Exodus 24: Dinner With God

They saw God and lived and then they sat down and ate. Exodus 24 contains one of the most unexpected scenes in the entire Old Testament, and it reshapes how we think about holiness, covenant, and what God actually wants from people. We’re reading the chapter closely, line by line, and wrestling with the detail that Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders go up Mount Sinai, witness the God of Israel, and share a covenant meal in his presence. 

We talk through the context leading up to this moment: the Ten Commandments, the “book of the covenant,” and Israel’s repeated promise to obey. Then we slow down for the covenant ceremony itself: sacrifices, the altar, the reading of God’s commands, and the blood that confirms the covenant. It’s intense, it’s ancient, and it’s meant to show that a relationship with God is real, binding, and life-shaping, not casual inspiration. 

From there, we zoom out to the takeaway that hits home: you were created for fellowship with God. Not as an accident, not as an afterthought, but because God wanted closeness with you. We also unpack why idols and sin create distance, why God “goes to war” with anything that keeps us bound, and how this chapter points toward deeper intimacy with God rather than a life of keeping him at arm’s length. If you want an Exodus 24 Bible study that’s both practical and personal, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the podcast.

Transcript

Welcome To Bible Breakdown

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us and let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Exodus chapter 24, and today's title is Dinner with God. Dinner with God. You ever been reading something in the Bible and all of a sudden you read something and you think, was that there before? Is the Mandela effect in full swing right now? And then you go back and you read and you go, Yep, that was there. I did ever see that before. Well, today is one of those moments. I cannot tell you how just mind-blown I was when I came across today's text one day, and I realized I've never noticed that before. And that's quite awesome. This is one of those I would like to know in the comments down below, have you ever thought about this before? It is quite amazing. And so after saying that over and over again, I hope I don't oversell it a little bit. Maybe this is more interesting for me than it is anyone else, but we're going

Quick Ways To Support

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to find out in just a moment. So if you want to get your Bibles out with me, you want to get your coffees out with me, we're going to be right in Exodus 24. But also don't forget to take just a moment, like, share, subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure to leave us a five-star view on the podcast. It really does help. And make sure you're going to the Bible breakdown discussion on Facebook. There's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job over there. You can get all the information at the Biblebreakdown.com. And don't forget, the more we dig, the more

Setting The Scene At Sinai

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we find. Well, if you've been with us now for the past while we've been on quite the journey. And we just got through finishing up where God took Moses up onto the mountain after he came down on the mountain at Mount Sinai. God brings him up there and he gives him the Ten Commandments and then he gives them kind of some commentary on how to live out the Ten Commandments. We talked about how you could see the first five commandments as how to have a relationship with God. The second five is how to have a relationship with one another. Well, he's bringing that back down. And now what are the people gonna say? Are they gonna look at this and go, this is great, this is exactly what we need? Or are they gonna say, you know, God, you're feeding us manna, you you destroyed the Egyptians, you know, the whole Red Sea thing. But yeah, I'm kind of out on that. Well, we're gonna see, and we are going to see something that absolutely blows my mind. And so we'll get into that in just a moment.

Reading Exodus 24 Together

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Let's read this together. Exodus 24, verse 1 says this. Then the Lord instructed Moses, Come up here and bring along Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and 70 of Israel's leaders. All of you must worship from a distance. Only Moses is allowed to come near the Lord. The others must not come near, and none of the other people are allowed to climb up the mountain with him. Then Moses went down to the people and repeated all the instruction and regulations that the Lord had given him. And all the people answered with one voice, We will do everything the Lord has commanded. Pause. If you have read the rest of the Bible with me, the answer to that is sure you will, buddy. All right, verse 4. Then Moses carefully wrote down all the Lord's instructions, everything we just got through reading about in the past previous days. Early the next morning, Moses got up, built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and he also set up twelve pillars, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent some of the young Israelite men to present burnt offerings and to sacrifice bulls as peace offerings to the Lord. Moses drained half of the blood from these animals into basins. The other half he splattered against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it aloud to all the people. Again they all responded, We will do everything the Lord has commanded. We will obey. Sure you will. Okay. Verse 8. Then Moses took the blood from the basins and splattered it over the people. That's gross, declaring, Look, this blood confirms the covenant the Lord has made with you and giving you in giving you these instructions. Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and 70 elders of Israel climbed up the mountain. There they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there seemed to be a furnace of brilliant blue lapis lizuli, as clear as the sky itself. Look at this. As though these nobles, and though these nobles of Israel gazed upon God, he did not destroy them. In fact, they ate a covenant meal, eating and drinking in his presence. Can we just pause? Think about that for a moment. They saw the Lord, and instead of being destroyed, they had some food. They ate. They just sat there and just had what we used to call back in the old school some fellowship together with the Lord, eating and drinking in his presence. Verse 12. Then the Lord said to Moses, Come up here with me on the mountain. Stay there, and I will give you the tablets of stone which I have inscribed, the instructions and commands, so that you can teach the people. So Moses and his assistant Joshua set out, and Moses climbed up on the mountain of God. Moses told the elders, Stay here and wait for us to come back. Aaron and her are here with you. If anyone has a dispute while I'm gone, consult with them. Then Moses climbed up on the mountain, and the cloud covered it. The glory of the Lord settled down on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day, the Lord called to Moses from inside the cloud. To the Israelites at the foot of the mountain, the glory of the Lord appeared at the summit like a consuming fire. Then Moses disappeared into the cloud as he climbed higher up the mountain, and he remained on the mountain for 40 days and forty nights.

Seeing God And Sharing A Meal

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Wow. Like there are so many things in that chapter that just absolutely blow my mind. Let's start with, let's do it in backwards order. First of all, Mo was with God on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights. And you got to think about so from a distance, what it looked like is it looked like fire had come down of the mountain. That could have very possibly looked like an ablaze, or it may have just been that the cloud was just red and it was thick smoke. So the smoke would have looked like there was a fire, but it was so smoky and so whatever that it looked like there was a fire all over the mountain. But for Moses, he went up into that fire and he stayed there for 40 days and for 40 nights. And then about looks like about halfway up the mountain is where the 70 Israelites uh leaders were. And I love how Moses was like, look, if you guys have problems until we get back, I know you guys can't even be here for 40 days without getting into some kind of fight. Talk to Aaron and her. They'll help you. You know, because you can't be, you, you can't be nice to each other for 40 days. So you just go talk to them. I'll be back. I'm gonna go meet with God. That's amazing to me. And then what I love is I know I slowed down, so you probably noticed what I what I just got through reading. The Bible says that God took Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, which are his sons, and then he took 70 leaders, and they went, it looks like they went up about halfway up the mountain, and there they met with God. And it said that under his feet, it looks like probably what happened is as God touched the mountain, it probably melted the stone and it turned it into this almost like volcanic rock, probably, but it was like this lapis lazuli kind of. This is me guessing, but it's it's just it turned into this underneath his feet because of just the reaction of God touching the mountain in a in a physical form. And then instead of them being destroyed, they didn't have dinner with God. They were breaking bread. I don't know what they would have had with God, they would have had some lamb chops and something. I don't know what they would have had. They had a they had a dinner with the Lord. Now, how did they do that? Well, a lot of scholars believe this is what's called a Christophany. It's a time when God in physical form, which would have been Jesus, would have met with them in the Old Testament and had fellowship together. It is amazing to think that this is how much God wanted to be in relationship with his people. God did not want to be far off from his people. Remember, God led the nation of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, and he said, on the way to the promised land, stop by Mount, stop by Mount Sinai, because I want to see you. I want you to see me. I want us to do this thing together. It's not until later we find out why God has to have a separation. We're gonna we're gonna get to that in just a little while. But God even says, I want you to invite the leaders. And and this is not in the Bible, this is just my my guess. But I wonder if there was a progression here. God was wanting first Moses, then Moses and Joshua, then Moses, Joshua in the 70. Was it going to keep going? But at some point, sin enters the camp, as it always seems to do, and they they weren't able to do that. But they literally had fellowship

Why God Wants Fellowship

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with the Lord. What does that have to do with us? Do you realize the reason why you were created? You were created, number one, because God chose you to be. You're not an accident. I don't care. I I know well-intended people will say, Well, this child was my oops baby. We didn't intend to have this baby. You know, you are not God's oops baby. You were not born, and then God thought, well, we gotta figure out something to do with him. No, the Bible tells us that long before you were created, God wanted you to be. And he wanted you to be so that he could be in fellowship and relationship with you. I was talking to someone the other day, and they have a they have a background of of Islam in their life, and in the Islam religion, their false God Allah, he is known to be um severe, and you're you don't have a relationship with God. You submit to God in their religion. And it breaks my heart because what we know of as the truth, that Yahweh, the one true God, the reason why he made us is not so that we would submit, but so that we would become his children, so that we could know him. He calls himself father over and over and over again because he says, That is the way I want you to see me. That is a loving father. And so along the path of life, God says, Come to me. Let us do life together, let us travel through life together. Here's my question for you. Are you traveling through life all by yourself? Maybe you have a relationship with God, but you leave him at home in the morning and you meet him again in the afternoon. Can I tell you, God wants to walk with you through every stage of life? And even in the middle of the unknown. Think about the nation of Israel. They've just been liberated from Egyptian bondage, they're on their way to a hoped-for promised land, they're not real sure. Imagine the idea of not really knowing what to do next. And in the middle of it, God says, I got you. I'm gonna give you the law so you can know how to have a relationship with me, how to have a relationship with one another, and before we do anything else, that's fellowship together. A moment of constantly trying to get us back to the Garden of Eden, where we are in close fellowship with the Lord. That's what that moment symbolizes is fellowship with God. You know what God wants from you? Fellowship, relationship, closeness. That's what he wants. That's why he will systematically go to war with every idol in our life, is because he doesn't want anything to keep us bound, broken, and distant from him. Sin is when we try to find a way to satisfaction away from God. And he's like, none of that will satisfy. So he will systematically go to war with every idol in our life until we are completely free, completely clean, so we can be in fellowship with one another. Is there an area of your life where you are not in fellowship with God? And what next step do you need

Reflection Prayer And Closing

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to take? Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that you're with us and you're for us. I'm so thankful for you. I'm so thankful that you love us. You don't have to, but you do. And you want us to call you Father because you want us to see you in that relational way. Thank you for loving us the way you do. We celebrate you today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And amen. Well, God's Word says in Exodus 6, verse 6, he says, I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from slavery. I'm so thankful to serve a God of freedom. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Exodus chapter 25.