24:1–4 The Lord speaks to Moses, and Moses in turn speaks to God’s people regarding the regular offerings for the sanctuary. The people are tasked with providing “pure oil”266 for the lampstand and “fine flour” for the bread on the table (v. 5). Of all Israel’s prescribed offerings (chs. 1–7) the oil and flour are unique in that they are brought into the Holy Place, nearest to God’s presence. The lampstand’s light is to burn “regularly” (Hb. tamid), in daily repetition from evening to morning.267 Every morning the attending priest is to fill the lamps with fresh oil, and every evening he is to light them (cf. 1 Sam. 3:3). The ritual is performed in the inner sanctuary at the same time as the burning of incense on the golden altar before the veil (Ex. 30:7).

The lampstand is set on the southern wall, before the veil that separates the throne room of God (Ex. 40:24), and is solid gold, crafted as a “single piece of hammered work of pure gold” (Ex. 25:36).268 It is designed as a single shaft, with three branches on either side decorated with almond blossoms, calyxes, and flowers (Ex. 25:31–40). Seven lamps are placed atop the lampstand, “set up so as to give light on the space in front of it” (Ex. 25:37). The lampstand visually resembles a stylized tree.269 When the lampstand is lit, it is a tree ablaze in reflective gold. Taken on its own it recalls the manifest presence of God, who appears to Moses from within the burning bush (Ex. 3:4). Viewed in its setting in sacred space the lampstand is aglow in a room filled with a smoky cloud of incense that partly veils its fire and light, re-creating the pillar of cloud and fire that attended Israel on her journeys. Laymen would not have seen the lampstand in the Holy Place. Instead, as they gazed at the tabernacle in the evenings, they would have seen the diffusing of soft light and smoke from the edges of the layered tent, replicating the fire and cloud on Sinai and communicating that Yahweh is among his people. It may have been the Lord’s intention for the lampstand to reproduce a “little theophany, the nightly theophany that corresponded to his daily theophany in fire at the altar (Lev. 9:23–24).”270

24:5–6 The fine flour is an offering from the community for baking twelve loaves, two tenths of an ephah each.271 The loaves are most commonly referred to as the “bread of the Presence” (Ex. 25:30; 35:13; 39:36) since they are placed “before the Lord” (i.e., in his immediate presence).272 The bread is set in two “piles” (or “arrangements”) on the table of acacia wood overlaid with pure gold. The table stands opposite the lampstand, on the northern wall of the Holy Place. Though not explicitly stated, it is understood that the twelve loaves represent the twelve tribes.

24:7 Each pile of six loaves is topped with pure frankincense as a “memorial portion.” The frankincense marks this as a special type of grain offering to the Lord that nonetheless is shared with his consecrated priests. The incense is likely burned on the small golden altar of the inner sanctuary as a token portion (cf. Lev. 2:2).

24:8–9 Fresh loaves are laid out on the Sabbath, the day on which the people cease from their labors to enjoy the hospitality of the Lord. While the people rest, the Lord lays out a table for the week ahead, ensuring his presence and provision (cf. Ps. 23:5). The priests eat the old loaves on behalf of all Israel in a holy place. The pattern for representatively eating a meal in God’s presence was set when the Lord brought Israel into covenant relationship with himself at Sinai. A select group—Moses, Aaron and his sons, and seventy elders—was invited to approach halfway up the mountain and there enjoy Yahweh’s hospitality. They were granted access to the place of his feet and feasted on a covenant meal in his presence (Ex. 24:9–11). Once God’s presence descends to fill the tent patterned as an enduring Sinai, the priesthood representatively sits at the table with the Lord to eat the bread of the covenant on behalf of the people. In this way arranging the loaves for sharing a meal before the Lord points to the covenant-making ceremony at Sinai. It is perpetuated in the tabernacle as a tangible sign of Yahweh’s covenant presence, memorializing and enacting “a covenant forever.” It is not lost on us that the sign of the covenant is the offering brought by the “people of Israel,” the human agency in the divine-human relationship.

24:10–11 The subject now turns to an incident involving a man from a mixed marriage.273 In contrast with the Israelite mother, whose name and lineage are given, her son remains unnamed. In a narrative whose subject is the “Name” that sanctifies all Israel this may be an important detail foreshadowing that the blasphemer will be cut off from the community and his name blotted out from under heaven (cf. Ex. 32:33).

The quarrel between the half-Israelite and the Israelite in the camp is not given much explanation, but we are not left with the impression that the Lord’s name was uttered in a heated moment.274 Rather it was deliberate contempt for the God of Israel. In Israel’s experience the name of Yahweh is a revelation of his identity (Ex. 34:6–7). It is entrusted to his people in covenant relationship (Ex. 3:14–15) and is the means by which he displays to the nations his power to save (Ex. 7:5; 9:16). The divine name defines Israel as a people set apart to the Lord for blessing: “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them” (Num. 6:27). Israel’s identity as a people is tied to his. To misuse Yahweh’s name is not to utter a forbidden word but to malign the very person of God, who is represented by his name. It is “to treat his gift lightly, to underestimate his power, to scorn his Presence, and to misrepresent to the family of humankind his very nature as ‘The One Who Always Is.’”275

24:12 In the case of an Israelite the law forbids cursing the Lord (Ex. 22:28) and spells out judgment in the Ten Commandments: “The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain” (Ex. 20:7).276 Treating his name without regard for its sanctity is a violation of the covenant and a capital crime. But what about the nations? Will they be held accountable? Moses thus seeks the Lord’s wisdom for the unprecedented case of how to judge the one who has cursed the divine name if he is not a full-fledged Israelite. (The ruling given in Lev. 24:16, 22, with its mention of the “sojourner,” clarifies that this is the nature of the legal problem.)277

24:13–16 All who are witnesses to the sacrilege are called to place their hands on the offender’s head so that he will “bear his sin” (cf. 5:1). This gesture conveys the antithesis of the sacrificial system, which provides the means for sin to be borne by an animal substitute to atone for the sinner (cf. discussion in chapter 16). Instead of the sin’s being placed on a substitute, he who has defiantly sinned against Yahweh must bear his own guilt. In such a case “his iniquity shall be on him” (Num. 15:31), and he must be punished accordingly. The laying of hands on the blasphemer’s head acknowledges that he bears his guilt upon his own head and that the witnesses are absolved of the blood guilt in executing him.278 As expressed in Deuteronomy, “The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst” (Deut. 17:7).279 “All the congregation” participates in executing the blasphemer and takes action together to remove evil from its midst.

24:17 This verse addresses murder, not manslaughter (for the latter cf. Ex. 21:12–14; Num. 35:11, 15). Because human beings alone bear God’s image (Gen. 1:26–27), they are of incomparable worth, meaning the penalty for killing them is the highest possible: death itself.

24:18 By way of contrast animals are not made in God’s image, so the penalty for killing them is not capital but financial, restoring to the animal’s owner an animal of equal worth (“life for life”), though presumably the fair market value of the animal could also be given to its owner (cf. the more detailed law in Ex. 21:33–34).

24:19–21 The formulation of the legal principle for punishment is known as lex talionis, or the law of retribution. The heart of the law aims at having the punishment fit the crime, that is, that it be proportionate in its scope and severity and not outweigh it. Although this legal formulation is familiar from elsewhere in Scripture (Ex. 21:23–25; Deut. 19:21), it is phrased differently in Leviticus. This passage introduces the category of injury with a unique theological perspective, using the term mum, which in the preceding chapters is translated as “blemish” (Lev. 21:17–18, 23; 22:20–21, 25). Blemishes disqualify animals from being offered on the altar and priests from offering the bread of the presence. Injury is conceived as a disfigurement of man made in the image of God and a marring of his wholeness (cf. ch. 21).

24:22 Both the sojourner and the native are held to the same standard of holiness. Although the nonnative is not bound by covenant to worship Yahweh, he lives in the land and is capable of polluting it, thereby alienating the divine presence.282 The Lord’s dwelling among his people has implications for how life is lived within the camp and eventually in the Promised Land. The question hanging over the narrative is answered: the nations will indeed be held to account before the Holy One.

24:23 The narrative concludes with the people’s carrying out the Lord’s judgment on the blasphemer in a public execution by stoning. The man who treated the divine name with contempt is put to death, and defilement is eradicated from the camp. Thus all Israel has exercised its priestly vocation by eliminating impurity and guarding the holiness of God.