Then he said to Moses, "Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. Moses alone shall come near to the LORD, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him." Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, "All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do." And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient." And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words."
Exodus 24:1-8
The account of the Book of the Covenant being completed, the narrative now continues at the point it paused, 20:21. Moses recounted all the words of the Book (chs 21-23) to the people, who responded, 'All the words which the Lord hath said will we do'. Whereupon Moses wrote all the words of the Lord (4), and solemnized their acceptance of them by a sacrament by which they were bound, through blood, to their obedience. There is something very moving here, to understand which goes far to explain much of Israel's later unsatisfactory conduct. In ch 2 we read that the people had withdrawn from the presence of the Lord (see Note on 20:18-21); their hearts were not really in it, yet they said that they would obey, and allowed the sacrament of blood to be administered to them. Their hearts were not really deeply touched; they acted a lie - and this explains their later faithlessness. They did not really mean business, but went through the motions unwillingly, or with no real intention of implementing them. The covenant was broken in principle even as it was made with them. The parallel for today is surely obvious. It is so easy for people's emotions to be stirred without their wills being touched or made captive to the word of God, and even for minds to assent to the truth and lips acknowledging it without the heart being in it. This is both the tragedy and the explanation of much that is unsatisfactory in Christian experience and service today. May we learn deeply from this solemn spectacle.