Thread by @JoelBaden

#Exodus 24:15-18

Moses goes back up the mountain...twice

If we’ve been following along with the various theophanies - the visually oriented fire and smoke of J, and the auditory thunder and clouds of E - then some of what we find here is...odd.

The first line makes perfect sense in our E story. God just told Moses to go up the mountain, Moses just made plans for who would be in charge while he was gone, and here in 24:15, up he goes. And the cloud is of course good E too - this is how YHWH shows up, here and elsewhere.

Suddenly, though, it gets weird. The “presence of YHWH?” That’s a new term for God. (Not just new to this story - basically new to the entire Bible. Yes, it’s in Exodus 16, but we learned that that bit has been displaced from its original position later in Numbers, remember?)

Shoutout here to my student, and future @lianemfeldman student, Abi Mason (not, afaik, on here), who has some super interesting ideas about why God is suddenly bestowed with the כבוד, “glory,” or “presence,” at this precise moment.

And now YHWH, in his כבוד manifestation, is dwelling on Mount Sinai? Sinai to this point has only been in J; and for sure God hasn’t been dwelling on the mountain, just appearing on it. And now the cloud is there six days...before YHWH lets Moses in?

But YHWH already invited Moses in. And Moses has been up there a bunch of times already without this waiting period. And finally, the כבוד appears to the Israelites - another theophany?? - and as fire? With/inside the cloud?? Fire is J, cloud is E...what’s this?

All signs, of course, point to P. This will be P’s regular description of YHWH’s appearance to Israel: as the כבוד יהוה. YHWH will talk to Moses, but the כבוד will appear to the people from here on out (Lev 9:23, e.g.). P, like J, calls the mountain Sinai (Lev 7:38, e.g.).

The six/seven day scheme should be...familiar. And indeed, the entire mechanism for YHWH’s discourse with Moses here parallels how they will talk in the soon-to-be-built Tent of Meeting. Even better, E is doing the same thing regarding its own Tent of Meeting.

Here in P, YHWH dwells on the mountain, as he will in the Tabernacle. His presence in his dwelling is marked by the cloud, which prevents entry to anyone other than Moses, and Moses only when summoned. That’s exactly how it works in the Tabernacle/Tent of Meeting in P.

In E, by contrast, here YHWH doesn’t dwell on the mountain; when he wants to talk to Moses, he summons Moses to the mountain and then he descends on it in a cloud. This is precisely the mechanism for E’s Tent of Meeting: Moses goes out into it, and YHWH descends in a cloud.

Oh, and YHWH appearing both as cloud and fire in P? Totally right. The cloud signals YHWH’s presence, as in Exod 40:34; the fire is how YHWH makes his presence felt, as it were, as in Lev 9:23-24.

Now the last verse: Moses going inside the cloud only makes sense in P, right in line with 24:16; same for the ascent of the mountain, since he’s already done that in E in 24:15. But the forty days and nights is E: that’s the background to the golden calf story (coming soon-ish).

What’s great here (aside from all the other great stuff I just dropped on you) is that from a redactional standpoint, a first ascent (P) has been combined with a third ascent (E). Why? Or, why not combine P’s ascent with any of the other ones in J or E?

Because in P, Moses gets something, something tangible: the עדת, which I’m going to leave untranslated: the edut. (We’ll talk about it more when we get to it.) And in E, he’s getting something tangible, too: the tablets. And the two items are identified as one and the same.

This must have taken some restraint: after all, in P they arrived at Sinai back in Exodus 19, but the entire source dropped away to give room for all the J and E material. J and E even got their full theophanies back in Exod 19 - P’s was reserved all the way until now.

It’s all a good illustration of how thoughtfully the compilation was done. All the theophanies weren’t just crammed in together; everything is placed precisely where it best fits (even if we can see the seams).