“For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,”

In order for the people to be a part of God’s covenant, to be covered by the covenant, they had to be cleansed by blood. It is difficult to know several things about this verse. Was the sprinkling of the people done in a symbolic way or was every single person sprinkled with blood one at a time? Was the book the writing of the Ten Commandments, the book of Leviticus, the entire five books of the law or was it the words Moses spoke between Exodus 20 and Exodus 24?

Our Hebrews writer does not seem to be concerned with the finer points but rather that his readers remember that the covenant needed blood to be ratified and that purification was the end result of the blood. Everything was ceremonially cleansed by the blood, and that included the people. In the following verses, he will build upon that premise because he wants to get to the blood of Jesus and what it has accomplished.

Task for Today: Reread Exodus 24. Take note of how the blood was used and what it symbolically meant. Prepare yourself for the reality of the blood of Jesus. You are not cleansed by the blood of calves and goats but by the precious blood of the Lamb of God. Have you been washed in the blood?