Exodus 24:10

They saw the God of Israel] A very bold anthropomorphic way of describing the experience of these favoured persons, which the Gk. (LXX) Version, made many centuries later, avoids by translating 'they saw the place where God stood.' At the same time it is noticeable that the sacred writer evinces a great reserve in speaking of this vision of God. He makes no attempt to describe the appearance of God, only what was under His feet. Similarly Isaiah, who says that he too 'saw the Lord,' describes only the accompaniments of his vision (Isaiah 6): see Exodus 33:18; Exodus 33:23. In Deuteronomy 4:12; Moses is represented as reminding the people that they 'saw no similitude' of God at Horeb; and in John 1:18 (cp. John 5:37; John 6:46) we read that 'no man hath seen God at any time.' The apparent inconsistency between these passages and the present is to be accounted for on the principle of the progressiveness of revelation. Divine truth can only be communicated to men in the measure and in the manner in which they are able to receive it. In early times men were like children in regard to spiritual things, which therefore could only be apprehended by them under material forms of expression. The essential and permanent truth underlying the present representation is that the majesty and the will of the invisible God were brought vividly home to the minds of these men by means of the Moral Law, and that this Law was not a discovery by Moses but a thing revealed to him by God. Cp. what is said on anthropomorphisms in Intro, to Exodus, § 3.

A paved work of a sapphire stone] The ancients regarded the sky as a solid vaulted dome stretched over the earth: see on Genesis 1:6.

Body of heaven in his clearness] RV 'the very heaven for clearness.'