The Covenant Confirmed

Chapter 24

1 But to Moses the Lord said, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu,⁠ and seventy of the elders of Israel,⁠ and worship from a distance.⁠ 2 Moses alone may come near the Lord, but the others must not come near, nor may the people go up with him.” 3 Moses came and told the people all the Lord’s words and all the decisions. All the people answered together, “We are willing to do all the words that the Lord has said,” 4 and Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. Early in the morning he built an altar at the foot of the mountain and arranged twelve standing stones—according to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 He sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls for peace offerings to the Lord.⁠ 6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and half of the blood he splashed on the altar. 7 He took the Book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people,⁠ and they said, “We are willing to do and obey all that the Lord has spoken.” 8 So Moses took the blood and splashed it on the people⁠ and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”⁠ 9 Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up,⁠ 10 and they saw the God of Israel.⁠ Under his feet there was something like a pavement made of blue sapphire, clear like the sky itself.⁠ 11 But he did not lay a hand on the leaders of the Israelites, so they saw God, and they ate and they drank.⁠ 12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and remain there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commandments that I have written,⁠ so that you may teach them.”⁠ 13 So Moses set out with Joshua his attendant, and Moses went up the mountain of God. 14 He told the elders, “Wait for us in this place until we return to you.⁠ Here are Aaron and Hur with you. Whoever has any matters of dispute can approach them.” 15 Moses went up the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of the Lord resided on Mount Sinai,⁠ and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day he called to Moses from within the cloud.⁠ 17 Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in plain view of the people. 18 Moses went into the cloud when he went up the mountain, and Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 32:30 and Exodus 24:10

Hebrew Bible

Summary

Genesis describes Jacob wrestling a mysterious figure he calls God, and Exodus describes Moses and the elders seeing God during a covenant meal. These stories reflect a unique tradition different from others that say no one can see God and live.

Passages

Genesis 32:30

Hebrew Bible

28 “No longer will your name be Jacob,” the man told him, “but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked, “Please tell me your name.” “Why do you ask my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there. 30 So Jacob named the place Peniel, explaining, “Certainly I have seen God face to face and have survived.” 31 The sun rose over him as he crossed over Penuel, but he was limping because of his hip. 32 That is why to this day the Israelites do not eat the sinew which is attached to the socket of the hip, because he struck the socket of Jacob’s hip near the attached sinew.

750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

Exodus 24:10

Hebrew Bible

8 So Moses took the blood and splashed it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” 9 Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement made of blue sapphire, clear like the sky itself. 11 But he did not lay a hand on the leaders of the Israelites, so they saw God, and they ate and they drank. 12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and remain there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commandments that I have written, so that you may teach them.”

750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

References

"... Fokkelman’s bifurcation of [Genesis 32] clearly privileges the words over the wrestling, with no obvious justification for this from the story itself. This appears to confirm a general tendency of some scholars to privilege the word over the body, with the latter considered to be a problem. Terence Fretheim specifically identifies this within biblical scholarship: “It is often said that the word spoken is the focus of the theophany. But the fact that there is always some empirical reference to God’s appearances, something concrete and tangible associated with them, has not been sufficiently appreciated.” ... This ambiguous body is unevenly depicted in the Hebrew Bible. God appears in “human form” (Ezekiel 1:26), with “loins” (verse 27). He has a “back” and a “hand,” and he has a “face” that must not be seen (Exodus 33:20-23), along with “feet” (Exodus 24:10-11), “hair” and clothing (Daniel 7:9; Isaiah 6:1) ... Jacob’s encounter with the man-God is an ideal story to foreground this debate because the physicality of wrestling speaks to the body that is both absent and present, as well as issues of function versus form ... According to Römer, the Jacob and Moses encounters are two examples “in which God is seen to be close to human beings, but for the purpose of eliminating them.” Despite this hostile intention—or somehow because of it—God “transforms” them.“ The problem with this is that the man-God does not attempt to “eliminate” Jacob. He wrestles with him and he hurts him. Granted, Jacob feels threatened enough by the man-God to exclaim: “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved” (Genesis 32:30). But it is not clear how this experience fits into a wrestling encounter that occurred in the dark ..."

Mike Meyer, “Jacob Wrestles the Man-God: An Embodied Reading of Genesis 32:24–32” (PhD diss., University of Auckland, 2021), 3–6.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

The Covenant Confirmed

Exodus40 chapters

Compare Genesis 32:30 and Exodus 24:10

Summary

Passages

Genesis 32:30

Exodus 24:10

References

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