John Gill Commentary Exodus 24

And he said unto Moses Who said? no doubt a divine Person, and yet what this Person said is,

come up unto the Lord ; meaning either to himself, or one divine Person called to Moses to come up to another: according to the Targum of Jonathan, it was Michael, the prince of wisdom; not a created angel, but the eternal Word, Wisdom, and Son of God; who said this on the seventh day of the month, which was the day after the giving of the law, or ten commands; though Jarchi says this paragraph was before the ten commands, and was said on the fourth of Sivan; but the Targumist seems most correct:

come up unto the Lord, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel ; Nadab and Abihu were the two eldest sons of Aaron, (Exodus 6:23) and the seventy elders were not all the elders of Israel, but were so many of them selected out of them, the chief and principal; who were heads of tribes and families, and were no doubt many, if not all of them, of those who by the advice of Jethro were chosen to be rulers of thousands, hundreds, and fifties; these were called to come up to the Lord on the mountain, but not to the top of it, only Moses went thither:

and worship ye afar off : from the people, and even at a distance from Moses; for he only was admitted near to God, as the following verse shows.

And Moses alone shall come near the Lord
Into the cloud where he was, and talks with him face to face, as a man talks with his friend; which was great nearness indeed, and a peculiar favour and high honour was this:

but they shall not come nigh ;
Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel:

neither shall the people go up with him ;
not any of them, much less the whole body. It seems, by this account, that Moses has been down from the mount after he has received the laws recorded in the two preceding chapters; though as yet he had not related them to the people, but did before he went up again by the above order, as appears from what follows.

And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord,
and all the judgments
Which according to Jarchi were the seven commands given to the sons of Noah, the laws concerning the sabbath,and honouring parents, the red heifer, and the judgments at Marah; but all these they were acquainted withbefore, excepting that of the red heifer, and the law, for that was not yet delivered to Moses, nor werethese the ten commands, for they had heard them from the Lord themselves; but they doubtless were thejudgments, or judicial laws, which he was ordered to set before the people, contained in the two precedingchapters, which were chiefly of the judicial kind, and related to the civil polity of the people ofIsrael:

and all the people answered with one voice ;
one speaking for, and in the name of the rest, or they all lift up their voice together, and being unanimousin their sentiments, expressed them in the same words:

and said, all the words which the Lord has said will we do ;
that is, they would be careful to observe all the laws, statutes, judgments, and commands which the Lord hadenjoined them; and less than this they could not say, for they had promised Moses, that if he would draw nighto God, and hear what he should say, and deliver it to them, they would hearken to it, and obey it, as ifthey had heard God himself speak it; only they entreated the Lord would speak no more to them, as he did theten commands, it being so terrible to them.

And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord
Jarchi says, all from the creation, to the giving of the law, and the commands at Marah; but though these were written by him, yet not at this time; but as Aben Ezra more truly observes, what are mentioned in this "parashah", or section, or what is contained in the two preceding chapters, he not only related to them from his memory, but he wrote them in a book, which is after mentioned, that they might be seen and read hereafter; for these were not the ten commands, they were written as well as spoken by the Lord himself, but the judicial laws before mentioned.

and rose up early in the morning :
not on the fifth of Sivan, as Jarchi, the day before the giving of the law, but on the eighth of that month, two days after it.

and built an altar under the hill :
under Mount Sinai, about the place where the bounds were set, beyond which the people were not to go.

and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel :
to answer to them, and which were to represent them, as seems by the following account; these probably were made of marble stone, of which Mount Sinai consisted, and of which there was plenty thereabout.

And he sent young men of the children Israel
To the altar under the hill he had these young men, according to Jarchi, were the firstborn of the children of Israel; and so the Targums Onkelos and Jonathan; and the latter adds, ``for until this hour the worship was among the firstborn, yet the tabernacle of the covenant was not made, and yet the priesthood was not given to Aaron.''

But though this is a notion that has obtained among learned men, both Jews and Christians, it has been called in question by some, who have reasons against it that are not easily refuted. And very probably, as the seventy elders were selected from the senior and graver part of the people, so these were choice young men, that were separated from others for this service, without any regard to birthright:

which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen
unto the Lord ;
by way of thankfulness; and such were used at making covenants, when the parties ate and drank together. The Vulgate Latin version has it, "twelve calves", without any authority for it.