Exodus 24:7-8

24:7 He took the Book of the Covenant ¹  and read it aloud ²  to the people, and they said, “We are willing to do and obey ³  all that the Lord has spoken.” 24:8 So Moses took the blood and splashed it on ⁴  the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant ⁵  that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Deuteronomy 4:13

4:13 And he revealed to you the covenant ⁶  he has commanded you to keep, the ten commandments, ⁷  writing them on two stone tablets.

Deuteronomy 5:2-3

5:2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. 5:3 He ⁸  did not make this covenant with our ancestors ⁹  but with us, we who are here today, all of us living now.

Deuteronomy 29:12-14

29:12 so that you may enter by oath into the covenant the Lord your God is making with you today. ¹⁰  29:13 Today he will affirm that you are his people and that he is your God, ¹¹  just as he promised you and as he swore by oath to your ancestors ¹²  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 29:14 It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant by oath,

¹ tn The noun “book” would be the scroll just written containing the laws of chaps. 20-23. On the basis of this scroll the covenant would be concluded here. The reading of this book would assure the people that it was the same that they had agreed to earlier. But now their statement of willingness to obey would be more binding, because their promise would be confirmed by a covenant of blood.

² tn Heb “read it in the ears of.”

³ tn A second verb is now added to the people’s response, and it is clearly an imperfect and not a cohortative, lending support for the choice of desiderative imperfect in these commitments – “we want to obey.” This was their compliance with the covenant.

⁴ tn Given the size of the congregation, the preposition might be rendered here “toward the people” rather than on them (all).

⁵ sn The construct relationship “the blood of the covenant” means “the blood by which the covenant is ratified” (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 254). The parallel with the inauguration of the new covenant in the blood of Christ is striking (see, e.g., Matt 26:28, 1 Cor 11:25). When Jesus was inaugurating the new covenant, he was bringing to an end the old.

⁶ sn This is the first occurrence of the word בְּרִית (bÿrit, “covenant”) in the Book of Deuteronomy but it appears commonly hereafter (4:23, 31; 5:2, 3; 7:9, 12; 8:18; 9:9, 10, 11, 15; 10:2, 4, 5, 8; 17:2; 29:1, 9, 12, 14, 15, 18, 21, 25; 31:9, 16, 20, 25, 26; 33:9). Etymologically, it derives from the notion of linking or yoking together. See M. Weinfeld, TDOT 2:255.

⁷ tn Heb “the ten words.”

⁸ tn Heb “the Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

⁹ tn Heb “fathers.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “for you to pass on into the covenant of the Lord your God and into his oath, which the Lord your God is cutting with you today.”

¹¹ tn Heb “in order to establish you today to him for a people and he will be to you for God.” Verses 10-13 are one long sentence in Hebrew. The translation divides this into two sentences for stylistic reasons.

¹² tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 25).