Commentaria in Exodum
Chapter Twenty-four. Synopsis of the Chapter
Moses relates the laws of the Lord to the people; they accept them, and the people bind themselves by them. Hence Moses ordains a covenant between God and the people, the blood of the victims being sprinkled upon the people. Again, at verse 12, Moses is commanded to go up into the mountain, to receive from God the tables of the law; he goes up, and remains in the mount forty days.
1. And he said to Moses: Come up to the Lord, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abiu, and seventy of the ancients of Israel: and you shall adore afar off. 2. And Moses alone shall come near the Lord: but they shall not come nigh, neither shall the people come up with him. 3. Then Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice: All the words of the Lord which he hath spoken we will do. 4. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord: and rising in the morning, he built an altar at the foot of the mount, and twelve titles according to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5. And he sent young men of the children of Israel, and they offered holocausts, and sacrificed pacific victims of calves to the Lord. 6. Then Moses took half of the blood, and put it into bowls: and the rest he poured upon the altar. 7. And taking the book of the covenant, he read it in the hearing of the people: and they said: All things that the Lord hath spoken, we will do: we will be obedient. 8. And he took the blood and sprinkled it upon the people, and he said: This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words. 9. And Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abiu, and seventy of the ancients of Israel went up, 10. And they saw the God of Israel: and under his feet, as it were a work of sapphire stone, and as the heaven, when it is clear. 11. Neither did he send forth his hand upon them that departed far off from the children of Israel: and they saw God, and they eat and drank. 12. And the Lord said to Moses: Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and the law, and the commandments which I have written: that thou mayest teach them. 13. Moses rose up, and his minister Josue: and Moses going up into the mount of God, 14. Said to the ancients: Wait ye here until we return to you. You have Aaron and Hur with you: if any question shall arise, you shall refer it to them. 15. And when Moses was gone up, a cloud covered the mount, 16. And the glory of the Lord dwelt upon Sinai, covering it with a cloud six days: and the seventh day he called him out of the midst of the cloud. 17. And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like a burning fire upon the top of the mount, in the eyes of the children of Israel. 18. And Moses entering into the midst of the cloud, went up into the mountain: and he was there forty days and forty nights.
1. COME UP TO THE LORD.—Moses had already gone up to the Lord on Sinai, and from the angel, in God’s stead, had received the precepts commanded in chaps. 21, 22 and 23; but he was bidden to come down, to lay these laws before the people, which, though Scripture here, in the Hebrew manner, is silent about it, it nevertheless intimates in verse 3; whence he is again commanded to go up, namely after he has had the answer and assent of the people concerning observing the law of God; and this to the end that on Mount Sinai he might receive the tables of the law, as a sign of the covenant between God and the people, and as it were its instrument and seal: many things, therefore, Scripture here passes over and is silent about, for the sake of brevity, which the interpreter must supply from elsewhere.
THOU AND AARON, NADAB AND ABIU.—These last two were the elder sons of Aaron, who afterwards, using strange fire in the sacred rites and sacrifices, were burned up by it by the avenging God, Leviticus chap. 10, verse 2.
AND SEVENTY OF THE ANCIENTS OF ISRAEL.—Some think these seventy to be those among whom Moses divided his burden of ruling and his spirit, and whom he set over the people, who therefore also prophesied; of whom Eldad and Medad, though absent, received the same spirit. But this is foreign to the sacred history, for those were chosen long afterwards, at the graves of lust, and not on Sinai, as may be seen in Num. chap. 11, verse 16. Nor were these seventy decurions or captains of thousands all appointed on the counsel of Jethro, of whom Exodus chap. 18; but from these (if indeed they were already appointed), or from other chief men of the people also, they were called by Moses, that, accompanying him on Sinai, they might honour by their presence the reception of the tables of the law.
AND YOU SHALL ADORE AFAR OFF—God in the darkness, on the summit of Mount Sinai, showing Himself by an angel and speaking with Moses (1).
2. AND MOSES ALONE SHALL COME NEAR THE LORD,—to the darkness at the summit of Sinai. Alone, I say, Moses, accompanied by one servant of his, Josue: but the seventy ancients with Aaron were bidden to remain below with the people to govern them.
3. THEN MOSES CAME AND TOLD THE PEOPLE ALL THE WORDS OF THE LORD.—It surely could not have come to pass without a miracle that the voice of Moses should be heard and understood by so many hundred thousands of people: which the same more certainly appears in the repeated promulgation of the law, Deut. chap. 1, and Deut. chap. 29, verses 10 and 11. But God willed that the precepts be set before the people, that is, all the Hebrews, one by one, before He entered into covenant with them and confirmed it with the tables, to show how humanely He dealt with them, and that He did not wish to lay a law upon them unless they assented; and then, that they might hold more firmly a law which they had so freely embraced, and have no occasion afterwards of declining it.
THE JUDGMENTS,—the judicial laws of chaps. 21, 22, 23.
4. HE BUILT AN ALTAR AT THE FOOT OF THE MOUNT, AND TWELVE TITLES ACCORDING TO THE TWELVE TRIBES OF ISRAEL,—as if to say: Moses set up twelve rough stones as titles and statues, to signify that these sacrifices, by which the covenant between God and the people was ratified, were offered for the twelve tribes. Hence some probably think that the altar itself was built of these twelve stones. So Abulensis and Cajetan, although Andreas Masius on Josue chap. 8, num. 34, and others think the contrary.
5. AND HE SENT YOUNG MEN OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, AND THEY OFFERED HOLOCAUSTS.—The Chaldee has: he sent the firstborn of the children of Israel: for these in the law of nature were priests, Aaron being not yet ordained priest. The firstborn sons, therefore, of the princes of Israel offered these sacrifices: although St. Augustine, Quest. 20 on Leviticus, thinks these to have been the sons of Aaron, who were afterwards made priests.
OF CALVES.—Strike out twelve with the Roman editions, the Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint: for since there were several firstborn, nothing hinders us from saying that they offered several victims. The Apostle, Hebrews chap. 9, verse 19, adds that goats also were then offered.
6. THEN MOSES TOOK HALF OF THE BLOOD, AND PUT IT INTO BOWLS: AND THE REST HE POURED UPON THE ALTAR.—Note: The ancients were wont to ratify covenants with victims and blood. Hence Livy, book 1, speaking of the treaty made between the Romans and the Albans, says: “The laws of the covenant being laid down, the herald said: The Roman people shall not be the first to fall away; if it first fall away, by public counsel and with wicked guile, do thou, Jupiter, on that day so smite the Roman people as I today smite this swine, and smite it the more heavily as thou canst and art mighty;” and Virgil, book 8 of the Aeneid, of Romulus and Tatius:
Armed they stood before the altar of Jove, holding the cups, and joined the treaty with a slain sow.
Hence some think that foedus (covenant) is named from foedum, a foul animal, namely the swine, which was slain at the covenant, and that from this the phrase has arisen by which we say to strike, smite, hit a covenant. The same custom was received long before among the faithful and worshippers of the true God. Hence Gen. chap. 15, verses 9, 10, 17, the Lord, as a sign and confirmation of the covenant entered into with Abraham, commanded an ox, a ram and a goat to be slain and divided in the midst; which done, a lamp signifying God passed between the divisions, indicating that he who broke the covenant would be so divided. See Jeremias chap. 34, verse 18; whence berit, that is covenant in Hebrew, most derive by metathesis from batar, that is, to divide. Hence Cyril, book 10 Against Julian, near the end, teaches from Sophocles that among later peoples this was observed, that those who made oaths went between the fire and carried iron in their hands. The same was done in this covenant of God with Moses and the Jews; for the blood of the victims was divided, to signify that he who violated the compact would pay in like manner, with his blood, for the violated faith of the covenant: and because the compact was struck between God and the people, it was fitting that both God and Israel should divide the blood and be sprinkled with it, and since God is incorporeal, so that He cannot be sprinkled with blood, the altar of the sacrifices was dyed with blood in His stead.