And he sent the youths of the children of Israel, and they offered up burnt-offerings, and sacrificed sacrifices of peace-offering of bullocks to Jehovah.
Exodus 24 brings Israel to the sealing of the covenant God gave at Sinai, and verse 5 records the sacrifices that opened the ceremony. Two questions stand out: why young men offered, when Israel had no priests yet, and why only these two kinds of offering appear.
Verse 5 closes the first part of Exodus. The list of offerings here matters as much for what it leaves out as for what it includes.
Chapter 24 brings us to the climax of the first part of Exodus. Redemption has brought the people to God, and He has made His will known to them. Their representatives now go up into the mountain of God. Blood had ratified the covenant. They offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, but no sin offering. The covenant made no provision for transgression, because transgression is not in view. The people undertook to keep the law, not to break it. The sacrifices picture wholehearted devotedness to the will of God, and the communion with Him that follows.
Israel had no priests yet, so others had to serve at the altar. One writer links the choice to God's earlier claim on the firstborn.
There is one altar, though there are twelve pillars. There is one altar because it was for God. There are twelve pillars because the sacrifices had to represent all twelve tribes. God had not yet appointed the priesthood, so "young men" do the priestly work of the day. They were probably the firstborn sons, whom the Lord claimed for Himself, as we have seen in chapter 13. Later God took the tribe of Levi in their place and appointed them for the Lord's service.
Commentators differ on what "young men" signals. Another reading sets them against the elders named earlier in the chapter.
There is a hint of a new order here: the youths of the children of Israel offer burnt offerings and sacrifice peace offerings of oxen to Jehovah. This points to a new generation, "the youths" in contrast to "the elders" of verse 1. By the sovereign work of God there will be a new generation of Israel with the law written in their hearts, in place of fathers who failed completely under law.
These were the oldest kinds of sacrifice Israel knew, and each had its own direction.
The second kind of offering appears in Exodus 10:25, Exodus 18:12 and Exodus 24:5, and it was festive in character. In Exodus 24:5 it goes by the term translated a peace offering. In the days of Moses it was nothing new. Until after the giving of the law we read of no other animal sacrifices but these two. In the burnt offering all went up to God. At the sacrifice, as this other offering was first called, the offerer and those with him feasted together, God, it is likely, having His part and they theirs. On the ground of the accepted burnt offering, blessing came down to men.
The twelve pillars stood for the tribes. Their place beside the altar points to God's own reason for blessing them.
The "twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel" remind us of God's unwavering purpose to bless the people. That purpose does not rest on their declared obedience. It rests wholly on the sacrificial work of Christ, which the altar pictures. In the mind of God, the blessing of His people would be secured in all the value and sweet savour of the burnt offering. Note this: before the covenant was ratified, the people were identified with the altar. The work of the Mediator brought them onto that ground.
Israel had just pledged full obedience. The offerings themselves say something about that pledge.
Then Moses sent young men (not elders, and not priests) of the children of Israel to offer burnt offerings and peace offerings to the Lord (v. 5). The very fact of these offerings shows that Israel's promise would not be kept. They would need the shedding of blood because of their disobedience. Yet this blood could not take away sins.
- Promise. The people pledged full obedience. The offerings at the altar showed that the pledge would fail.
- Altar. One altar for God, twelve pillars for the tribes. The nation was joined to the sacrifice before the covenant was sealed.
- Servants. Israel had no priests yet, so young men served at the altar. Writers link them either to the firstborn God had claimed, or to a coming generation with the law written on their hearts.
- Offerings. The burnt offering went up wholly to God. The peace offering was shared, so blessing came down to people on the ground of a sacrifice God accepted.
- Absence. No one brought a sin offering, because transgression was not yet in view. This covenant made no provision for failure.
And Moses took half the blood, and put [it] in basons; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.
At Sinai, God and Israel enter an agreement, and blood seals it. The questions this verse raises are why Moses divides the blood, and whether the sprinkling means forgiveness or something far more sobering.
The altar and the twelve stone pillars stand for the two sides of the agreement. The blood is split between them.
The next morning early, Moses built an altar under the burning mountain, and set up twelve pillars. The altar stood for the Lord's presence, the pillars stood for Israel. On the altar Moses placed the confirming blood, the death-bond — sealing, in a sense, the covenant on God's part. On the twelve pillars he threw some of the same blood, confirming the covenant on Israel's part.
The blood in the basins is not left over. It is the people's share. Moses will sprinkle it on them after they promise to obey.
It is natural to assume this blood covers sin. It does not, and the reason lies in who gets sprinkled.
The first question must be what the blood means. It cannot be atonement, because the people and the book are sprinkled just as the altar is; nor, for the same reason, could it be cleansing. The life is in the blood (Lev. 17:11). So the blood — the shedding of it — stands for death. And death, when connected with sacrifice, stands for the penalty of sin. So here the sprinkling of the blood signifies death as the penal sanction of the law. The people promised obedience, and then they, as well as the book, were sprinkled to teach that death would be the penalty for breaking the law.
Nobody sprinkles a scroll to forgive it. The blood on the book is a witness that the words written there carry the death penalty.
God had already given Israel two pictures of rescue before Sinai. That is why this blood must mean something else.
The first covenant was inaugurated with blood, as we read in Ex. 24. This is not redemption. It stands in the strongest contrast with it. The picture of redemption had already been given (Ex. 12, 14) in the blood of the passover lamb, followed by the crossing of the Red Sea. The blood sheltered them from the judgment of God. The power that came next set the people free from their enemies, who were destroyed for ever… It was the old covenant, not the new; the law, not redemption… So it was in no way propitiatory but penal.
The lamb in Egypt sheltered them from judgment. This blood exposes them to it, should they fail.
The half thrown against the altar is God's portion. Commentators see in it the one death that would meet every claim of the law.
The witness of death is deeply stamped on this chapter. The blood sprinkled on the altar pictures the work by which God has been glorified. Christ died under the solemn curse of a broken law. In this way He established the will of God, walking a path of unswerving obedience to that will. That path led only to the cross, where the authority of the law was upheld and every penalty for breaking it was borne.
The same writer presses this home. Anyone today who makes law the ground of blessing, or who trusts good works as the condition of it, steps into Israel's position under that curse without knowing it.
Another writer sets Sinai's blood beside the blood of Christ.
The blood at Sinai was meant as the sign of death which must be Israel's portion if the covenant was violated. But what a different voice the blood of Christ has! It not only speaks better things than that of Abel, but also better things than that of Sinai. It speaks of atonement made, of redemption accomplished.
Commentators differ here. One writer holds that this blood, limited as it was, still did real work for the people.
The apostle teaches us that it was "impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." Yet it did "sanctify for the purification of the flesh." As "a shadow of the good things to come," it served to keep the people in relationship with the Lord.
- Divided. Half the blood goes on the altar, God's side of the agreement. Half waits in basins for Israel's side. One blood binds two parties.
- Penal. The scroll and the people are sprinkled too, not just the altar. So this blood cannot mean cleansing. It means death as the penalty for breaking the law.
- Not rescue. The passover lamb and the Red Sea had already pictured redemption. This blood is the old covenant — the law, not redemption.
- Fulfilled. The altar's half points to the cross. There the law's authority was upheld, and Christ bore every penalty for breaking it.
- Better. The blood of Christ speaks in a different voice from Sinai's. It tells of atonement made and redemption accomplished, not of a death sentence waiting for those who fail.
And he took the book of the covenant, and read [it] in the ears of the people; and they said, All that Jehovah has said will we do, and obey!
Moses had written down the words of the Lord, built an altar, and had sacrifices offered. Now he reads the covenant aloud to the whole nation. The people answer with a pledge. But did they know what they were promising, or what the blood sprinkled on them right afterwards meant?
The book in Moses' hand held what God had already spoken. The New Testament names it again.
When Moses came to the people and told them "all the words of the LORD and all the rules," they all answered with one voice: "All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do." Moses then wrote all these words in a book. Exodus 24:7 calls it "the book of the covenant," and Hebrews 9:19 calls it "the book itself." The terms recorded in this book were to govern how the covenant relationship began and continued.
They answered fast and sure. Commentators say that confidence came from not knowing themselves.
From the first, they fooled themselves into thinking it was easy to keep all the Lord's commands. They were a self-satisfied and self-deceived people. They needed to learn the truth about themselves; and "through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20)... The people's response was unanimous: "All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient." But they were not obedient. Sin within them was too strong... God said, "You shall have no other gods." They said, "We will have them. Aaron, make us a golden calf."
Everything they had received so far came as a gift. Their pledge changed the ground they stood on.
Up to that time, since their redemption from the land of Egypt, they had been under grace. God had borne them on eagles' wings, and brought them to Himself. Grace had set them free... and grace had sustained, provided for, borne with, and guided them, until that moment... They accepted the condition offered to them. The sprinkled blood declared the penalty for breaking it: death. From then on they stood on a new footing and relationship with God. Already they were God's people by redemption. Now they forgot the three months since they crossed the Red Sea, and their continual sins. They said they were ready to abandon the ground of grace, and to accept that of responsibility.
The blood sprinkled straight after their answer is easy to misread. It was not the blood of redemption.
It was the old covenant, not the new; the law, not redemption. As Hebrews states, the blood was sprinkled on the book and all the people. It only set forth death as the penalty of disobedience. So it was in no way propitiatory but penal.
The same principle reaches anyone today who offers obedience to God as the price of blessing.
The people promised obedience, and then they, as well as the book, were sprinkled to teach that death would be the penalty of transgression... It is the same now in principle with all who accept the ground of law as the way of life, all who are trusting to their own works as the condition of blessing. They know it not, but by doing so they are really binding on their shoulders the curse of the law, like the Israelites in this scene.
Hebrews adds that the book was sprinkled too. The two sprinklings say different things.
The sprinkling of the people seems to have reminded them that death was the penalty of disobedience. The sprinkling of the book, on the other hand, shows that death was necessary as the basis of everything.
So how can God dwell with a people like this?
It is striking that in Exodus 20, after God had given the ten commandments, He speaks at once of the altar, and of burnt offerings and peace offerings; and it is the same in this chapter. God's desire is to dwell with His people. That could not happen on the ground of man's own obedience in the flesh. It could only come by the obedience of the true Mediator, even to death, the death of the cross.
The same two elements — obedience and sprinkled blood — meet the Christian, and they mean the opposite.
Israel stood pledged to obey the law and sprinkled with the blood which declared death the penalty for breaking it. The Christian shares the life of Christ, and that life lives in obedience — the obedience of a son, of which Christ was the perfect expression. He is also sprinkled with His blood, and that blood declares him perfectly cleansed from his sins before God.
- Read — The book of the covenant carried God's own terms; Hebrews calls it "the book itself."
- Promised — Israel answered at once, sure of themselves and blind to their own hearts. The golden calf soon proved them wrong.
- Exchanged — Grace had carried them from Egypt to Sinai. Here they stepped off grace onto their own responsibility.
- Sealed — The blood that followed was penal, not propitiatory. It declared death as the penalty for breaking what they had just promised to keep.
- Reversed — For the Christian the same two elements return: the obedience of a son, and blood that says he is cleansed, not condemned.
And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled [it] on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant that Jehovah has made with you concerning all these words.
Here Moses seals the covenant at Sinai with blood. Half goes on the altar. Half goes on the people who have just promised to obey — older translations say he sprinkled it on them. What was that blood saying? Was it cleansing them, or binding them?
These sacrifices come after the law, not before. Commentators agree that they do not picture forgiveness. One writer sets the scene against the deliverance from Egypt that came earlier.
The first covenant was inaugurated with blood, as we read in Exodus 24. This is not redemption, but in the strongest contrast with it. God had already pictured redemption in the blood of the Passover lamb and in the crossing of the Red Sea... But now Israel, far from God, had agreed to stand on the condition of their own obedience, and God had spoken the ten commandments that would put the people to the test... It was the old covenant, not the new; the law, not redemption. As this letter states, Moses sprinkled the blood on the book and on all the people. It simply showed death as the penalty of disobedience. So it was in no way propitiatory but penal.
The reason lies in what got sprinkled. Blood went on a book and an altar, not only on people.
It cannot be atonement, because Moses sprinkled the people and the book just as he sprinkled the altar. For the same reason it cannot be cleansing. The life is in the blood. So shedding blood stands for death, and death in a sacrifice is the penalty of sin... The people promised obedience. Then Moses sprinkled them, and the book too, to teach that death would be the penalty for breaking the law.
Their promise in verse 7 sounds confident. One writer puts into plain speech what they were signing.
Still, the people said, through their elders, "We will risk the consequences. We can trust ourselves. We believe we can love God with all our hearts and our neighbours as ourselves. We will undertake it, and we will endure the penalty if we fail."... It was a covenant of death, but they accepted it.
This was not just an ancient ceremony. One writer says people still make the same bargain today.
They took on obedience with death as the penalty. So the apostle could well say, "all who rely on works of the law are under a curse." It is the same in principle now with everyone who takes law-keeping as the way of life, everyone who trusts their own works as the condition of blessing. They do not know it, but they are really binding the curse of the law on their own shoulders, like the Israelites in this scene, and accepting death as the penalty of disobedience.
The letter to the Hebrews looks back at this moment and adds a detail Exodus never mentions.
There was no "death of the one who made the will" under the old covenant, yet the need for a death was still acknowledged in picture form. Turn to Exodus 24:7 and 8 and we find the same incident, and we may note a remarkable fact. Exodus records only the sprinkling of the people with blood; Hebrews adds that the book of the law was also sprinkled.
One writer sets the voice of Sinai's blood beside the voice of the blood of Christ.
The blood was meant as the sign of death, which had to be Israel's portion if they broke the covenant. But what a different voice the blood of Christ has!... It speaks of atonement made, of redemption accomplished. Blessed be God, it has been applied to us. The sprinkling of it on us has made us clean before God, and every sin has gone from the conscience. Because of it, we may come near to God with no veil in the way, and worship in His holy presence. This is the happy place of the Christian.
The sprinkling did more than threaten. It also bound the people to obey.
This explains the words in Hebrews about a person who falls away from the faith. He is said to have "profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified." The blood sprinkled on the people showed death as the penalty the law carried. By that very act it also brought them under the obligation to obey. It was for this they were set apart. So in God's eyes all His people now on the earth are seen as sprinkled under the value of the blood of Christ, and so set apart to Him for His service.
- Penal — the blood at Sinai threatened death for breaking the law. Moses sprinkled the book as well as the people, so cleansing was never the point.
- Promise — the people agreed to obey and to take the penalty. They did not know what they were signing.
- Peril — anyone who makes law-keeping the way of life takes the same terms and binds the same curse on their own shoulders.
- Reversal — Christ's blood says the opposite. It speaks of atonement made and redemption accomplished, and it clears the conscience.
- Purpose — sprinkled blood marks people out as God's own. Believers stand set apart under the value of Christ's blood, and may draw near to worship.