Exodus — Chapter 24

And he said to Moses: Come up to the Lord, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and you shall adore afar off. The gradations of access to God on the mountain—seventy elders at a distance, Aaron and his sons closer, Moses alone entering the cloud—typify the gradations of contemplative ascent in the soul. Lapide follows Pseudo-Dionysius (Myst. Theol. I) and Gregory (Hom. in Ez. I): the ordinary faithful are at the base of the mountain; the active ministers of the Church are at the middle slopes; the contemplative souls who receive infused prayer ascend further; only the greatest mystics (Moses-type) enter the cloud of unknowing.

And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice: We will do all the words of the Lord which he hath spoken. This solemn ratification of the covenant by the whole people is for Lapide the model of the Church's response to divine revelation: credo (I believe) and faciam (I will do). Faith and obedience are inseparable; assent to God's word must be completed by submission of the will to His commands. He cites Augustine (De Spir. et Lit. 36): \"the law was given that grace might be sought.\"

Moses sprinkled the blood of the covenant on the people, saying: \"This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.\" Lapide identifies this as the immediate Old Testament type of Our Lord's words at the Last Supper: \"This is my blood of the new covenant\" (Mt. 26:28). As the old covenant was ratified with the blood of oxen sprinkled on the people, the new covenant is ratified with the Blood of the Lamb of God, given to the people in the chalice of the Eucharist. He cites Chrysostom (Hom. in Mt. 83) and Cyril of Alexandria.

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up the mountain and saw the God of Israel. Lapide deals with the nature of this vision: did the elders see God's essence? He follows Aquinas (II-II, q. 174, a. 4 ad 2): they saw an image or representation of the divine, not the divine essence itself; the sapphire floor beneath His feet was a vision of the divine majesty accommodated to their capacity. Only Moses received a superior degree of this prophetic vision.

And the glory of the Lord dwelt upon Sinai, covering it with a cloud six days: and the seventh day he called him out of the midst of the cloud. The glory (Shekinah) dwells on Sinai for six days before Moses enters on the seventh—signifying, says Lapide, the preparation required for divine contemplation. Six days of active labor and moral purification are followed by the seventh day of rest in God's presence. He applies this to the ascetical life: six virtues practiced (faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, fortitude) prepare the soul for the sabbath of contemplation.

Moses entered into the cloud and was on the mountain forty days and forty nights. Lapide identifies the forty days of Moses on Sinai as a type of Our Lord's forty days' fast in the desert (Mt. 4:2), and of the forty years of Israel's desert wandering. He notes that Scripture's use of the number forty—weeks, days, years—is consistently associated with periods of trial, preparation, and purification, in which the flesh is mortified and the spirit strengthened. This prefigures Christian Lent.