Exodus 24:8

24:8 So Moses took the blood and splashed it on ¹  the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant ²  that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Exodus 24:2

24:2 Moses alone may come ³  near the Lord, but the others ⁴  must not come near, ⁵  nor may the people go up with him.”

1 Samuel 5:3

5:3 When the residents of Ashdod got up early the next day, ⁶  Dagon was lying on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and set him back in his place.

1 Samuel 5:2

5:2 The Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the temple of Dagon, where they positioned it beside Dagon.

1 Chronicles 15:12

15:12 He told them: “You are the leaders of the Levites’ families. You and your relatives must consecrate yourselves and bring the ark of the Lord God of Israel up to the place I have prepared for it.

¹ tn Given the size of the congregation, the preposition might be rendered here “toward the people” rather than on them (all).

² sn The construct relationship “the blood of the covenant” means “the blood by which the covenant is ratified” (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 254). The parallel with the inauguration of the new covenant in the blood of Christ is striking (see, e.g., Matt 26:28, 1 Cor 11:25). When Jesus was inaugurating the new covenant, he was bringing to an end the old.

³ tn The verb is a perfect tense with a vav (ו) consecutive; it and the preceding perfect tense follow the imperative, and so have either a force of instruction, or, as taken here, are the equivalent of an imperfect tense (of permission).

⁴ tn Heb “they.”

⁵ tn Now the imperfect tense negated is used; here the prohibition would fit (“they will not come near”), or the obligatory (“they must not”) in which the subjects are obliged to act – or not act in this case.

⁵ tc The LXX adds “they entered the temple of Dagon and saw.”