Shemot 24:8 (Mishpatim) - Sprinkling blood during the ceremony to establish the covenant at Sinai

שמות כד:ח - ויקח משה את הדם ויזרק על העם, ויאמר הנה דם הברית אשר כרת ה' עמכם על כל הדברים האלה.

During the ceremony to establish the covenant, Moshe took half of the blood from the sacrifices of the ceremony, sprinkled the blood on the people, and stated, 24:8, “here is the blood of the covenant that G-d has cut with you by means of all these words,” (Fox 1995 translation). It seems that Moshe literally sprinkled blood on the people, though the Abravanel (1997, p. 395) claims that the blood was sprinkled on the pillars mentioned in 24:4, since the verse explicitly states that the pillars represented the twelve tribes.

What was the purpose of the sprinkling of blood? When the covenant was renewed after the sin of the golden calf or by the additional covenant in Devarim, there is no mention of sprinkling blood on the people, so why here is this part of the ceremony of establishing the covenant? Furthermore, why was only half the blood from the sacrifices sprinkled on the people, while the other half was sprinkled on the altar (24:6)?

One possible explanation for the sprinkling of the blood is that it was a form of imprecation to the people not to violate the covenant, that they were pledging their blood, their lives, to uphold the covenant. Bekhor Shor (on 24:4,8, see also Hizkuni on 24:8, and Rabbenu Hananel on 24:8) points out that the splitting of the blood between the altar and the people was similar to the splitting of the animals in the covenant of the pieces in Bereshit 15, that a covenant was literally cut between two items. Thus 24:8 states that G-d cut the covenant with the blood. Bekhor Shor further suggests that the sprinkling of the blood substituted for the cutting up animals since both demonstrate what would happen from disobedience to the covenant. Furthermore, most likely this sprinkling of the blood reminded the people of putting of the blood from the korban pesach on their doorposts, just a few months earlier, 12:7,22,24.

Ibn Ezra (short comments on 24:8) notes that Rabbenu Saadiah Gaon, also suggested that the sprinkling of the blood was a form of imprecation, but he dismisses it as drush. Instead, he suggests that the sprinkling could have been either to purify the people or to make them kadosh with the establishment of the covenant. These two possibilities are not exclusive. Maybe the sprinkling of the blood on the altar was to purify the people, and then after the people said they would do and accept in 24:7, then they were sprinkled with blood to make them kadosh.

Abravanel (1997, p. 395, also Cassuto, 1967, p. 312) offers a different suggestion, that the sprinkling of the blood, half on the altar and half on the people, was to show the joining together of G-d and the people, which would be an appropriate symbolism for the ceremony of the covenant. Modern bible scholars like this explanation since they found other cases of blood pacts in different cultures, and some have also connected this symbolism with the idea (above) of imprecation. (See Malul, 2002, though Nicholson, 1982, disputes these analogies.) I doubt this idea because one of the crucial ideas in the Torah is that there are limits to how close a person can get to G-d. For example 24:1,2 allows only Moshe to come near G-d, and a blood pact, even symbolically, I think is over the borderline. (For more on this problem see our discussion on Shemot 20:19-23, “Establishing boundaries after the Decalogue.”)

Maybe the sprinkling of the blood was a temporary sign of the covenant. Following the idea of the Bekhor Shor, the splitting of the blood between the altar and the people was to show the people the act of making the covenant, and the blood remained as a sign of the covenant. The blood was not the real sign of the covenant, which was the luchot, the tablets, but a temporary sign until the luchot would exist, and hence it was not repeated by the other covenants. Why was there a need for a temporary sign? Maybe Moshe was worried what would happen when he went up to the thick cloud again after the ceremony was over. He understood from 24:1,2 that he would be gone for some time, and he was worried about the people’s allegiance to the covenant when he was gone. Hence he left a sign of the covenant, the blood, which was to remind the people of the covenant when he was away, but alas this sign was not successful as the people broke the covenant when they committed idolatry with the golden calf.


Bibliography:

Cassuto, Umberto (1883-1951), 1967, A commentary on the book of Exodus, Jerusalem: The Magnes Press.

Fox, Everett, 1995, The Five Books of Moses: A new translation, New York: Schocken Books.

Malul, Meir, 2002, The ceremony of blood, in The World of the Bible: Shemot, edited by Shemaryahu Talmon and Yitzhak Avishur, Tel Aviv: Divrei Hayamim, Yediot Achronot, pp. 148,149.

Nicholson, Ernest W., 1982, The covenant ritual in Exodus 24:3-8, Vetus Testaentum, 32:1, 1982, pp. 74-86.