When Moses led Israel
out of Egypt to the Promised Land, they stopped at Mount Sinai on the new moon
of the third month after the Exodus. The
first month was Nisan, which was the time of the Passover and Unleavened
Bread. The third month is Sivan, which
is the time of Pentecost. While Israel
camped in front of the mountain, Moses went up (עלה)
to God like an offering of firstfruits.
The Lord called to Moses from the mountain (וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֵלָ֤יו יְהוָה֙ מִן־הָהָ֣ר)
and instructed him to speak these words to Israel:
You have seen what I
did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to
myself. Now therefore, if you obey my
voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the
peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for
me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation (Ex 19:3-6).
Israel was to be a kind
of firstfruits from the earth as a priestly people and a holy nation.[1]
The Blood Rite and the Meal Rite
This brings us to what
is called the “blood rite” (Ex 24:6-8)
and the “meal rite” (vv. 9-11). The Lord
had instructed Israel to make an altar of earth and to sacrifice (זבח)
on it burnt offerings (עלה) and peace offerings (שׁלם)
(20:24).[2] This is the first time we find the term for
peace offerings, and find it joined with the term for burnt offerings. This command to sacrifice is fulfilled when
Moses built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and sent young lads[3]
from Israel to offer up burnt offerings (עלה) and to
sacrifice peace offerings (שׁלם); and Moses sprinkled
half the blood on the altar, then read from the Book of the Covenant, to which
the people responded with one (אֶחָד) voice, “all that the
Lord has spoken we will do,” after which Moses sprinkles the people with the
blood of the covenant (24:3-8).
According to Dennis McCarthy, “half of the sacrificial blood is
sprinkled on the altar, the symbol of God,” after which Moses reads from the Book
of the Covenant (and the people accept the life they are choosing), then the
rite is completed when Moses sprinkles on the people the blood of the covenant,
and of the “union…made symbolically by the sharing of blood with the altar, the
symbol of God.”[4] This then is the “blood rite” (6-8). The “meal rite” is the covenantal meal that
follows:
Then
Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up
(עלה), and they saw (ראה)
the God of Israel. Under his feet there
was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for
clearness. God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel;
also they beheld (חזה) God, and they ate and drank
(9-11). [5]
What was the nature of
the meal? The Hebrew text simply states
that “they beheld God, and they ate and drank” (v. 11). The LXX has, ὤφθησαν ἐν τῷ τόπῳ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἔφαγον
καὶ ἔπιον,[6]
“they were able to behold God in the place, and they ate and drank.” The Targum Ongelos
elaborates that they, “saw the glory of God and rejoiced in (ב)
the sacrifice,[7]
they were received with pleasure as if eating and drinking.”[8]
Among
modern scholars, the association between sacrifice and meal is maintained. William Propp proposes two explanations: 1) “Yahweh provided and they partook of the etherealized stuff of Israel’s sacrifices,
Yahweh’s own food,” and 2), they simply consumed sacrificial portions of their
sacrifices.[9] Umberto Cassuto presents a slightly different
explanation stating that “they ate and
drank at the sacred meal of the peace offerings when they returned to the camp.”[10] Brevard Childs suggests that those who were
present participated in a “covenantal meal” and that the verses in their
narrative context are a “eucharistic festival” in which the chosen leaders
celebrated in the covenant sealing in vv.
3-8.[11]
Scott Hahn holds the view that it “conveys the newly-formed covenant communion
and family fellowship.”[12]
The Rite of Ascent
There follows what I
will call the “rite of ascent.” After the description of the covenantal meal
(Ex 24:9-11), Moses rose up (יָּ֣קָם; LXX, ἀναστὰς)
with Joshua and went up (וַיַּ֥עַל)
to the mountain of God (vv. 12-14). This
description is followed with a second account.
Then
Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for
six days; on the seventh day he called to
Moses out of the cloud. Now 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. Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain (vv. 15-18a).
The above pericope is
placed between an earlier ascent of Moses to the mountain where the Lord had descended
in fire upon the mountain (19:18-20) and the much later account where the glory
of God filled the tabernacle, and the cloud covered the tabernacle by day, and
fire was in the cloud by night (40:34-38).
A few observations stand out.
Firstly, Moses is described as going up the mountain with Joshua, יהוֹשֻׁ֖עַ,
whose Greek form is Ἰησοῦς
or
in English “Jesus.” In other words,
Moses does not begin his ascent alone, he ascends with Joshua. Secondly, the second account only has Moses
entering the cloud and the presence of God's glory. This seems to me to be a consummation of the
former rites. There was first the
consecration, then the blood rite, then the rite of covenantal meal, and finally the rite of ascent,
where one person ascends into glory, representing all the priestly and
covenantal people. Finally, Moses’
experience is interrupted with the sin of the golden calf, when he then
intercedes on Israel’s behalf, comes down and breaks the two tablets of
testimony at the foot of the mountain though judgment still comes upon Israel
(32:1-35). Eventually, Moses will go up
the mountain to renew the covenant and come down the mount a final time with
the two tablets of the testimony and his face transformed (34:29-35).
Living Sacrifice and Baptism in Fire
I
wonder if Moses is to be understood as one who had presented himself as a kind
of living sacrifice and experienced a kind of baptism of fire. Even before the sin of the golden calf, Moses
entered the consuming presence of God, which is likened to a consuming fire,
without being harmed (24:15-18a). He
would later emerge transformed with the skin of his face shining (34:29-35). In a twist of irony, this reverses to a
certain degree the so-called fall of Adam and Eve, after which the Lord God
made garments of skins (כָּתְנ֥וֹת
ע֖וֹר), and clothed them (Gen 3:21), and sent them out of the garden
of Eden (v. 23). In his mountain
experience, Moses is transformed, capturing something of humanity’s lost glory,
after which he is able to bring back some of it to the people.
In
summary of this section, Moses ascends the holy mountain where he is instructed
to teach Israel to worship the LORD through a rite of blood, a rite of meal, and the rite of ascent. Moses alone fulfills the rite of ascent where
he experiences the consuming fire of the presence of God. He ascended as a representative of all of
Israel. Perhaps all of the people below
were meant to share in the divine fire.
However, because of the sin of the golden calf, this idolatry prevented
them from experiencing the nearness of the glory and the presence of God.
Next time we will look the Hebrew Tabernacle, Israel, and the High Priest.
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| Old City of Jerusalem |
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| Jaffa Gate, Old City of Jerusalem |
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| Armenian Patriarchate St., Old City of Jerusalem |
[1] They were also to be prophetic. Moses spoke to them the Ten Commandments
(20:1-21).
[3] These may have been firstborn males,
see Ex 13:11-16. Also, according to
Nahum Sarna, “Rabbinic tradition identified the “young men” as the first-born
males upon whom devolved cultic duties prior to the establishment of the
priesthood in Israel.” Nahum M. Sarna, Exodus (The JPS Torah Commentary;
Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 151–152.
[4] Dennis J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant: A Study in Form in the Ancient
Oriental Documents and in the Old Testament (new ed.; Rome: Biblical
Institute Press, 1978), 267-268.
[5] The
Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson
Publishers, 1989), Ex 24:9–11.
[6] Septuaginta:
With Morphology (electronic ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft,
1979), Ex 24:11.
[9] William H. C. Propp, Exodus 19-40 (vol. 2A of The Anchor Bible Commentaries; New York:
Doubleday, 2006), 298.
[10] Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (trans. R. Abrahams; Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 1967), 315.
[12] Scott W. Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s
Saving Promises (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2009), 48.
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