What does na'aseh ve-nishma mean, and why does the word order matter?

The oath at Exodus 24:7 crystallizes the entire Book of the Covenant into a single pledge — and the witnesses divide on its most distinctive feature.

The oath and its word order. Exodus 24:7 (MT): וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ כֹּ֛ל אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּ֥ר יְהוָ֖ה נַעֲשֶׂ֥ה וְנִשְׁמָֽע — "And they said: All that YHWH has spoken, we will do (na'aseh, H6213 עָשָׂה, Qal cohortative 1cp) and we will hear (ve-nishma, H8085 שָׁמַע, Niphal cohortative 1cp)." The MT reads do-then-hear — obedience pledged before full comprehension. The consolidated Dead Sea Hebrew at Exo 24:7 reverses the order to nishma ve-na'aseh (hear-then-do), the more logical sequence; the fragmentary 4Q22 26.29 is consistent with this reversal. But the Septuagint (poiesomen kai akousometha, "we will do and we will hear") agrees with the MT order against the Dead Sea witnesses.

Both orders are pre-Christ attested. The MT's do-then-hear is the harder and more distinctive reading — Israel committing to obey before fully comprehending what obedience will cost. The Septuagint's agreement with the MT is decisive: the do-then-hear order has independent confirmation from the oldest Greek rendering and from the received Hebrew, with the Dead Sea hear-then-do a possible harmonizing adjustment to the more logical sequence. The MT should stand.

The oath is not spontaneous; it is the culmination of the entire Book of the Covenant (Exo 20:22–23:33). The H6213 + H8085 pairing in Exodus has a deliberate precursor at Exo 23:22 — im-shamoa tishma be-qolo ve-asita, "if you will certainly hear his voice and do all I speak" — stated there as a condition. At 24:7 Israel converts the conditional into an unconditional oath before the blood is thrown. The book is written; the people swear; then the blood ratifies the sworn word (24:8). The covenant is a document, an oath, and a blood-bond — in that order.

The oath's external medium. Before Israel swears, Moses writes: וַיִּכְתֹּ֣ב מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֵ֕ת כָּל דִּבְרֵ֥י יְהוָ֖ה, "and Moses wrote (va-yikhtov, H3789 כָּתַב, Qal waw-consecutive) all the words of YHWH" (Exo 24:4, MT, confirmed by 4Q22 26.25 and the consolidated Dead Sea Hebrew), producing the sefer ha-berit (H5612, the Book of the Covenant) — the Torah written externally, on a scroll. This writing-medium is precisely what Jeremiah will invert.

The breach within forty days. The oath is broken before Moses descends. While he is still on the mountain for the forty days of Exo 24:18, Israel makes a golden calf at the foot of the same mountain (tachat ha-har, as in 24:4) and Exo 32:6 provides the indictment in the vocabulary of the covenant itself: וַיַּשְׁכִּ֣ימוּ מִֽמָּחֳרָ֗ת וַיַּֽעֲלוּ֙ עֹלֹ֔ת וַיַּגִּ֖שׁוּ שְׁלָמִ֑ים וַיֵּ֤שֶׁב הָעָם֙ לֶאֱכֹ֣ל וְשָׁת֔וֹ — "They rose early the next day and offered burnt offerings (olot, H5930) and brought peace offerings (shelamim, H8002), and the people sat to eat and drink" (Exo 32:6, MT, confirmed by 4Q22 and the consolidated Dead Sea Hebrew). This is the identical pair of offerings from Exo 24:5, and the "sat to eat and drink" mirrors the covenant meal of Exo 24:11. The olah + shelamim pairing (H5930 + H8002) appears in Exodus at only three verses: 20:24 (foundational altar law), 24:5 (covenant ratification), and 32:6 (golden calf). The golden calf is not a mere lapse into idolatry; it is covenant-breaking performed in the exact rites of covenant-making.

Jeremiah's naming of the breach. Jeremiah 31:31–33 names this failure explicitly and draws the new-covenant oracle directly from it. The karat berit idiom (H3772 + H1285, "cut a covenant," Exo 24:8) appears in both Exo 24:8 and Jer 31:31 — the making of the Sinai covenant and the making of the new covenant described by identical language. Jeremiah adds the reason: "not like the covenant which I cut with their fathers... which they broke (asher hefer, H6565)" (Jer 31:32, MT) — the breach at Exo 32 is the antecedent. And the new covenant inverts the medium: נָתַ֤תִּי אֶת תּוֹרָתִי֙ בְּקִרְבָּ֔ם וְעַל לִבָּ֖ם אֶכְתֲּבֶ֑נָּה — "I will put my Torah within them and on their hearts I will write (ekhtavenah, H3789 כָּתַב, same verb as Exo 24:4) it" (Jer 31:33, MT). Same verb (katav), same Torah (Torah, H8451), different surface — stone and scroll replaced by heart.

Hebrews 8:8–13 quotes Jeremiah's oracle in full — the longest Old Testament quotation in the New Testament — and draws the conclusion: "in speaking of a new covenant he has made the first one obsolete" (Heb 8:13, NT). Paul makes the Exo 24:4 / Jer 31:33 contrast explicit: "a letter written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts" (2Co 3:3, NT); "God made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant" (2Co 3:6). The oath na'aseh ve-nishma — unconditional, pre-comprehension — was the most committed Israel could offer. It was not enough. The new covenant replaces external writing with internal transformation, because the problem was never the document.

The full study on Exodus 24:1-18 traces the katav verb-inversion between Exo 24:4 and Jer 31:33, the three-verse olah + shelamim cluster in Exodus (20:24, 24:5, 32:6), and the pre-Christ witness situation for both the MT and Dead Sea word-order at Exo 24:7.