Exodus 24:5-8

24:5 He sent young Israelite men, 1  and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls for peace offerings 2  to the Lord. 24:6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and half of the blood he splashed on the altar. 3  24:7 He took the Book of the Covenant 4  and read it aloud 5  to the people, and they said, “We are willing to do and obey 6  all that the Lord has spoken.” 24:8 So Moses took the blood and splashed it on 7  the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant 8  that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

1 tn The construct has “young men of the Israelites,” and so “Israelite” is a genitive that describes them.

2 tn The verbs and their respective accusatives are cognates. First, they offered up burnt offerings (see Lev 1), which is וַיַּעֲלוּ עֹלֹת (vayya’alu ’olot); then they sacrificed young bulls as peace sacrifices (Lev 3), which is in Hebrew וַיִּזְבְּחוּ זְבָחִים (vayyizbÿkhu zÿvakhim). In the first case the cognate accusative is the direct object; in the second it is an adverbial accusative of product. See on this covenant ritual H. M. Kamsler, “The Blood Covenant in the Bible,” Dor le Dor 6 (1977): 94-98; E. W. Nicholson, “The Covenant Ritual in Exodus 24:3-8,” VT 32 (1982): 74-86.

3 sn The people and Yahweh through this will be united by blood, for half was spattered on the altar and the other half spattered on/toward the people (v. 8).

4 tn The noun “book” would be the scroll just written containing the laws of chaps. 20-23. On the basis of this scroll the covenant would be concluded here. The reading of this book would assure the people that it was the same that they had agreed to earlier. But now their statement of willingness to obey would be more binding, because their promise would be confirmed by a covenant of blood.

5 tn Heb “read it in the ears of.”

6 tn A second verb is now added to the people’s response, and it is clearly an imperfect and not a cohortative, lending support for the choice of desiderative imperfect in these commitments – “we want to obey.” This was their compliance with the covenant.

7 tn Given the size of the congregation, the preposition might be rendered here “toward the people” rather than on them (all).

8 sn The construct relationship “the blood of the covenant” means “the blood by which the covenant is ratified” (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 254). The parallel with the inauguration of the new covenant in the blood of Christ is striking (see, e.g., Matt 26:28, 1 Cor 11:25). When Jesus was inaugurating the new covenant, he was bringing to an end the old.