Then 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. Moses alone shall come near to the LORD, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.”
Moses 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.” And 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. And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then 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.” And 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.”
Comment: The ‘he’ at the beginning, who is issuing commands, is God! God was only going to talk to Moses, so why did he command that Aaron and his 2 oldest sons and the seventy elders go with Moses part of the way? It is not recorded in as many words, but I suspect that Moses on the way back from God’s giving him the so called ‘Mosaic Covenant’ stopped and had some deep talk with these 73 who had special leadership responsibilities. The New Testament tells us that leaders will be judged at a higher level because of the roles they have accepted! Then all the people were told the whole of what God had said, before Moses writing it down. Sometimes I think people look back and think the people of Moses’ day were not as mentally capable as us. I bet that Moses IQ was much higher than mine!! Moses wrote it all down, which means that he had an excellent memory and it is recorded even for us to read in the books which he wrote, although as these books record his death, someone else must have edited them, faithfully I am certain in my own mind!
The people wholeheartedly accepted the gracious covenant that God spoke, although they, like us being human, were not all as serious as they were meant to be and the covenant, as the OT prophets remind us, they certainly didn’t always stick to them! This was followed by a very serious worship ceremony. I thank God that we don’t have to shed all that amount of blood in worshipping God – because of the sacrifice that Jesus made dealing with my/our relationship with the same God who called Moses up to Him!
Prayer: Please God strengthen me to be true to the promises I have and do make to You.
As I read it! 