Exo 24:1, 9, Num 11:16, 25, Deu 21:3-9 | TSK | STEP | Moses is called up into the mountain. The people promise obedience. Moses builds an altar, and twelve pillars. He sprinkles the blood of the covenant. The glory of God appears. Aaron and Hur have the charge of the people. Moses goes into the mountain, where he continues forty days and forty nights. Come up. Nadab. seventy.

gave it.From this place, Origen and Theodoret take occasion to compare Moses to a lamp, at which seventy others were lighted, without any diminution of its lustre.

they prophesied.By prophesying here we are to understand, their performing those civil and sacred functions for which they were qualified; exhorting the people to quiet and peaceable submission, and to trust and confidence in the providence of God.

1Sa 10:5,6,10; 19:20-24; Jer 36:5,6; Joe 2:28,29; Ac 2:17,18

Ac 11:28; 21:9-11; 1Co 11:4,5; 14:1-3,32; 2Pe 1:21

Deuteronomy 21:3-9

an.

Nu 19:2; Jer 31:18; Mt 11:28-30; Php 2:8

a rough valley.As the word {nachal} signifies both a torrent, and the valley or glen through which it flows, {nachal aithan} may be rendered a rapid torrent. Many torrents in Judea are dry during a great part of the year; when not only their banks but their beds may be ploughed, and yield a crop. Hence there is no impropriety in specifying that such a place should be one that "is neither cared nor sown;" while the circumstance that the elders were to wash their hands over the heifer, whose head had been struck off into the stream, confirms this interpretation. The spot of ground where this sacrifice was made must be uncultivated, because it was considered as a sacrifice for the atonement of murder, and, consequently, would pollute the land.

shall strike.

1Pe 2:21-24; 3:18

for them.

10:8; 18:5; Nu 6:22-27; 1Ch 23:13

by their word.

17:8-12; Mal 2:7

word. Heb. mouth.

wash their hands.Washing the hands was anciently a symbolical action, denoting that the person was innocent of the crime in question.

Job 9:30; Ps 19:12; 26:6; 51:2,7,14; 73:13; Jer 2:22; Mt 27:24,25

Heb 9:10

Nu 5:19-28; 2Sa 16:8; Job 21:21-23,31-34; Ps 7:3,4

lay not.