Today we'll be completing Chapter 24. We found out yesterday that Moses, Moses' brother Aaron, Aaron's two sons, and seventy elders of Israel went part of the way up Mount Sinai and "saw the God of Israel". We discussed what they might have seen, based on the encounters other men of the Bible had with the Lord.
Today's passage begins with a feast. You'll recall that when Moses read the words of the Lord to the people, and when they accepted the Lord's words, sacrifices and offerings were made. Burnt offerings were made and we know this type of offering is given wholly to the Lord, so Moses and his friends are not consuming anything from the burnt offerings during their feast on the mountain. But fellowship offerings were also made in Exodus 24. Typically the bringer of the fellowship offering is to devote a portion of the offering to the Lord but then he is allowed to cook and consume the meat with his family and friends. Priests were also allowed to partake in fellowship offerings. I think this is what the men are feasting on at Mount Sinai.
"But God did not raise His hand against the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank." (Exodus 24:11) Though these men are experiencing some type of glorious manifestation of the Lord, they are safe in His holy presence. They are experiencing a time of fellowship with each other and a time of fellowship with the Lord. I don't believe the Lord Himself literally ate and drank with them but in a sense He is partaking in the feast with them. They are eating and drinking in His presence just as if they are seated at His table.
My church and many other churches consider participating in meals together as a time of fellowship. Eating and drinking with our fellow church members fosters closer friendships among us. This strengthens the church as a whole when people come together in unity and friendship. When the men share a meal together on the mountain, the bond among them is growing and their bond with the Lord is growing.
When the meal is completed the Lord gives Moses further instructions. "The Lord said to Moses, 'Come up to Me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.'" (Exodus 24:12) Earlier in Exodus the Lord spoke the ten commandments to Moses but now He's going to write them in stone. It's a common expression to refer to anything irrevocable or unchangeable as being "written in stone". I am not sure whether these tablets are the origin of that expression but without a doubt we can say that God's word is irrevocable and unchangeable. What was a sin in the book of Exodus is still a sin in 2020. What was good and righteous in the book of Exodus is still good and righteous in 2020. God has not changed and His commandments and laws haven't changed either.
"Then Moses set out with Joshua at his side, and Moses went up on the mountain of God." (Exodus 24:13) If I'm not mistaken, we've only seen Joshua mentioned once so far, when he led a battle against the Amorites who came against the Israelites to attack them. Joshua will be Moses' successor and it appears Moses is already grooming him for that position. He is already starting to become Moses' right hand man. He is the man Moses chooses to go further up the mountain and deeper into the presence of God with him.
"He said to the elders, 'Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them.'" (Exodus 24:14) Moses puts Aaron and a man called Hur in charge of watching over the people and judging matters among the people while Moses goes up to receive the tablets, which is a process that will take forty days and forty nights. Many scholars believe Hur is married to Moses' and Aaron's sister Miriam. Hur appears to be involved in passages where only close family members are mentioned, such as when the Bible mentions Moses and Aaron and Miriam together in the same chapter. Hur and Aaron together helped Moses keep his hands raised to heaven during the entire battle with the Amorites and this has led a lot of scholars to think Hur, along with Aaron, were the two men most closely related to Moses out of the entire assembly. Whoever Hur is, Moses trusts him with a great deal of responsibility, just as he trusts Aaron. Moses' great confidence in these men is sorely misplaced, as we'll see when we get to Chapter 32. Aaron and Hur will not be able to maintain order in the camp. They will fall prey to fear of the people and will give in to the people's request to fashion an idol to take the place of Moses whom the assembly believes is dead on the mountain. Aaron and Hur will not only allow the fashioning of a golden calf but they will actually assist in its manufacture!
"When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud." (Exodus 24:15-16) Moses waits a week before the Lord speaks. Some scholars think Moses went up on the first day of the week and that the Lord doesn't speak until the Sabbath. But the Bible doesn't specify what day of the week it was and it provides no explanation for why the Lord was silent for six days. However, I think we can learn something from verses 15-16 that's useful for our prayer life. I think we can use these verses to remind ourselves not to be impatient. Of course we'd like the Lord to answer our prayers as soon as we start praying. We'd like to devote five or ten minutes to Him in prayer in the morning, before we go on with our busy day, and have Him show up immediately and tell us whatever we need or want to know. But the Lord doesn't operate on our timetable. He's not our errand boy whom we call into our presence when we want to speak to Him and whom we can conveniently ignore at other times. He is King and Lord! Would we go into the presence of a king and glance at our watch and demand that he get on with whatever he has to say? Would we take charge of the meeting with a king, or would we humbly and respectfully wait for the king to conduct the meeting at his own pace and in his own way? I'm as guilty as anybody of sometimes allotting a portion of time in which I want to speak to or hear from the Lord before getting on with the dozen or so other things on my list for the day. But this is a disrespectful attitude. At all times we need to keep in mind that when we commune with the Lord we are in the presence of someone so holy, so powerful, and so high above us that we can't even begin to fathom how great He is. Moses waits til the seventh day to hear anything from God and I think he waits respectfully.
"To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. Then Moses entered the cloud as he went up on the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights." (Exodus 24:17-18) The Lord doesn't leave the people in the dark while He speaks with Moses. The whole time Moses is gone, the people can see the presence of the Lord on the mountain. This blazing fire is visible day and night. But the people have placed their trust more in Moses than in the Lord, and as forty days and nights start going by they'll begin to think Moses was consumed in the fire. They'll begin to believe he isn't coming back and then the camp will fall into chaos. The people who confidently proclaimed earlier in Chapter 24, "Everything the Lord has said we will do," will soon be bowing before an idol.
This is what happens when a person places more trust in another human being than they place in the Lord. This is what happens when a person trusts in his own strength to keep the Lord's instructions rather than leaning on the Lord's strength to obey His words. For example, sometimes people place more trust in their pastor than in the Lord. Then when their pastor retires or passes away or leaves for another ministry opportunity, the people who depended too heavily on him stop going to church altogether. Another example would be reading the laws and commandments of the Bible and pledging to obey them without forming a personal relationship with the Lord. We cannot live holy lives in our own strength! Even when leaning on the Lord, in our weak human flesh we still make mistakes, so why would we ever assume that in our own strength we can avoid making any mistakes? The people are going to fail miserably while Moses is gone, but haven't we all failed miserably from time to time? Hopefully we learned from our failures. Moses and the people are going to make mistakes but in many cases they are going to learn from their mistakes. And we can learn from their mistakes as well. When we arrive at Chapter 32 we can regard it as a cautionary tale so we don't fall into the same trap the people in the camp fell into. We are to look to the Lord above all other people and above all other things. We are to trust in His strength to live honorable lives, not trust in our own strength. If we can manage to do these two things we will avoid a lot of the pitfalls of this life on earth.
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