Thread by @JoelBaden

#Exodus 24:1-11

The covenant...and a picnic?

As we return to the narrative from the laws of the Covenant Code, we are immediately faced with problems. This is a classic little section for compositional analysis, and it revolves mostly around where Moses is supposed to be.

When we left Moses canonically, of course, he was up on the mountain receiving the laws of the Covenant Code. So when we start here in 24:1 with instructions for Moses to ascend, that should be a red flag.

It’s only made worse when God goes on to say that not just Moses, but a bunch of the people he left behind down at the bottom of the mountain should ascend with him. It seems pretty clear that Moses isn’t where Moses ought to be.

Compounding that is the fact that two verses later, in 24:3, before Moses and his friends are said to actually ascend as commanded, we’re told that he comes down - he goes to the people, which is just where he should have already been.

And in 24:3, when Moses repeats to the people what YHWH has just told him, presumably that’s not the invitation to go up the mountain; it’s the laws and the rules, the mishpatim - which can’t be anything other than the Covenant Code, which is explicitly called mishpatim in 22:1.

So it’s pretty straightforward: 24:3 is the direct continuation of the end of the Covenant Code; 24:1, in turn, picks up directly on the last verse we had in J, Exod 19:25, which had Moses going back down the mountain to tell the people (again) to keep their distance.

The movements of the two narratives are thus going in opposite directions. In J, Moses is now going up the mountain, with his friends; in E, he’s coming down, with the laws. The rest of 24:4-8 is patently E, as the people make the covenant on the basis of those laws.

In here they twice repeat the same covenant acceptance formula that they already stated even before hearing the details, back in Exod 19:8: “whatever YHWH says, we’ll obey and do it.” They have a whole covenant ceremony, with sacrifices and blood rituals.

And then suddenly in 24:9, guess what? Moses and his pals are heading up the mountain, fulfilling the command of 24:1-2 that evidently everyone was happy to just ignore for a bit while they did something else.

That doesn’t happen - commands don’t go unfulfilled while characters go off and do other stuff. This is a classic discontinuity. Obviously 24:9 originally stood directly after 24:2, as its precise fulfillment. And in 24:10 we understand what they were all doing up there.

Just as was the case back in Exodus 19, for J the theophanic experience at the mountain is entirely a visual one. The people see YHWH from a distance but aren’t allowed up the mountain; Moses and the Israelite leaders get closer and see more; and Moses will soon see God up close.

Israel’s god, by the by, isn’t invisible. (Just another way that our modern conceptions of God aren’t aligned with those of our sacred books.) There may not be a statue of God in the sanctuary, but biblical characters see God all the time.

Precautions are put in place - here, and in the sanctuary itself (curtains, incense) - to prevent unfettered visual access to the deity. Seeing God, as 24:11 makes clear, is dangerous, potentially fatal - but that only reinforces the fact that God can be seen.

The final two words (in Hebrew) of 24:11 have caused all kinds of consternation in scholarship, have spawned all sorts of theories, and it’s all very silly. “They ate and drank” - who did? We’ve got two stories here - who’s more likely to be eating and drinking?

Did the elders who went up the mountain with Moses pack a picnic? It’s possible, but a little ridiculous. On the other hand, in E it would refer to Moses and the Israelites who had just offered sacrifices at their covenant ceremony. That seems...better.

What’s more, the sacrifices they offered were specifically “peace” offerings, that is, the ones that the offerors get the meat back from so that they can celebrate with a meal. So...yeah. No picnic on the mountain, I’m afraid. Rather, a sacrificial meal at a covenant ceremony.