Exodus 24:8

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders, are commanded to go to the mount to meet the Lord, Exo 24:1. Moses alone to come near to the Divine presence, Exo 24:2. He informs the people, and they promise obedience, Exo 24:3. He writes the words of the Lord, erects an altar at the foot of the hill, and sets up twelve pillars for the twelve tribes, Exo 24:4. The young priests offer burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, Exo 24:5. Moses reads the book of the covenant, sprinkles the people with the blood, and they promise obedience, Exo 24:6-8. Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel, go up to the mount, and get a striking display of the majesty of God, Exo 24:9-11. Moses alone is called up into the mount, in order to receive the tables of stone, written by the hand of God, Exo 24:12. Moses and his servant Joshua go up, and Aaron and Hur are left regents of the people during his absence, Exo 24:13, Exo 24:14. The glory of the Lord rests on the mount, and the cloud covers it for six days, and on the seventh God speaks to Moses out of the cloud, Exo 24:15, Exo 24:16. The terrible appearance of God's glory on the mount, Exo 24:17. Moses continues with God on the mount forty days, Exo 24:18.

Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people--probably on the twelve pillars, as representing the people (also the book, Heb 9:19), and the act was accompanied by a public proclamation of its import. It was setting their seal to the covenant (compare Co1 11:25). It must have been a deeply impressive, as well as instructive scene, for it taught the Israelites that the covenant was made with them only through the sprinkling of blood--that the divine acceptance of themselves and services, was only by virtue of an atoning sacrifice, and that even the blessings of the national covenant were promised and secured to them only through grace. The ceremonial, however, had a further and higher significance, as is shown by the apostle (see as above).

And Moses took the blood,.... The other half of the blood which was in the basins: and sprinkled it on the people; not on the whole body of the people, who could not be brought nigh enough, and were too numerous to be all sprinkled with it; though the apostle so expresses it, a part being put for the whole, Heb 9:19 either this was sprinkled on the young men that offered the sacrifices in the name of all the people; or on the seventy elders, as the heads of them, so Aben Ezra; or upon the twelve pillars, which answered to the twelve tribes, and represented them as the altar did the Lord: and said, behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words; being a ratification of the covenant on both sides, having been sprinkled both upon the altar, and upon the people. In allusion to which, the blood of Christ is sometimes called the blood of sprinkling, and which, sprinkled upon the mercy seat, calls for pardon for men; and sprinkled on their consciences, speaks peace and pardon to them, and cleanses from all sin; and sometimes the blood of the everlasting covenant, the covenant of grace made with him, by which it is ratified and confirmed; and our Lord may have regard to this rite and mode of expression in Mat 26:28.

These two verses form part of the address of God in Ex 20:22-23:33; for אמר משׁה ואל ("but to Moses He said") cannot be the commencement of a fresh address, which would necessarily require מ אל ויּאמר (cf. Exo 24:12; Exo 19:21; Exo 20:22). The turn given to the expression מ ואל presupposes that God had already spoken to others, or that what had been said before related not to Moses himself, but to other persons. But this cannot be affirmed of the decalogue, which applied to Moses quite as much as to the entire nation (a sufficient refutation of Knobel's assertion, that these verses are a continuation of Exo 19:20-25, and are linked on to the decalogue), but only of the address concerning the mishpatim, or "rights," which commences with Exo 20:22, and, according to Exo 20:22 and Exo 21:1, was intended for the nation, and addressed to it, even though it was through the medium of Moses. What God said to the people as establishing its rights, is here followed by what He said to Moses himself, namely, that he was to go up to Jehovah, along with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders. At the same time, it is of course implied that Moses, who had ascended the mountain with Aaron alone (Exo 20:21), was first of all to go down again and repeat to the people the "rights" which God had communicated to him, and only when this had been done, to ascend again with the persons named. According to Exo 24:3 and Exo 24:12 (? 9), this is what Moses really did. But Moses alone was to go near to Jehovah: the others were to worship afar off, and the people were not to come up at all.

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).

24:8 Look, this blood confirms the covenant (literally behold the blood of the covenant): Jesus repeated this sentence almost verbatim at the Last Supper (Matt 26:28), when he said, “This is my blood, which confirms the covenant” (literally “This is my blood of the covenant”). See also Heb 9:20.