Exodus 24 · The Lantern

The Covenant Sealed

And he said to Moses, Come up to the LORD, you, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship you afar off.

And Moses alone shall come near the LORD: but they shall not come near; neither shall the people go up with him.

And Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the LORD has said will we do.

And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD.

And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.

And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD has said will we do, and be obedient.

And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Look the blood of the covenant, which the LORD has made with you concerning all these words.

Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel:

And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.

And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink.

Moses on the Mountain

And the LORD said to Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give you tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that you may teach them.

And Moses rose up, and his minister Joshua: and Moses went up into the mount of God.

And he said to the elders, Stay you here for us, until we come again to you: and indeed, Aaron and Hur are with you: if any man have any matters to do, let him come to them.

And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount.

And the glory of the LORD remained upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

And the sight of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.

And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and got him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.

If, then, any one desires to see this Image of God, he must love God, that he may be loved by God; and be no longer a servant but a friend, because he has kept the commandments of God, that he may enter into the cloud where God is.

Moses himself was so purified and freed from his body by a fast of forty days that his whole self took on a glorious appearance of divinity. Still in the darkness of our body, he gleamed with the full radiance of divinity. The eyes of mortals could not gaze upon him who, long nourished by the substance of God, had forgotten all about the aids provided by mortals' food.

Christ was such a Center in His ascension. It is written in Exodus: "Moses passed into the midst of the cloud, and there he stayed for forty days and forty nights." And this is what Christ was in His ascension.

Exodus24

The Covenant Sealed

Moses on the Mountain