17 The appearance of the glory of Yahweh was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel.
The angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, tempest,
Mount Sinai, the whole of it, smoked, because Yahweh descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.
I saw as it were glowing metal, as the appearance of fire within it round about, from the appearance of his loins and upward; and from the appearance of his loins and downward I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness round about him.
Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the fierceness of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken apart by him.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Exodus 24
Commentary on Exodus 24 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 24
Moses, as mediator between God and Israel, having received divers laws and ordinances from God privately in the three foregoing chapters, in this chapter,
Exd 24:1-8
The first two verses record the appointment of a second session upon mount Sinai, for the making of laws, when an end was put to the first. When a communion is begun between God and us, it shall never fail on his side, if it do not first fail on ours. Moses is directed to bring Aaron and his sons, and the seventy elders of Israel, that they might be witnesses of the glory of God, and that communion with him to which Moses was admitted; and that their testimony might confirm the people's faith. In this approach,
In the following verses, we have the solemn covenant made between God and Israel, and the exchanging of the ratifications; and a very solemn transaction it was, typifying the covenant of grace between God and believers through Christ.
This is the tenour of the covenant, That, if they would observe the foregoing precepts, God would perform the foregoing promises. "Obey, and be happy.' Here is the bargain made. Observe,
Exd 24:9-11
The people having, besides their submission to the ceremony of the sprinkling of blood, declared their well-pleasedness in their God and his law, again and again, God here gives to their representatives some special tokens of his favour to them (for God meets him that rejoices and works righteousness), and admits them nearer to him than they could have expected. Thus, in the New-Testament church, we find the four living creatures, and the four and twenty elders, honoured with places round the throne, being redeemed unto God by the blood of the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne, Rev. 4:4, 6; 5:8, 9. Observe,
Exd 24:12-18
The public ceremony of sealing the covenant being over, Moses is called up to receive further instructions, which we have in the following chapters.