Exodus Chapter 24 verse 8 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 8. - Moses then proceeded to the final act - He took the blood from the basins, and sprinkled it - not certainly upon all the people, who numbered above two millions - but upon their leaders and representatives, the "elders" and other chief men, drawn up at the head of each tribe, and thus brought within his reach. It has been supposed by some that he merely sprinkled the blood on the twelve pillars, as representing the twelve tribes; but, had this been the case, the expression in the text would probably have been different. We read, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that he "sprinkled both the book, and all the people" (Hebrews 9:19). As he sprinkled, he said, Behold the blood of the covenant, etc. It was a common practice among the nations of antiquity to seal covenants with blood. Sometimes the blood was that of a victim, and the two parties to the covenant prayed, that, if they broke it, his fate might be theirs (Hom. 1l. 3:298; 19:252; Leviticus 1:24; 21:45; etc.). Sometimes it was the blood of the two parties themselves, who each drank of the other's blood, and thereby contracted a blood-relationship, which would have made their breaking the covenant more unpardonable (Herod. 1:74; 4:70; Tacit. Ann. 12:47). Moses seems to have followed neither practice at all closely, but, adopting simply the principle that a covenant required to be sealed with blood, to have arranged the details as he thought best. By the sprinkling of both the altar and the people the two parties to the covenant were made partakers of one and the same blood, and so brought into a sort of sacramental union. CHAPTER 24:9-11

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(8) And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it . . . --Half of the blood had been sprinkled upon the altar, which symbolised Jehovah; the other half was now sprinkled upon the people, or rather upon their representatives--the elders and others who stood nearest to Moses. Thus the two parties to the covenant, sprinkled with the blood of the same sacrifices, were brought into sacramental union. Rites somewhat similar, involving blood communion, were common throughout the East in connection with covenants (Horn. Il. iii. 298, xix. 252; Herod. I. 74, iii. 8, iv. 70; Xen. Anab. ii. 2, ? 9; Lucian. Toxar. 37; Pomp. Mel. ii. 1; Tac. Ann. xii. 47; &c), and were regarded as adding to their force and sacredness.On the people.--It has been suggested (Abarbarnel) that the blood was really sprinkled on the twelve pillars which represented the people; but the words used scarcely seem to admit of such an interpretation. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews understood the passage as declaring that the people were sprinkled (Hebrews 9:19).