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Seventy Elders Saw God at Sinai and Then Ate and Drank

Seventy elders climbed Sinai with Moses, saw the God of Israel, ate and drank, and survived. The rabbis built a whole theory of witness on what they saw.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Verse That Could Not Be Softened
  2. The Origin of the Elder-Witness Tradition
  3. What They Actually Saw
  4. What the Elders Did at the Altar

The Verse That Could Not Be Softened

Exodus 24:9-10 does not hedge. Moses and Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, and seventy elders of Israel went up. They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. The leaders of Israel saw God. And they ate and drank.

The eating and drinking is the detail that demands attention. They had just seen the God of Israel, in a vision whose sensory precision is reported with more care than almost any other moment in the Torah. Sapphire. Sky. Clarity. And then the seventy sat down and consumed food. The encounter was not a dissolution. It was not an end. It was followed by the ordinary action of hunger satisfied.

Some teachers read the eating and drinking as a sign of spiritual failure, of treating the sacred with inappropriate casualness. But the tradition in Sifrei Devarim treated it differently. The seventy ate and drank after seeing God, and they survived. The encounter was integrated into human life rather than severing the participants from it. They could be witnesses because they were still alive to testify.

The Origin of the Elder-Witness Tradition

Deuteronomy 32:7 says: ask your father and he will tell you; your elders, and they will say it to you. The Sifrei read this verse as pointing back to Sinai. The elders of every subsequent generation derive their authority from the seventy who climbed the mountain with Moses. Those seventy are the founding moment of the elder-witness tradition in Israel. What elders know, they know because they can trace their transmission back to men who saw God and survived to report what they saw.

This is not a claim that every elder has personally seen God. It is a claim about the chain of testimony. The seventy saw. They told their children. Their children told theirs. The generation that asks your father and receives an answer receives, at the end of a long line of transmission, the echo of what those seventy witnessed above the sapphire pavement.

What They Actually Saw

Moses warned Israel in Deuteronomy 4:15: guard your souls carefully, for you saw no form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the fire. This warning sits directly against the plain statement in Exodus that the elders saw God. The resolution is not that Exodus is wrong. It is that what the elders saw and what Moses warned against are not the same thing.

The sages explain that the people did see something. The elders among them saw more than the rest. They experienced a prophetic glimpse, a vision of the divine that was real but contained, bounded by human capacity, refracted through the medium of sapphire and sky. Moses's warning was against treating that vision as a template for forming images, not against acknowledging that the vision occurred. You saw something. Do not make something out of what you saw.

The Talmud in Tractate Megillah, compiled in Babylonia around the sixth century CE, adds that the Shekhinah travels with Israel in exile. The seventy who ate and drank on the mountain encountered a presence that would later be present with them in Babylon, in Alexandria, in every place the exile scattered them. What they saw at Sinai was not left behind at Sinai. It moved with them.

What the Elders Did at the Altar

Before the Temple, before the priesthood as it was eventually organized, the elders served at the altar Moses built on Sinai. There was no established Levitical system yet. The elders performed the rites. The Midrash says they served with the energy of youth despite their age, which is a way of saying that the encounter at Sinai had not diminished them. They had stood where they should not have been able to stand, and they came back fully themselves, capable of service, capable of ordinary life, capable of the physical work of the altar.

Moses built the altar and set up twelve pillars, one for each tribe. The elders who had climbed the mountain with him and eaten beside him in the presence of God were the same men who bent to the work of the altar stones. Vision and labor. Sapphire and dust. Both were part of what Sinai required of them.

SinaiMosesEldersRevelationCovenantMidrash AggadahPatriarchs
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From the tradition

Sources

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Sifrei Devarim 311:1Sifrei Devarim

What about everyone else?

Well, Sifrei Devarim 311 sheds some light. It interprets the verse about consulting "your elders, and they shall say it to you" (Deuteronomy 32:7) as a reference back to Sinai. Specifically, it recalls what God showed the elders on the mountain. And here's the kicker: it quotes (Exodus 24:1), 10, where we read that Moses, Aaron, Nadav, Avihu, and seventy elders of Israel actually went up to God and "saw the God of Israel." They saw God! So, it wasn't just Moses having a divine experience. A select group of elders did too, paving the way for their role as witnesses and transmitters of tradition.

What about the rest of us? Why don't we see miracles like that all the time? Why isn’t the world filled with constant, undeniable displays of divine power?

That brings us to another fascinating passage in Sifrei Devarim, this time connecting to (Deuteronomy 32:8), "When the Most High caused nations to inherit." It paints a picture of a world before Abraham, a world judged with, well, let's just say intensity. The generation of the Flood? Wiped out. The builders of the Tower of Bavel (Babylon)? Scattered across the earth. The people of Sodom? Consumed by fire and brimstone. Harsh consequences for wrongdoing. But then Abraham arrives on the scene, and something shifts. Instead of total destruction, we see afflictions. As (Genesis 12:9) says, "And there was a famine in the land, and Avram went down to Egypt." Why the change?

The text suggests it's because of God's love for Israel. for a second. The idea is that God, in His love, chooses to inflict hardships rather than complete annihilation. It's a difficult concept, isn't it? A challenging idea that suggests a profound shift in the way God interacts with humanity.

Instead of wiping the slate clean every time we mess up, God finds a way to work with us, through the mess, through the pain. It is as if, with the arrival of Abraham, the world moves from a state of pure, undiluted judgment to one where love and consequence are intertwined in a complex dance.

So, what does this all mean? Perhaps it's a reminder that we live in a world where divine intervention isn't always obvious, but where God's presence is felt in the trials we face and the love that sustains us. Maybe it's an invitation to look for the subtle signs of God's hand in our lives, even when things are difficult. Because, according to this ancient text, even the afflictions can be a sign of love.

Full source
Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah 7:18Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah

At Sinai, the Israelites experienced the overwhelming presence of HaShem. But what did they actually see?

Moses, in his wisdom, warns the Israelites, “And guard your souls very much, for you did not see any form on the day that HaShem your God spoke to you at Horeb from out of the fire” (Deuteronomy 4:15). A strange warning, isn't it? Why caution them about what they didn't see?

The sages explain that the people did see something. They experienced a vision, a prophetic glimpse into the Divine. But it was crucial that they understood its true nature. The warning was against letting that vision lead them astray. They needed to recognize it as a representation, a symbolic manifestation, and not a literal depiction of God.

The Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah, a Kabbalistic text, emphasizes this point. It suggests that the vision was meant to be understood on a deeper level, beyond the immediate sensory experience. The Israelites were "warned not to allow what they saw to cause them to err."

This idea echoes in the Mechilta, a collection of early rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Exodus. There, the rabbis point out that God revealed Himself differently at the splitting of the Red Sea than at the Giving of the Torah. At the sea, He appeared as Zeir Anpin, often associated with might and power. Yet, at Sinai, He appeared in His attribute of kindness, Arich Anpin. These are both sefirot, aspects of the Divine, that are revealed to us at different times.

So why the different "faces" of God? The Mechilta explains that the verse "I am HaShem your God" (Exodus 20:2) is there "so as not to leave room to say there are two domains…" In other words, these different manifestations, different visions, aren't evidence of multiple deities or separate powers. They are different facets of the same, singular God.

As Ginzberg beautifully retells it in Legends of the Jews, the key is understanding the "underlying truth" of what they saw. This is not about denying the reality of the vision, but about interpreting it correctly. We can't take these visions as literal, concrete realities. Instead, we must strive to understand what they represent, what they reveal about the nature of God and our relationship with Him.

The challenge, then, is to hold onto the awe and wonder of these experiences while maintaining a clear understanding of their symbolic nature. It's a delicate balance between faith and reason, between the seen and the unseen. And perhaps, in that very tension, lies the essence of true understanding.

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Legends of the Jews 2:37Legends of the Jews

It wasn't just about hearing the thunder and seeing the lightning. It was about a tangible, visceral connection – a bond sealed in blood.

See, back then, there was no Temple, no established priesthood. So who led the service? The elders of Israel. And the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) tells us they performed their duties with the energy of youth, despite their age!

Moses, of course, was at the center of it all. He erected an altar on Mount Sinai, and alongside it, twelve pillars – a powerful symbol representing each of the twelve tribes. Then came the offerings: bulls brought forth as a burnt offering (olah) and a peace offering (shelamim).

It's what happened next that really gets me. The blood. blood is life. It's a potent symbol. And this blood had to be divided, meticulously, perfectly. According to Legends of the Jews, the angel Michael himself guided Moses' hand to ensure absolute precision. Not a single drop more in one half than the other!

Why such exactness? Because this wasn't just any ritual. This was a covenant. God, in that moment, declared to Moses: "Sprinkle one half of the blood upon the people, as a token that they will not barter My glory for the idols of other peoples; and sprinkle the other half on the altar, as a token that I will not exchange them for any other nation."

A double promise, a reciprocal commitment. We won't abandon God, and God won’t abandon us.

And here's where the story takes a truly wondrous turn. How do you sprinkle the blood of a few animals on an entire nation? It seems impossible! But that's precisely what happened. As Moses did as he was bidden, a miracle unfolded. The blood, miraculously, sufficed to reach every single Israelite. Ginzberg, in Legends of the Jews, emphasizes the miraculous nature of this event. It wasn’t just a symbolic act; it was a physical manifestation of God’s promise and the people’s commitment.

What does this tell us? Maybe it's that when we collectively commit to something sacred, something larger than ourselves, the impossible becomes possible. That a small offering, given with pure intention, can have a transformative impact on an entire community. It’s a powerful reminder that even today, our actions, however small, can ripple outwards, touching countless lives and strengthening the bonds of our shared covenant.

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Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 24:4Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:4) describes what Moses built at dawn: Mosheh wrote the words of the Lord, and arose in the morning and builded an altar at the lower part of the mountain; and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.

The Altar and the Twelve

One altar at the foot of Sinai. Around it, twelve standing stones. Each stone represents a tribe. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin. The sons of Jacob, now a people on the brink of covenant.

The architecture is intentional. The altar is the point of contact with God. The twelve pillars are the point of contact with the people. Together they form the shape of what Israel will be, a nation where every tribe has a standing place, and where that standing always faces the same central altar.

Why Moses Writes First

Before the altar, before the stones, Moses wrote the words of the Lord. The covenant is textual before it is ritual. The laws are recorded. They will survive the pillars, survive the altar, survive the generation that witnessed them.

This is the moment the Torah becomes a written thing, Sefer HaBrit, the Book of the Covenant, mentioned in the very next verses. Israel's covenant is unique among ancient peoples because it centers on a document as much as on a shrine.

The Takeaway

When Moses built the altar, he did not build it alone. He built it inside a ring of twelve stones, a visual teaching that no Israelite encounters God individually. You approach the altar as part of a tribe, standing among other tribes, all turned toward the same center.

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