. Usually this happens in the presence of a Notary Public and some lawyers. As we progress through the story in the Book of Exodus we have come to the point where it is time for God and His people to enter into a “legal agreement” as stipulated in the previous chapters. In giving the 10 Commandments to the people, God has declared His standards and expectations. The people have agreed to adhere to these demands in return for protection, provision, and relationship. It’s a win/win proposition! Now comes the time when the two parties sign the contract. This is what we read about in Exodus 24.

Before this important ratification of the agreement between God and the people, Moses uses five elements to center the people’s focus on their new relationship with God: an altar, twelve stone pillars, animal sacrifices, blood application, and the reading of the covenant. All of these serve to bring home the importance of this agreement and the seriousness with which God and even Moses were undertaking this promise.

The ratification of the Covenant is serious business. Remarkably, God shows up in person (!) albeit a rather veiled form because this is important. He even deigns to observe a meal with the leadership and observe all of the rites associated with such an important event. In the ancient world (and many places in the modern world) people would not eat together if they were not somehow allies or family. Eating was understood to convey acceptance, to declare approval of those with whom one dined. Just as Jesus’ dining with tax collectors, nonpracticing Jews (“sinners”), and other such persons was regarded by many in his day as an act of approval of their behavior, so eating a formal meal with others was understood to demonstrate mutual agreement, cooperation, acceptance, and respect.

In the ancient biblical world, covenants were normally concluded with a special covenant meal in which animals were symbolically cut in half (symbolizing the shared responsibility of the two parties as well as the severity of the penalty for breaking the covenant), then the parties to the covenant walked between the pieces, [See Genesis 15 for the first example of this custom that we see enacted in the between God and man as God makes His promises to Abraham.] and then the meal was eaten together as a sign of friendship and alliance. God’s covenant with Israel, as represented through the now-completed Covenant Code, involved God as one party and the people as the other. Represented by the seventy-four leaders, the people were the other party. More than any other of the Israelite leaders, Moses stood directly between God and the people as a mediator, and although the text does not say so, he may well have eaten God’s portion of the meal symbolically as God’s representative at the ceremony. The mass of the people could not “come up with him” but had to stay below at the base of the mountain, kept back as before by the boundaries set there. By their acceptance of the covenant both in advance and now, after hearing it, the people in general confirmed their willingness to abide by it, which was to be ritually symbolized by their elders’ eating the covenant meal with Yahweh.

Stuart, D. K. (2006). Exodus (Vol. 2, p. 552). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

What we know of the history that follows the ratification of the Covenant between God and man is that man blew this Covenant all to pieces by constant and stiff-necked disobedience. Not only did the people who actually stood at the bottom of Mt. Sinai break the Commandments, we do so as well – regularly and sometimes with intention. As Moses sprayed the animal blood upon the people as a part of the ritual, we know that Jesus’ blood was shed, finally and completely for our forgiveness. God fulfilled both halves of the agreement that was ratified that day by sending His Son to live out the Law faithfully and without fail. Because of His innocent death, His blood seals forever this ancient agreement and we are restored in the sight of God.