Blood of the Covenant

Allison again, commending on Hebrews 9:15-22 and the phrase “this is the blood of the covenant” that the writer of Hebrews quotes from Moses: “There is no ‘this is’ . . . in Exod. 24:8. The MT prefaces ‘the blood’ with HINNEH, the LXX with IDOU. Why the modification? The commentators who address the question usually return the obvious answer: we are to detect assimilation to the tradition of the Lord’s supper . . . . But if this is correct, then the writer of Hebrews was put in mind of the Lord’s supper when he likened Jesus’ mediation of a new coveannt in blood to the inauguration of the old covenant through Moses’ sprinkling of blood.”

And this in turn suggests that we should interpret Hebrews 9 as, in part, a Eucharistic passage. Moses sprinkled the people, consecrated the vessels of the tabernacle, and purified it all with blood; and the writer of Hebrews describes this by quoting from the words of institution. What Moses accomplishing by sprinkling blood on the people and tabernacle, Jesus accomplishes in the Supper by “sprinkling” blood into His new people, His living tabernacle.