If Israel obeyed Him, He would bring them into the promised land (ver. 23); and if there they continued unseduced by false worships, He would bless their provisions, their bodily frame, their children; He would bring terror and a hornet against their foes; He would clear the land before them as fast as their population could enjoy it; He would extend their boundaries yet farther, from the Red Sea, where Solomon held Ezion Geber (1 Kings ix. 26), to the Mediterranean, and from the desert where they stood to the Euphrates, where Solomon actually possessed Palmyra and Thiphsah (2 Chron. viii. 4; 1 Kings iv. 24). FOOTNOTES: [38] Even if the rendering were accepted, “Must My Presence (My Face) go with thee?” (Can I not be trusted without a direct Presence?) the argument would not be affected, because Moses presses for the favour and obtains it. CHAPTER XXIV. _THE COVENANT RATIFIED. THE VISION OF GOD._ xxiv. The opening words of this chapter (“Come up unto the Lord”) imply, without explicitly asserting, that Moses was first sent down to convey to Israel the laws which had just been enacted. This code they unanimously accepted, and he wrote it down. It is a memorable statement, recording the origin of the first portion of Holy Scripture that ever existed as such, whatever earlier writings may now or afterwards have been incorporated in the Pentateuch. He then built an altar for God, and twelve pillars for the tribes, and sacrificed burnt-offerings and peace-offerings unto the Lord. Sin-offerings, it will be observed, were not yet instituted; and neither was the priesthood, so that young men slew the offerings. Half of the blood was poured upon the altar, because God had perfected His share in the covenant. The remainder was not used until the law had been read aloud, and the people had answered with one voice, “All that the Lord hath commanded will we do, and will be obedient.” Thereupon they too were sprinkled with the blood, and the solemn words were spoken, “Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.” The people were now finally bound: no later covenant of the same kind will be found in the Old Testament. And now the principle began to work which was afterwards embodied in the priesthood. That principle, stated broadly, was exclusion from the presence of God, relieved and made hopeful by the admission of representatives. The people were still forbidden to approach, under pain of death. But Moses and Aaron were no longer the only ones to cross the appointed boundaries. With them came the two sons of Aaron, (afterwards, despite their privilege, to meet a dreadful doom,) and also seventy representatives of all the newly covenanted people. Joshua, too, as the servant of Moses, was free to come, although unspecified in the summons (vers. 1, 13).