Introduction
In the 1950s, a biblical scholar named George Mendenhall noticed something that has been reshaping Old Testament study ever since.
The Hittite empire of the second millennium BC left behind a large archive of international treaties. These were agreements between the great Hittite king and the lesser kings who served under him.
When Mendenhall compared those treaties to Exodus 19–24 and to Deuteronomy, the structural match was remarkably close. Some of his colleagues initially refused to accept it.
The ancient Hittite treaties followed a consistent six-part form.
First came the preamble identifying the Great King.
Then the historical prologue recounting his past acts of faithfulness.
Next the stipulations governing the vassal’s behavior.
Then provision for document deposit and public reading.
After that a list of divine witnesses.
Finally the blessing-and-curse section.
Exodus 19–24 follows this same six-part form with deliberate precision as does the entire Book of Deuteronomy. What looked to earlier readers like a dramatic story with laws embedded in it is, in its own ancient genre, a treaty document.
The covenant people standing at Sinai knew exactly what they were receiving. They had seen its equivalent in every major political relationship of the ancient world. And the Great King of the whole earth was ratifying one with them.
Exodus 19-34 covers the establishment, ratification, immediate breach, intercession, and renewal of the Sinai treaty.
It is the most concentrated covenant unit in the entire Old Testament.
Exodus 19 is the preparation and approach.
Exodus 20 is the preamble and stipulations.
Exodus 24 is the blood ratification ceremony that seals the treaty.
Exodus 31 is the Sabbath declared as the covenant sign.
Exodus 32 through 34 is the golden calf (the treaty breached on its first day of full operation), followed by Moses’ extraordinary intercession and the Great King’s renewal of the covenant.
This culminates in the most direct statement of the Great King’s covenant character in the entire Torah: Exodus 34:6–7.
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