What Does Exodus 24:9 Mean?

Then Moses went up, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel.

Exodus 24:9 · SDV

Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.

Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel:

THE KEY

The one whose name carries the image of being drawn out does not ascend alone; the verse makes approach a movement shared by many.

THE MEANING

You see approach as a shared movement: Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders all go up. The ascent does not belong to Moses alone; the verse places an entire company within the movement.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It unsettles the belief that nearness is reserved for one exceptional mediator: this verse names a company ascending with Moses.

THE ROOT

וַיַּעַל

vayya'al

GROWS FROM

עלה

to rise, ascend, go up

“Then Moses went up” in this verse is vayya'al. English gives “went up” as a simple travel verb, while this root also names an ascent and the ⁨עֹלָה⁩ (olah, ascent offering), that which rises. The verse makes approach an upward movement shared by a company, not a status held by Moses alone.

ALSO GROWS

olah: ascent; also a burnt offering

עֹלָה

Its name comes from the same root of rising, echoing the upward movement in the verse.

ma'alah: ascent, step, or degree

מַעֲלָה

This branch makes the root’s upward movement concrete: going up is a path with steps.

מֹשֶׁה

Mosheh

GROWS FROM

משה

to draw out

The naming story joins Moses to being drawn out of water. Here the one whose name carries that image goes up with others, placing emergence inside a shared ascent.

ALSO GROWS

mashah: to draw out

מָשָׁה

This verb supplies the action carried by Moses’ name in the naming story.

meshitihu: I drew him out

מְשִׁיתִהוּ

This is the phrase in Exodus 2:10 that ties Moses’ name to being drawn out of the water.

THE PATTERN

Approach to God is pictured as ascent or drawing near, a movement that opens into encounter.

And Moses climbed up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mount, saying, Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel.

Exodus 19:3 · SDVThe same root describes Moses ascending toward God, making ascent a movement into encounter.

And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder standing on the earth, and its head reached to the heavens; and behold, messengers of God were climbing up and coming down on it.

Genesis 28:12 · SDVThe ascending and descending figures show a living passage between earth and heaven.

Let us draw near with a true heart in the fullness of trust, our hearts sprinkled from a burdened shared sight, and our bodies bathed in clean waters.

Hebrews 10:22 · SDVThe upward image appears as drawing near: approach is movement toward encounter.

THE THREAD

And Moses climbed up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mount, saying, Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel.

Exodus 19:3 · SDV

Both verses use a form of ⁨עָלָה⁩ (alah, rise or ascend) for Moses’ going up. Here the movement named for Moses includes Aaron, his sons, and seventy elders: ascent becomes shared.

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