This week’s parsha is in two sections.

In the first section God explains in detail all the good things that will happen to the People of Israel if they “hearken to God’s voice.”

First of all, God will be on their side against their enemies: the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivvites and the Yebusites.  A lot of enemies.

Second of all, God promises to remove sickness from among them, including barrenness (not being able to have babies.)   

All they have to do is not worship other gods.

In the second section, Moses climbs Mount Sinai with his brother Aaron, Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the leaders of Israel.  And these few people see God!  They see God and beneath God’s feet is a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.! 

While they’re all on the side of the mountain, God tells Moses to come up further on the incline by himself so that God can give Moses stone tablets with the Instructions that God has written down.

So Moses goes up Mount Sinai and a cloud covers the mountain for six days.   On the seventh day, the cloud lifts and there, Moses sees, is the sight of the Glory of God, “like a consuming fire” on top of the mountain.

Moses stays on the mountain for forty days and nights.

Food for Thought

What must have been going through Aaron’s and his sons’ and the elders’ minds when they beheld God?