Exodus 24:10 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Bible Comments

And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.

Saw the God of Israel. (The Samaritan text has, 'they worshipped the God of Israel.') It cannot be supposed that the invisible God Himself was actually seen with the bodily eye, or in a literal sense (John 1:18); and though a strong mental perception of His immediate presence would be sufficient, according to Hebrew usage, to warrant the expression of seeing Him-for who does not know that internal seeing is frequently spoken of in the Scriptures? (Numbers 24:3-4; Numbers 24:16; Matthew 5:8) - there was something more experienced by this party who ascended the mount (see the note at Numbers 12:8).

That there was no visible form or representation of the divine nature, we have express intimation, Deuteronomy 4:15. The Chaldee paraphrase is, 'they saw the glory of the God of Israel;' and the Septuagint has: kai eidon ton topon hou eisteekei ho Theos tou Israeel, they saw the place where the God of Israel stood, representing the majesty of God as far above the heaven, which, sublime as it is, was under His feet. But it was "the God of Israel" they are described as seeing, who made Himself visible by the Shechinah; and a symbol or emblem of His glory was distinctly and at a distance displayed before those chosen witnesses. At an advanced period in the progressive development of the Jewish dispensation it is expressly said, that to the mystic eye of the prophet (Ezekiel 1:26) there was discovered, amid the luminous blaze of the vision, a faint adumbrated form of the humanity of Christ.

Many of the most orthodox writers are of opinion that visions similar to that of Ezekiel had often been seen by holy men of God before his time, although no descriptive details have been given, and that the adoption of this hypothesis as a fact will furnish a key to the explanation of many passages which must otherwise remain involved in obscurity (cf. 2 Samuel 22:1-51 with Psalms 18:1-50: see Henderson 'On Inspiration, p. 108; Watts' 'Fragments').

There was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, х libnat (H3840) hacapiyr (H5601)] - the clearness or transparency of the sapphire. Sapphire is one of the most valuable and lustrous of the precious gems, of a sky-blue or light azure colour, and frequently chosen by later writers to describe the throne of God (Ezekiel 1:26; Ezekiel 10:1; Revelation 4:6; Revelation 15:2; Revelation 21:18).

Ancient monarchs, when they appeared in full state, sat on thrones or tribunals erected on floors of surpassing beauty, and nearly resembling the tesselated pavements afterward adopted by the Roman magistrates. They were formed of painted tiles, of a blue or sapphire colour; and it is now well known that the floor in the mosque of Omar at Jerusalem is almost entirely covered over with green and blue bricks, which are glazed; so that when the sun shines they perfectly dazzle. But as those tiles were not transparent, Moses, in order to describe the pavement under the feet of the God of Israel with due majesty, represents it as like the floors of painted tile he had seen in Egypt, but transparent as the body of heaven х uwkª`etsem (H6106) hashaamayim (H8064)] - as the heaven itself, the very heaven. The Septuagint has: eidos stereoomatos tou ouranou, appearance of the firmament of the heaven in its clearness - i:e., a purer, finer, and brighter sky, as seen on the summit of the mountain, than what they were accustomed to witness from the plain below. This image was evidently before the mental eye of the apocalyptic seer in his description of the Theophany (Revelation 4:1-6), and reproduced under that of the resplendent "sea of glass" (cf. Revelation 21:21).

Exodus 24:10

10 And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.