What Does Exodus 24:4 Mean?

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.

And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank. Israel's elders saw the God of Israel and survived. The covenant meal eaten before YHWH by Moses, Aaron, the two sons, and the seventy elders is one of the most astonishing moments in all of Scripture: seventy-four people eat and drink in the direct presence of the God who had surrounded the mountain with death-penalties for unauthorized approach. The covenant overcomes the boundary that the theophany imposed: those whom the blood and the covenant have bound to YHWH can eat before him and live.

The God-vision description, "under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness", is the pavement-vision that Ezekiel's throne-vision will elaborate (Ezekiel 1:26, "above the firmament over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire"), and that Revelation's heaven-vision will complete (Revelation 4:6, "before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal").

The sapphire pavement under YHWH's feet at the Sinai covenant meal is the throne-vision's first canonical appearance: the elders see the divine throne from below, the sapphire floor of the divine dwelling, and they eat before the enthroned Creator.

The covenant meal "before God" is the sacrament of the Sinai covenant: eating together in YHWH's presence seals the covenant relationship by the most intimate human act (sharing a meal) performed in the divine throne-room. The Last Supper connection is explicit and significant: Jesus' new covenant meal ("do this in remembrance of me") is the updated covenant meal: eating and drinking before the divine presence in covenant-sealing fellowship.

The Sinaitic covenant meal that seventy-four leaders survive is the type of which the eschatological feast (Revelation 19:9, "the marriage supper of the Lamb) is the fulfillment: the whole redeemed community eating before the enthroned Lamb, face to face, forever.