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Exodus 24

1To Moses he said, “Come up to Yahweh, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of Israel's elders, and worship at a distance. 2Moses alone will approach Yahweh; the others must not approach, and the people must not come up with him.”

3Moses came and recounted to the people all Yahweh's words and all the judgments. All the people answered with one voice, “All the words Yahweh has spoken we will do.” 4Moses wrote down all Yahweh's words. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and twelve standing stones for Israel's twelve tribes. 5He sent young men of the sons of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as peace offerings to Yahweh. 6Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he splashed against the altar. 7He took the covenant document and read it in the people's hearing. They said, “Everything Yahweh has spoken we will do, and we will listen.” 8Moses took the blood and splashed it on the people, saying, “Look, the blood of the covenant that Yahweh has made with you on the basis of all these words.”

9Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of Israel's elders went up. 10They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement of lapis lazuli, as clear as the very heavens. 11He did not stretch out his hand against the nobles of the sons of Israel. They beheld God, and they ate and drank.

12Yahweh said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and remain there, and I will give you the tablets of stone, the instruction and the commandment that I have written to teach them.” 13Moses rose with Joshua his attendant, and Moses went up the mountain of God. 14He said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we return to you. Look, Aaron and Hur are with you. Anyone with a dispute may approach them.” 15Moses went up the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16Yahweh's glory dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day he called to Moses from within the cloud. 17In the sons of Israel's sight, the appearance of Yahweh's glory was like a consuming fire on the mountaintop. 18Moses entered the cloud and went up the mountain. Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Translation notes 6

24:4–8 — Standing stones; covenant blood. Here the stones represent the tribes; their function differs from the religious stones condemned in 23:24. The covenant document contains the words Moses has just written. “Read in their hearing” is literally “read in their ears.” The blood is splashed on the altar and then the people; the draft does not add details about how every person was reached.

24:5 — Peace offerings. These are also called well-being or fellowship offerings. The Hebrew names the same sacrificial category as 20:24, rather than a sacrifice to end a war.

24:7 — We will listen. The verb includes heeding or obeying. The order “we will do, and we will listen” is preserved rather than rearranged to describe an assumed chronology of understanding before action.

24:10–11 — Saw God; lapis lazuli. The Hebrew directly says they saw Israel's God and beheld God. The ancient Greek version describes seeing the place where God stood and appearing in God's place. This draft retains the Hebrew's direct object without inserting an image, messenger, or vision to harmonize it with other statements about seeing God. The blue stone traditionally called sapphire is commonly identified as lapis lazuli; the description emphasizes its heavenly clarity.

24:12 — Stone tablets and instruction. “Instruction” translates torah, often rendered law. The grammar allows the instruction and commandment to describe the tablets' content, rather than necessarily naming separate written objects. These tablets help supply the background to Paul's stone-tablet imagery in 2 Corinthians 3, while Exodus retains its own wording.

24:16–18 — Glory dwelt. The settling or dwelling verb anticipates God's dwelling among Israel. The chapter states six days, the seventh day, and forty days and nights without explaining every possible overlap in the chronology.