Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank. The LORD said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction." So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. And he said to the elders, "Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them." Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the LORD dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Exodus 24:9-18
Moses, Aaron and his sons, and seventy of the elders of Israel, went up into the mount, 'and they saw the God of Israel' (10). The description given of this wonderful manifestation, with its emphasis on colour and clearness (10), seems to speak, as one commentator puts it, of 'the milder glories of God's character, as reconciled with Israel, in contrast to those more terrible manifestations which accompanied the giving of the Law, and had filled the hearts of the people with awe' (Meyer). Verses of Scripture and lines of hymns come naturally to our minds as we think of this; as for example Paul's well known words 'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ...' (Romans 11:33), which speak of mystery in light rather than in darkness; or F.W. Faber's words:
'How beautiful, how beautiful
The sight of Thee must be,
Thine endless wisdom, boundless power,
And awful purity.'
It may be that the divine purpose in so revealing himself to them was to prompt them to think, 'Here is a God Whom we can love and adore for His beauty and loveliness, as well as obey'. Surely the impression of a cloudless blue sky is meant to suggest that although we must never forget the holiness and majesty and the consuming fire that burns in God, there is a place of fellowship with Him to which we may come where our communion with Him is unclouded and inexpressibly lovely, where we can 'enjoy' Him in a sheer rapture of beauty and adoration. Is this what the Psalmist means when he says, 'Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness'?