The people saw the cloud descend on Mount Sinai and they heard the voice of God speaking the ten commandments and they feared the voice of the Lord; therefore, the elected Moses to be their intercessor. The Lord gave Moses commandments on how the people are to live in the promise land. The Lord told Moses to come up to the Lord with his brother Aaron, Aaron’s two sons Nadab and Abihu, and with seventy elders to worship the Lord at a distance.
Moses recounted to all the people the things that God had said to him when they sent him to the Lord as their intercessor. The people agreed to do all the words that the Lord had spoken. Moses wrote down all that the Lord had spoken in a book. Moses built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars. One pillar for every tribe. They sacrificed young bulls as burnt offerings on the altar as peace offerings to the Lord. When the bulls were sacrificed, Moses used half of the blood to sanctify the altar. Then he read the words of the Lord from the book of the covenant in the hearing of the people. Then he took the other half of the blood from the sacrifice of the bulls and sprinkled it on the people saying, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
After sanctifying the people with the blood of bulls. The glory of the Lord rested on the mountain for six days in a cloud and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from the cloud. Moses went to the Lord on the mountain with his servant Joshua. Moses entered the midst of the cloud on the mountain and stayed there for forty days and forty nights.
This was a type which was yet to come. The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us and the apostles beheld his glory. (Jn. 1:14) He was sacrificed on a Roman cross and his blood was poured out for us as a new covenant; we are not sanctified with the blood of bulls but with the blood of the Son of God. (Lk. 22:20) The new covenant is faultless but the Mosaic covenant is with fault because it is dependent on the obedience of the people to keep it; however, the new covenant is solely dependent on the obedience of the Son of God. (Heb. 8:7-13)
