Exodus 24 Summary and Study Guide: Covenant at Mount Sinai

“Behold the blood of the covenant.” Moses said it with a bowl in his hand and a nation standing in front of him, and centuries later Jesus said almost the same words over a cup. This Exodus 24 summary and study guide covers the chapter those words come from.

Setting the Stage

Three months after Israel walked out of Egypt they camped at the foot of Mount Sinai, and God made them an offer. If they would listen to His voice and keep His covenant, they would be His treasured people out of all the earth (Exodus 19:5). The people answered without hesitating: “All that the LORD hath spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8). They agreed to the terms before they had heard what the terms were.

So God told them. The Ten Commandments came first, spoken aloud from the mountain, and after them chapter upon chapter of working law about property, debt, servants, courts and festivals. Exodus 24 is where the offer made in chapter 19 is finally closed.

Comprehensive Exodus 24 Summary

God told Moses to bring Aaron, Aaron’s two oldest sons Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of Israel’s elders up the mountain, but to leave them worshipping at a distance while he alone came near. Before any of that happened, Moses went down and repeated everything God had said to the whole nation, and the people answered together that they would do all of it.

Moses then wrote the words down. Early the next morning he built an altar at the base of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars, one for each tribe, so that every tribe was represented at the ceremony. Young Israelite men killed oxen and offered them as burnt offerings and peace offerings. Moses caught the blood, poured half of it into basins, and threw the other half against the altar.

Then he read the written covenant aloud. The people promised a second time and added that they would obey, and Moses sprinkled the blood from the basins over them, telling them that this was the blood of the covenant the LORD had made with them over everything they had just heard. The same blood was now on God’s altar and on God’s people, and the agreement was closed.

The seventy-four men went up. They saw the God of Israel, and under His feet was what looked like a pavement of blue stone, as clear as the sky itself. God did not strike them down. They ate and drank in His presence.

God then called Moses higher still, to receive stone tablets He had written Himself. Moses left Aaron and Hur in charge of any disputes, took Joshua with him, and climbed. A cloud covered the mountain for six days. On the seventh God called out of the middle of it, and Moses walked in and stayed forty days and forty nights.

One Word Summary

• Ratified: the covenant is not offered here, it is closed
• Blood: one bowl, halved, on the altar and on the people
• Ascent: the chapter is built out of who may climb how far

In One Sentence

Israel promises twice to obey God’s law, Moses seals the covenant by sprinkling sacrificial blood on the altar and on the people, and then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and seventy elders see the God of Israel and eat before Him.

Theme of Exodus 24

Exodus 24 is about a covenant sealed in blood between God and a people He has kept at a distance. Three ideas run alongside that one and the chapter will not separate them from it: one man stands between God and the nation, the nation enters willingly and says so twice, and mercy is what keeps its leaders alive when they look at God.

The forty days at the end belong to the same theme. What God dictates on the mountain, the tabernacle and the priesthood, is how a covenant people can live near a holy God and not be destroyed.

Exodus 24 Outline

• Exodus 24:1-2: God calls Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and seventy elders up the mountain to worship at a distance, with Moses alone permitted to come near.
• Exodus 24:3: Moses tells the people all God’s words and judgments, and they answer with one voice that they will do them.
• Exodus 24:4: Moses writes everything God said, then builds an altar at the foot of the mountain and sets up twelve pillars for the twelve tribes.
• Exodus 24:5-6: Young Israelite men offer burnt offerings and peace offerings, and Moses puts half the blood in basins and throws half on the altar.
• Exodus 24:7-8: Moses reads the book of the covenant aloud, the people promise again and add that they will obey, and he sprinkles the blood on them as the blood of the covenant.
• Exodus 24:9-11: Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and the seventy elders go up, see the God of Israel with sapphire under His feet, and eat and drink unharmed.
• Exodus 24:12-14: God calls Moses higher for the stone tablets, Moses goes up with Joshua, and Aaron and Hur are left to settle disputes.
• Exodus 24:15-18: The cloud covers Sinai six days, God calls Moses on the seventh, the glory looks like devouring fire to the people below, and Moses stays forty days and forty nights.

The Blood of the Covenant

Moses conducts a formal ceremony in verses 3 to 8, and it runs in a fixed order that the chapter holds to exactly. How far the blood reached is not stated. With a camp that size, most Bible teachers understand the sprinkling as reaching the tribes’ representatives standing at the front, while Hebrews 9:19 speaks simply of “all the people”, meaning the whole nation was bound by what Moses did.

The Two Sides of the Covenant

Nothing in that list happened privately. Israel heard the terms twice and answered twice before a drop of blood touched them, so no one could later say they had agreed to something they never heard.

Observations from Exodus 24

Israel Answers Twice, and the Second Answer Is Longer

In verse 3 Moses tells the people what God said, and they reply, “All the words which the LORD hath said will we do.” In verse 7 he reads the written book to them, and they reply again, “All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient.” Two words are added the second time, after the terms have been written down and read back.

The Hebrew behind that second answer, na’aseh ve-nishma, is literally “we will do and we will hear”, and Jewish teachers have long read the order as deliberate. However that phrase is read, Israel is plainly not swept along by a moment. Israel answers a spoken summary, then answers a written document, and the second answer is the bigger of the two.

One Blood, Poured in Two Directions

Moses does not use two batches of blood. He takes the blood of one set of sacrifices, throws half of it on the altar in verse 6, and sprinkles the other half on the people in verse 8. Most Bible teachers read the altar as standing for God’s side of the agreement, with the people standing for their own, so the same life ends up on both. That is what makes this a covenant rather than a promise: two sides bound by one death.

Nobody Climbs Higher Than He Is Called

Four heights stay apart through the whole chapter, and nobody moves between them on his own. The nation stays at the foot (24:2). Seventy-four men go partway and worship at a distance (24:1, 24:9). Joshua goes further up than they do (24:13). Moses alone goes into the cloud, and only after God calls him on the seventh day (24:16, 24:18). Every level of nearness in Exodus 24 arrives as an invitation, and no one in the chapter takes a step God has not asked for.

The Same Glory Is Cloud to Moses and Fire to Israel

From where Moses stands the mountain is covered by a cloud he walks into (24:15, 24:18). From where the nation stands the summit looks like “devouring fire” (24:17), a blaze on the top of the mountain that they watch for forty days. It is one glory seen from two positions. The glory that hides God from the man closest to Him is the glory that burns in front of the people furthest away.

The Only Thing They Could Describe Was the Floor

Seventy-four men saw God, and what Moses writes down is the pavement (24:10). Under God’s feet was “as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness”, which is to say it looked like a floor of deep blue stone, as clear as a cloudless sky. The stone the King James calls sapphire is generally identified as lapis lazuli, an opaque blue stone flecked with gold, rather than the clear sapphire sold in jewellers today.

Jewish tradition heard something further in it, reading the pavement as a brick of sapphire set against the mud bricks Israel had made in Egypt, though the chapter itself never draws that comparison. What the chapter does show is where these men were looking: they describe a floor, which is what men lying face down can see.

Difficult Verses Explained

How Could the Elders See God and Live?

They saw a form that God chose to show them. Scripture is clear that God as He is in Himself has never been looked at by anyone, and that no one can see His unveiled face and survive: “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live” (Exodus 33:20), and John writes that “No man hath seen God at any time” (John 1:18). Nobody has ever laid eyes on God’s own essence.

Yet God can appear in a form that a human being can look at, which is what Numbers 12:8 means when it says Moses beheld “the similitude of the LORD”, a likeness of the LORD rather than the LORD Himself. What the elders saw in Exodus 24 belongs in that category. Moses is careful here.

He writes down only what lay under God’s feet, and he hedges even that twice with “as it were”, reaching for a comparison where a description would fail. Exodus leaves the form itself unwritten, and the silence reads as restraint rather than as a gap in the record.

Was Moses on the Mountain for Forty Days or Forty-Six?

Scripture does not settle it, and honest readers have gone both ways. Verse 16 says the cloud covered the mountain six days before God called on the seventh, and verse 18 says Moses was in the mountain forty days and forty nights. Some Bible teachers count the six waiting days inside the forty, leaving thirty-four days inside the cloud. Others count them separately, making forty-six days on the mountain in total.

Nothing in the chapter decides it, and nothing in the rest of Scripture does either. Some readers also hear the shape of the creation week in six days followed by a call on the seventh, which may well be intended, though the chapter itself never points to it. Deuteronomy 9:9 adds the detail that matters more than the arithmetic: through the forty days Moses “neither did eat bread nor drink water”, going without food and drink the whole time.

Did Joshua Go Into the Cloud With Moses?

Scripture puts only Moses inside the cloud. Verse 13 has Joshua setting out on the climb with Moses, and verse 18 names Moses alone going into the middle of the cloud. Joshua is somewhere on the mountain through the forty days, since in Exodus 32:17 he is with Moses on the way down and hears the noise in the camp before Moses explains it. Where exactly he waited, Exodus leaves open. Some commentaries have him entering the cloud, drawing that from the word “we” in verse 14, and that remains an inference.

Common Misunderstandings

• That Israel earned the covenant by promising to obey. The rescue from Egypt came first, the covenant comes after it, and the covenant is closed by sacrifice rather than by resolve. Israel’s promise is a response to a God who had already saved them, not a payment for one.
• That there were twelve altars, one for each tribe. Verse 4 has one altar and twelve pillars. The twelve pillars count the tribes on Israel’s side of the ceremony, and no tribe is given an altar of its own.
• That Moses sprinkled the people before he read them the book. Verses 6 to 8 give one order and hold to it: blood on the altar, the book read aloud, the people’s answer, and only then the blood on them. Israel is sprinkled after hearing the written terms, not before.
• That Exodus 24 is where the Ten Commandments were given. God spoke the commandments in Exodus 20. Exodus 24 is where the covenant built on them is ratified, and where God promises Moses the same commandments in writing on stone (24:12).

Christ Connection

The clearest link in this chapter is a sentence Jesus repeated. Moses sprinkled Israel and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you” (24:8). At the last supper Jesus took the cup and said, “This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many” (Mark 14:24).

Anyone at that table who knew Exodus would have heard the older sentence inside the new one, and would have heard Jesus claiming that a second covenant was being sealed the way the first one was, in blood, and that this time the blood was His own. The writer of Hebrews works through the same connection deliberately.

He quotes Exodus 24:8, adds two details Exodus itself leaves out, that Moses sprinkled the book as well as the people and used water, scarlet wool and hyssop to do it, and then draws the conclusion: “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:19-22). Under that law, he says, where no blood was shed no sin was forgiven.

Centuries later God was still naming that blood: “As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water” (Zechariah 9:11). Because of covenant blood, God says, He lets His captives out of the dry pit they were being held in.

The rest of the chapter points the same way. Moses alone could come near while everyone else worshipped at a distance, and Paul writes that there is “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5), while Hebrews calls Jesus the mediator of a better covenant enacted on better promises (Hebrews 8:6).

Peter describes Christians as chosen “unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:2), which is the order of Exodus 24:7-8 exactly: the promise to obey, and then the blood applied. And the distance that runs through this whole chapter is the thing the cross removes. “Ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).

Those who were once far off, Paul says, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Israel worshipped at a distance with blood on them; believers walk in with confidence, on the strength of better blood. Hebrews puts the two mountains side by side.

Sinai was “blackness, and darkness, and tempest”, a mountain so terrible that the people begged not to hear another word, and believers have come instead to Mount Zion and “to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling” (Hebrews 12:18-24). The fire the nation watched from the plain is the holiness Christ’s blood now brings a believer safely through.

When, Where, and Why

• When: approximately three months after Israel left Egypt, since Exodus 19:1 dates their arrival at Sinai to the third month, and shortly after the giving of the Ten Commandments and the laws of Exodus 20 to 23.
• Where: Mount Sinai, and the geography carries the argument. The ceremony happens at the foot of the mountain, the vision and the meal happen partway up, and the forty days happen at the summit inside the cloud.
• Why: Moses records this because it is where Israel becomes a covenant nation. Exodus has been moving toward it since God’s offer in chapter 19, and everything that follows, the tabernacle and the priesthood of chapters 25 to 31, assumes a covenant that was closed here.

Key Verses

“All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient.”

Exodus 24:7

Everything the LORD has told us, we will do it, and we will listen. This is Israel’s second answer, given after the written covenant was read aloud, and it is fuller than the first one in verse 3. They are not agreeing to a mood. They are agreeing to a document.

“Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.”

Exodus 24:8

Look at this blood, Moses tells them: it is the blood that binds you and the LORD together over everything you have just heard. This is the sentence Jesus took up at the last supper, and the verse Hebrews quotes to explain why the new covenant also needed blood.

“Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.”

Exodus 24:12

Come up to Me on the mountain and stay there, God says, and I will give you stone tablets carrying the law and the commandments in My own writing, so that you can teach them. God does not hand Moses a private experience. He hands him something written, and He says what it is for.

Key Lessons from Exodus 24

• A covenant with God rests on sacrifice rather than on the strength of anyone’s promise, since Israel’s pledge in verse 7 was sealed by blood in verse 8 and not by their resolve.
• Willing agreement is not the same as ability to keep it, and Israel proved it, promising twice in this chapter and worshipping a golden calf eight chapters later (Exodus 32:1-6).
• Written words hold where memory slips, which is why Moses wrote God’s words down, read them aloud, and was then promised tablets God had written Himself (24:4, 24:7, 24:12).
• Waiting can be part of drawing near to God, since even Moses, already summoned up the mountain, sat six days outside the cloud until God called him in (24:16).
• A high point with God is no guarantee of what comes after it, since Nadab and Abihu ate in God’s presence here and died offering strange fire in Leviticus 10:1-2, and Aaron was trusted with the camp here and made the calf while Moses was still on the mountain.

To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: Lessons from Exodus 24.

Bible Study Questions

1. In verse 3 the people say they will do all God’s words, and in verse 7 they say they will do them and be obedient. What has happened in between, and why might that change their answer?
2. Verse 4 has Moses build one altar and set up twelve pillars. What does each of the two stand for, and what does putting them side by side say about a covenant?
3. Moses divides the blood and puts half on the altar and half on the people (24:6, 24:8). Why do both sides need to be touched by the same blood?
4. In verse 10 the elders are given a sight of God, and the only thing Moses puts into words is the pavement beneath His feet. Why might he have written it that way?
5. Verse 11 says God “laid not his hand” on them. Why is it worth recording what God did not do?
6. Moses leaves Aaron and Hur in charge in verse 14. Read Exodus 32:1-6. What does that later chapter show about the instruction to wait?
7. God waits six days before calling Moses into the cloud (24:16). What might those six days have been for, and where in your own life are you waiting on God to speak?
8. Jesus echoed Exodus 24:8 at the last supper (Mark 14:24). What changes about the Lord’s Supper when you read it against this chapter?

Frequently Asked Questions

Exodus 24, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 And he said unto Moses, Come up unto the LORD, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship ye afar off.

2 And Moses alone shall come near the LORD: but they shall not come nigh; neither shall the people go up with him.

3 And Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the LORD hath said will we do.

4 And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

5 And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the LORD.

6 And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basons; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.

7 And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient.

8 And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.

9 Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel:

10 And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.

11 And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink.

12 And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.

13 And Moses rose up, and his minister Joshua: and Moses went up into the mount of God.

14 And he said unto the elders, Tarry ye here for us, until we come again unto you: and, behold, Aaron and Hur are with you: if any man have any matters to do, let him come unto them.

15 And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount.

16 And the glory of the LORD abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

17 And the sight of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.

18 And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.