Exodus 24:6
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Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he sprinkled on the altar.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
The blood was divided into two parts. One half was swung by Moses upon the altar (זרק to swing, shake, or pour out of the vessel, in distinction from הזּה to sprinkle) the other half he put into basins, and after he had read the book of the covenant to the people, and they had promised to do and follow all the words of Jehovah, he sprinkled it upon the people with these words: "Behold the blood of the covenant, which Jehovah has made with you over all these words." As several animals were slaughtered, and all of them young oxen, there must have been a considerable quantity of blood obtained, so that the one half would fill several basins, and many persons might be sprinkled with it as it was being swung about. The division of the blood had reference to the two parties to the covenant, who were to be brought by the covenant into a living unity; but it had no connection whatever with the heathen customs adduced by Bhr and Knobel, in which the parties to a treaty mixed their own blood together. For this was not a mixture of different kinds of blood, but it was a division of one blood, and that sacrificial blood, in which animal life was offered instead of human life, making expiation as a pure life for sinful man, and by virtue of this expiation restoring the fellowship between God and man which had been destroyed by sin. But the sacrificial blood itself only acquired this signification through the sprinkling or swinging upon the altar, by virtue of which the human soul was received, in the soul of the animal sacrificed for man, into the fellowship of the divine grace manifested upon the altar, in order that, through the power of this sin-forgiving and sin-destroying grace, it might be sanctified to a new and holy life. In this way the sacrificial blood acquired the signif…
Open source ↗Moses, as mediator between God and Israel, having received divers laws and ordinances from God privately in the three foregoing chapters, in this chapter, I. Comes down to the people, acquaints them with the laws he had received, and takes their consent to those laws (Exo 24:3), writes the laws, and reads them to the people, who repeat their consent (Exo 24:4-7), and then by sacrifice, and the sprinkling of blood, ratifies the covenant between them and God (Exo 24:5, Exo 24:6, Exo 24:8). II. He returns to God again, to receive further directions. When he was dismissed from his former attendance, he was ordered to attend again (Exo 24:1, Exo 24:2). He did so with seventy of the elders, to whom God made a discovery of his glory (Exo 24:9-11). Moses is ordered up into the mount (Exo 24:12, Exo 24:13); the rest are ordered down to the people (Exo 24:14). The cloud of glory is seen by all the people on the top of mount Sinai (Exo 24:15-17), and Moses is therewith God forty days and forty nights (Exo 24:18).
Open source ↗24:6 When Moses splattered half of the blood of the sacrificial animals against the altar, he symbolized God’s formal oath to keep the covenant (see Gen 15:9-18; Heb 6:13).
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot.
So Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
That is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood.
The priest is to dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle some of it seven times before the LORD, in front of the veil of the sanctuary.
to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
He shall slaughter it on the north side of the altar before the LORD, and Aaron’s sons the priests are to sprinkle its blood against the altar on all sides.
You are to slaughter the ram, take its blood, and sprinkle it on all sides of the altar.
They are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.
And he shall slaughter the young bull before the LORD, and Aaron’s sons the priests are to present the blood and sprinkle it on all sides of the altar at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.