Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 34:1
And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon [these] tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou didst break.
1 5. Moses is commanded to hew two tables of stone, similar to those which he had broken (Exo 32:19), and bring them up Sinai to Jehovah. The former tables are said (Exo 32:16) to have been themselves God’s handiwork: in the new tables only the writing is to be His.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Hew thee – The former tables are called the work of God; compare Exo 32:16.
The words – See Exo 34:28.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Exo 34:1
Hew thee two tables of stone.
The renewal of the two tables
I. That the moral law is perpetually binding. Having been broken, it must be renewed.
II. That the renewal of the moral law when broken entails duties unknown before. Hew thee two tables of stone; and he hewed two tables of stone. This fact is very typical and suggestive.
1. In the first inscription of the moral law upon mans heart, the preparation and the writing were exclusively the work of God. When our first parents awoke to consciousness, the fleshy tables were found covered with the oracles of God.
2. When those tables were defaced and those oracles transgressed, the work of preparation fell largely upon man. Ever afterwards man had to prepare himself by acts of penitence and faith–not excluding Divine help, of course–but nevertheless those acts are acts of man.
3. But this renewal of the Divine law is accomplished in such a way as to deprive man of all ground of glorying, and so as to ascribe all the glory to God. The tables were of plain stone, all their embellishments were by the Divine hand.
III. That when the moral law is broken, God graciously offers to renew it upon mans compliance with the revealed condition. So when man by repentance and faith puts off the old man and puts on the new, he is renewed in the image of Him that created him, on which the moral law is inscribed (Col 3:9-16).
IV. That these conditions should be complied with–
1. Speedily. Early in the morning.
2. Personally. This great work is a transaction between God and the individual particularly concerned.
3. Patiently. Moses waited again forty days and forty nights.
(1) Do not hurry the work over. What is being done is being done for eternity.
(2) Dont despond if the work is not progressing as rapidly as you might wish. If God is writing on your heart, let that be your comfort, and let God use His own time. Learn–
1. The value of the moral law.
2. The importance of having that law not only on stone or paper, but in the heart.
3. The necessity of a public and practical exhibition and interpretation of that law in the life. (J. V. Burn.)
God re-writing the law
Can you think of a course more merciful than this? Bring two tables of stone just like the first, and I will write it over again; I, God, will write over again the very words that were on the first tables that thou brakest in pieces. There is no mercy like the mercy of the Lord; I never find any tenderness like His tenderness. You remember some years ago George Peabody gave half a million of money to the London poor; and I think some eighteen thousand people are sheltered in the houses that have sprung out of that splendid charity. I remember that when Peabodys charity had awakened England to a sense of his goodness, the Queen of England rose equal to the occasion, and she offered this plain American citizen some title, and he declined the honour. And then she, with a womans delicacy of insight, and with more than queenly dignity, inquired if there was anything that Peabody would accept; and he said, Yes, there was, if the Queen would only write him a letter with her own hand; he was going to pay a last visit to his native land across the Atlantic, and he should like to take it to his birthplace, so that at any time, if bitterness should arise between these two nations, his countrymen could come and see that letter, and they would remember that Englands Queen had written it to a plain American citizen. The Queen of England said she would write him a letter, and she would do more than that–she would sit for her portrait to be painted, and he should take that with the letter; and she put on the Marie Stuart cap which, I think, she had only worn, perhaps, twice since the death of the Prince Consort, and she sat day after day in her robes of state, and the painter painted one of the finest portraits of the Queen that has ever been executed. When it was finished she presented it to Mr. Peabody, and he took it, with the Queens letter, away to his birthplace yonder. Now, suppose George Peabody, in some fit of forgetfulness, had torn the Queens letter up, and flung it into the fire, and dashed the portrait down and broken it to fragments; and suppose that, after that, somebody had told her Majesty that George Peabody was penitent, do you think she would have written him the letter over again? do you think she would have sat again for another portrait to be painted, just like the first one? Who can tell? Yet our Father in heaven, if you have broken the tables of your covenant with Him, bring your broken heart back again to His feet, and He will renew the covenant. (T. Guttery.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XXXIV
Moses is commanded to hew two tables similar to the first, and
bring them up to the mount, to get the covenant renewed, 1-3.
He prepares the tables and goes up to meet the Lord, 4.
The Lord descends, and proclaims his name JEHOVAH, 5.
What this name signifies, 6, 7.
Moses worships and intercedes, 8, 9.
The Lord promises to renew the covenant, work miracles among
the people, and drive out the Canaanites, c., 10, 11.
No covenant to be made with the idolatrous nations, but their
altars and images to be destroyed, 12-15.
No matrimonial alliances to be contracted with them, 16.
The Israelites must have no molten gods, 17.
The commandment of the feast of unleavened bread, and of the
sanctification of the first-born, renewed, 18-29
as also that of the Sabbath, and the three great annual feasts, 21-23.
The promise that the surrounding nations shall not invade their
territories, while all the males were at Jerusalem celebrating the
annual feasts, 24.
Directions concerning the passover, 25;
and the first-fruits, 26.
Moses is commanded to write all these words, as containing the
covenant which God had now renewed with the Israelites, 27.
Moses, being forty days with God without eating or drinking, writes
the words of the covenant; and the Lord writes the ten commandments
upon the tables of stone, 28.
Moses descends with the tables; his face shines, 29.
Aaron and the people are afraid to approach him, because of his
glorious appearance, 30.
Moses delivers to them the covenant and commandments of the Lord;
and puts a veil over his face while he is speaking, 31-33,
but takes it off when he goes to minister before the Lord, 34, 35.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXIV
Verse 1. Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first] In Ex 32:16 we are told that the two first tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God; but here Moses is commanded to provide tables of his own workmanship, and God promises to write on them the words which were on the first. That God wrote the first tables himself, see proved by different passages of Scripture at the end of Clarke’s note at “Ex 32:35“. But here, in Ex 34:27, it seems as if Moses was commanded to write these words, and in Ex 34:28 it is said, And he wrote upon the tables; but in De 10:1-4 it is expressly said that God wrote the second tables as well as the first.
In order to reconcile these accounts let us suppose that the ten words, or ten commandments, were written on both tables by the hand of God himself, and that what Moses wrote, Ex 34:27, was a copy of these to be delivered to the people, while the tables themselves were laid up in the ark before the testimony, whither the people could not go to consult them, and therefore a copy was necessary for the use of the congregation; this copy, being taken off under the direction of God, was authenticated equally with the original, and the original itself was laid up as a record to which all succeeding copies might be continually referred, in order to prevent corruption. This supposition removes the apparent contradiction; and thus both God and Moses may be said to have written the covenant and the ten commandments: the former, the original; the latter, the copy. This supposition is rendered still more probable by Ex 34:27 itself: “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words (that is, as I understand it, a copy of the words which God had already written;) for AFTER THE TENOR ( al pi, ACCORDING TO THE MOUTH) of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.” Here the original writing is represented by an elegant prosopopoesia, or personification, as speaking and giving out from its own mouth a copy of itself. It may be supposed that this mode of interpretation is contradicted by Ex 34:28: AND HE wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant; but that the pronoun HE refers to the Lord, and not to Moses, is sufficiently proved by the parallel place, De 10:1-4: At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first – and I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables – and I hewed two tables of stone as at the first – And HE wrote on the tables according to the first writing. This determines the business, and proves that God wrote the second as well as the first tables, and that the pronoun in Ex 34:28 refers to the LORD, and not to Moses. By this mode of interpretation all contradiction is removed. Houbigant imagines that the difficulty may be removed by supposing that God wrote the ten commandments, and that Moses wrote the other parts of the covenant from Ex 34:11 to Ex 34:26, and thus it might be said that both God and Moses wrote on the same tables. This is not an improbable case, and is left to the reader’s consideration. See Clarke on Ex 34:27.
There still remains a controversy whether what are called the ten commandments were at all written on the first tables, those tables containing, according to some, only the terms of the covenant without the ten words, which are supposed to be added here for the first time. “The following is a general view of this subject. In chap. xx. the ten commandments are given; and at the same time various political and ecclesiastical statutes, which are detailed in chapters xxi., xxii., and xxiii. To receive these, Moses had drawn near unto the thick darkness where God was, Ex 20:21, and having received them he came again with them to the people, according to their request before expressed, Ex 20:19: Speak thou with us – but let not the Lord speak with us, lest we die, for they had been terrified by the manner in which God had uttered the ten commandments; see Ex 20:18. After this Moses, with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and the seventy elders, went up to the mountain; and on his return he announced all these laws unto the people, Ex 24:1-3, c., and they promised obedience. Still there is no word of the tables of stone. Then he wrote all in a book, Ex 24:4, which was called the book of the covenant, Ex 24:7. After this there was a second going up of Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders, Ex 24:9, when that glorious discovery of God mentioned in Ex 24:10-11 took place. After their coming down Moses is again commanded to go up and God promises to give him tables of stone, containing a law and precepts, Ex 24:12. This is the first place these tables of stone are mentioned; and thus it appears that the ten commandments, and several other precepts, were given to and accepted by the people, and the covenant sacrifice offered, Ex 24:5, before the tables of stone were either written or mentioned.” It is very likely that the commandments, laws, c., were first published by the Lord in the hearing of the people repeated afterwards by Moses; and the ten words or commandments, containing the sum and substance of the whole, afterwards written on the first tables of stone, to be kept for a record in the ark. These being broken, as is related Ex 32:19, Moses is commanded to hew out two tables like to the first, and bring them up to the mountain, that God might write upon them what he had written on the former, Ex 34:1. And that this was accordingly done, see the preceding part of this note.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The first tables were made immediately by God, who of his own mere grace and good pleasure, and without mans merit or contrivance, entered into covenant with Abraham and his seed. These tables must be made by Moses, partly in token of Gods displeasure for their sin, and partly to signify, that though the covenant of grace was first made without mans care and counsel, yet it should not be renewed but by mans repentance. And as the tables of stone signified the hardness of their hearts, so the hewing of them by Moses might signify the circumcision and ploughing up of their hearts, that they might be fit for the receiving of Gods mercies, and the performance of their duties.
The words that were in the first tables; to show Gods reception of Israel into his favour, and their former state, and that the law and covenant of God was neither abolished nor changed by their sin.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. the like unto the firstGodhaving been reconciled to repentant Israel, through the earnestintercession, the successful mediation of Moses, means were to betaken for the restoration of the broken covenant. Intimation wasgiven, however, in a most intelligible and expressive manner, thatthe favor was to be restored with some memento of the rupture; for atthe former time God Himself had provided the materials, as well aswritten upon them. Now, Moses was to prepare the stone tables, andGod was only to retrace the characters originally inscribed for theuse and guidance of the people.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the Lord said unto Moses,…. Out of the cloudy pillar, at the door of the tabernacle, where he had been conversing with him in the most friendly manner, as related in the preceding chapter:
hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; of the same form, and of the same dimensions, and it may be of the same sort of stone, which perhaps was marble, there being great plenty of that kind on Mount Sinai. Now Moses being ordered to hew these tables, whereas the former were the work of God himself, as well as the writing, shows that the law was to be the ministration of Moses, and be ordained in the hand of him as a mediator, who had been praying and interceding for the people; and as a token of the reconciliation made, the tables were to be renewed, yet with some difference, that there might be some remembrance of their crime, and of their loss by it, not having the law on tables of stone, which were the work of God, but which were the work of man:
and I will write upon [these] tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest; the writing of these was by the Lord himself, as the former, shows that the law itself was of God, though the tables were hewn by Moses, and that he would have it known and observed as such; and the same being written on these tables, as on the former, shows the unchangeableness of the law of God, as given to the people of Israel, that he would have nothing added to it, or taken from it; and the writing of it over again may have respect to the reinscribing it on the hearts of his people in regeneration, according to the tenor of the new covenant: the phrase, “which thou brakest”, is not used as expressing any displeasure at Moses for that act of his, but to describe the former tables; and the breaking of them might not be the effect of passion, at least of any criminal passion, but of zeal for the glory of God, and the honour of his law, which was broken by the Israelites, and therefore unworthy of it; and might be according to the counsel of the divine will, and the secret direction of his providence.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
When Moses had restored the covenant bond through his intercession (Exo 33:14), he was directed by Jehovah to hew out two stones, like the former ones which he had broken, and to come with them the next morning up the mountain, and Jehovah would write upon them the same words as upon the first,
(Note: Namely, the ten words in Ex 20:2-17, not the laws contained in Exo 34:12-26 of this chapter, as Gthe and Hitzig suppose. See Hengstenberg, Dissertations ii. p. 319, and Kurtz on the Old Covenant iii. 182ff.)
and thus restore the covenant record. It was also commanded, as in the former case (Exo 19:12-13), that no one should go up the mountain with him, or be seen upon it, and that not even cattle should feed against the mountain, i.e., in the immediate neighbourhood (Exo 34:3). The first tables of the covenant were called “tables of stone” (Exo 24:12; Exo 31:18); the second, on the other hand, which were hewn by Moses, are called “tables of stones” (Exo 34:1 and Exo 34:4); and the latter expression is applied indiscriminately to both of them in Deu 4:13; Deu 5:19; Deu 9:9-11; Deu 10:1-4. This difference does not indicate a diversity in the records, but may be explained very simply from the fact, that the tables prepared by Moses were hewn from two stones, and not both from the same block; whereas all that could be said of the former, which had been made by God Himself, was that they were of stone, since no one knew whether God had used one stone or two for the purpose. There is apparently far more importance in the following distinction, that the second tables were delivered by Moses and only written upon by God, whereas in the case of the former both the writing and the materials came from God. This cannot have been intended either as a punishment for the nation (Hengstenberg), or as “the sign of a higher stage of the covenant, inasmuch as the further the reciprocity extended, the firmer was the covenant” ( Baumgarten). It is much more natural to seek for the cause, as Rashi does, in the fact, that Moses had broken the first in pieces; only we must not regard it as a sign that God disapproved of the manifestation of anger on the part of Moses, but rather as a recognition of his zealous exertions for the restoration of the covenant which had been broken by the sin of the nation. As Moses had restored the covenant through his energetic intercession, he should also provide the materials for the renewal of the covenant record, and bring them to God, for Him to complete and confirm the record by writing the covenant words upon the tables.
On the following morning, when Moses ascended the mountain, Jehovah granted him the promised manifestation of His glory (Exo 34:5.). The description of this unparalleled occurrence is in perfect harmony with the mysterious and majestic character of the revelation. “ Jehovah descended (from heaven) in the cloud, and stood by him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah; and Jehovah passed by in his sight, and proclaimed Jehovah, Jehovah God, merciful and gracious, ” etc. What Moses saw we are not told, but simply the words in which Jehovah proclaimed all the glory of His being; whilst it is recorded of Moses, that he bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped. This “sermon on the name of the Lord,” as Luther calls it, disclosed to Moses the most hidden nature of Jehovah. It proclaimed that God is love, but that kind of love in which mercy, grace, long-suffering, goodness, and truth are united with holiness and justice. As the merciful One, who is great in goodness and truth, Jehovah shows mercy to the thousandth, forgiving sin and iniquity in long-suffering and grace; but He does not leave sin altogether unpunished, and in His justice visits the sin of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children even unto the fourth generation. The Lord had already revealed Himself to the whole nation from Mount Sinai as visiting sin and showing mercy (Exo 20:5.). But whereas on that occasion the burning zeal of Jehovah which visits sin stood in the foreground, and mercy only followed afterwards, here grace, mercy, and goodness are placed in the front. And accordingly all the words which the language contained to express the idea of grace in its varied manifestations to the sinner, are crowded together here, to reveal the fact that in His inmost being God is love. But in order that grace may not be perverted by sinners into a ground of wantonness, justice is not wanting even here with its solemn threatenings, although it only follows mercy, to show that mercy is mightier than wrath, and that holy love does not punish til sinners despise the riches of the goodness, patience, and long-suffering of God. As Jehovah here proclaimed His name, so did He continue to bear witness of it to the Israelites, from their departure from Sinai till their entrance into Canaan, and from that time forward till their dispersion among the heathen, and even now in their exile showing mercy to the thousandth, when they turn to the Redeemer who has come out of Zion.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| God’s Proclamation of Himself. | B. C. 1491. |
1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest. 2 And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. 3 And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount. 4 And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.
The treaty that was on foot between God and Israel being broken off abruptly, by their worshipping the golden calf, when peace was made all must be begun anew, not where they left off, but from the beginning. Thus backsliders must repent, and do their first works, Rev. ii. 5.
I. Moses must prepare for the renewing of the tables, v. 1. Before, God himself provided the tables, and wrote on them; now, Moses must hew out the tables, and God would only write upon them. Thus, in the first writing of the law upon the heart of man in innocency, both the tables and the writing were the work of God; but when those were broken and defaced by sin, and the divine law was to be preserved in the scriptures, God therein made use of the ministry of man, and Moses first. But the prophets and apostles did only hew the tables, as it were; the writing was God’s still, for all scripture is given by inspiration of God. Observe, When God was reconciled to them, he ordered the tables to be renewed, and wrote his law in them, which plainly intimates to us, 1. That even under the gospel of peace and reconciliation by Christ (of which the intercession of Moses was typical) the moral law should continue to bind believers. Though Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, yet not from the command of it, but still we are under the law to Christ; when our Saviour, in his sermon on the mount, expounded the moral law, and vindicated it from the corrupt glosses with which the scribes and Pharisees had broken it (Matt. v. 19), he did in effect renew the tables, and make them like the first, that is, reduce the law to its primitive sense and intention. 2. That the best evidence of the pardon of sin and peace with God is the writing of the law in the heart. The first token God gave of his reconciliation to Israel was the renewing of the tables of the law; thus the first article of the new covenant is, I will write my law in their heart (Heb. viii. 10), and it follows (v. 12), for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. 3. That, if we would have God to write the law in our hearts, we must prepare our hearts for the reception of it. The heart of stone must be hewn by conviction and humiliation for sin (Hos. vi. 5), the superfluity of naughtiness must be taken off (James i. 21), the heart made smooth, and laboured with, that the word may have a place in it. Moses did accordingly hew out the tables of stone, or slate, for they were so slight and thin that Moses carried them both in his hand; and, for their dimensions, they must have been somewhat less, and perhaps not much, than the ark in which they were deposited, which was a yard and quarter long, and three quarters broad. It should seem there was nothing particularly curious in the framing of them, for there was no great time taken; Moses had them ready presently, to take up with him, next morning. They were to receive their beauty, not from the art of man, but from the finger of God.
II. Moses must attend again on the top of mount Sinai, and present himself to God there, v. 2. Though the absence of Moses, and his continuance so long on the mount, had lately occasioned their making the golden calf, yet God did not therefore alter his measures, but he shall come up and tarry as long as he had done, to try whether they had learned to wait. To strike an awe upon the people, they are directed to keep their distance, none must come up with him, v. 3. They had said (ch. xxxii. 1), We know not what has become of him, and God will not let them know. Moses, accordingly, rose up early (v. 4) to go to the place appointed, to show how forward he was to present himself before God and loth to lose time. It is good to be early at our devotions. The morning is perhaps as good a friend to the graces as it is to the muses.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
EXODUS – CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Verses 1-3:
Moses’ intercession secured pardon for Israel. God accepted their repentance and prayers (Ex 33:7) as a renewal of the covenant on their part. He than renewed the covenant on His part. He first restored the tables of the Law, by summoning Moses once more to the peak of Sinai.
God instructed Moses to hew two tables (tablets) of stone similar to the first two, which he had broken. The language implies these were two separate stones.
This illustrates that something is always lost by sin, even though it may be forgiven. The new tablets lost some of the glory of the first in that Moses shaped the latter, while God Himself shaped the first (Ex 32:16).
Jehovah wrote upon the new tablets “the words” which appeared on the first. They included the “Ten Commandments” (verse 28; De 10:4), but were likely not limited to these.
On the first occasion, Joshua was allowed to accompany Moses part of the way up Sinai. This time no one, not even Joshua, could go with him. This manifestation of God’s Presence was to be to Moses alone.
Compare the orders concerning animals “before the mount” with those given earlier, Ex 19:12, 13.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone Although the renewal of the broken covenant was ratified by this pledge or visible symbol, still, lest His readiness to pardon should produce indifference, God would have some trace of their punishment remain, like a scar that continues after the wound is healed. In the first tables there had been no intervention of man’s workmanship; for God had delivered them to Moses engraven by His own secret power. A part of this great dignity is now withdrawn, when Moses is commanded to bring tables polished by the hand of man, on which God might write the Ten Commandments. Thus the ignominy of their crime was not altogether effaced, whilst nothing was withheld which might be necessary or profitable for their salvation. For nothing was wanting which might be a testimony of God’s grace, or a recommendation of the Law, so that they should receive it with reverence; they were only humbled by this mark, that the stones to which God entrusted His covenant were not fashioned by His hand, nor the produce of the sacred mount. The conceit by which some expound it, — that the Jews were instructed by this sign that the Law was of no effect, unless they should offer their stony hearts to God for Him to inscribe it upon them, — is frivolous; for the authority of Paul rather leads us the other way, where he fitly and faithfully interprets this passage, and compares the Law to a dead and deadly letter, because it was only engraven on tables of stone, whereas the doctrine of salvation requires “the fleshy tables of the heart.” (2Co 3:3.)
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.
Exo. 34:1. Hew thee two tables of stone]. A task which could not have failed to make Moses feel abashed, and to impress him with a sense of humility as he reflected on his breaking the first tables which God Himself had prepared for him. The former he had but to receive, these he must carry up the mount; and, besides, this time without being accompanied by Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and the seventy of the elders of Israel (Exo. 24:9). That all this difference connected with his obtaining the second tables was calculated to make a designed impression upon him, is evident from the emphatic manner in which God referred him to the first tables, viz., which thou hast broken (Exo. 34:1).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Exo. 34:1-4
THE RENEWAL OF THE TWO TABLES
At the earnest intercession of the mediator God had consented to give another substantial revelation of His will. It was, however, to be connected with a substantial memorial of the peoples disobedience and Gods patience and goodness. On the former occasion, the materials, as well as the revelation, were prepared by God. The material must now be prepared by man. The circumstances under which the law was renewed were the same as those under which it was first given, see Exo. 19:12, &c. The subject teaches us
I. That the moral law is perpetually binding. Having been broken it must be renewed.
1. The revelation of the law, in the first instance, was but a repetition in detail of what had already been conveyed directly in the heart of, or by special injunctions to, man.
(1.) Generally (Exo. 15:26; Gen. 26:5; Gen. 17:3).
(2.) Particularly, obedience (Adam and Eve); murder (Cain, and Gen. 9:5); dishonour to parents (Gen. 9:22). The spiritual worship of the true God (Gen. 12:7; Gen. 14:18); adultery and lying (Gen. 12:14-19; Gen. 20:2-16); adultery (Gen. 39:9); lying (Gen. 27:35); idolatry (Gen. 35:2); the Sabbath (Exo. 16:25-26).
2. The moral law was not abrogated by Christ (Mat. 5:17-19). We are redeemed from its curse, not from its obligation.
3. The moral law is still binding (Rom. 6:15; 1Co. 9:21).
II. That the renewal of the moral law when broken entails duties unknown before. Hew thee two tables of stone; and he hewed two tables of stone. This fact is very typical and suggestive.
1. In the first inscription of the moral law upon mans heart, the preparation and the writing were exclusively the work of God. When our first parents awoke to consciousness, the fleshy tables were found covered with the oracles of God.
2. When those tables were defaced and those oracles transgressed, the work of preparation fell largely upon man. Ever afterwards man had to prepare himself by acts of penitence and faith,not excluding divine help, of course,but nevertheless those acts are acts of man. God commandeth man everywhere to repent. Repent ye, and believe the Gospel (cf. Heb. 8:10).
3. But this renewal of the divine law is accomplished in such a way as to deprive man of all ground of glorying, and so as to ascribe all the glory to God. The tables were of plain stone, all their embellishments were by the Divine hand.
III. That when the moral law is broken God, graciously offers to renew it upon mans compliance with the revealed condition, Exo. 34:1. So when man by repentance and faith puts off the old man and puts on the new, he is renewed in the image of Him that created him, on which the moral law is inscribed (Col. 3:9-16).
IV. That these conditions should be complied with
1. Speedily. Early in the morning.
2. Personally. This great work is a transaction between God and the individual particularly concerned. We may therefore argue that priestly intervention is
(1) unnecessary. The Being who could inscribe the precept on stone, can inscribe the principle on the fleshy tablets of the heart.
(2) Imposture. None but God could do the one, none but God can do the other. Vain, then, is the dependence on Baptism, Absolution, &c. If God has not written on the soul, no priest can ever trace the Divine handwriting there.
3. Patiently. Moses waited again forty days and forty nights.
(1.) Do not hurry the work over. What is being done is being done for eternity. Distrust spasm and mere excitement, no man ever became great in Christianity or anything by paroxysm.
(2.) Dont despond if the work is not progressing as rapidly as you might wish. If God is writing on your heart, let that be your comfort, and let God use His own time. Paul had to say, Php. 3:12-14. Learn
1. The value of the moral law.
2. The importance of having that law not only on stone or paper but in the heart.
3. The necessity of a public and practical exhibition and interpretation of that law in the life.J. W. Burn.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Law-Lights! Exo. 34:1-35. Pressense says, that whatever opinions men may hold as to the integrity of that primitive witness, all must own that it contains pages in which one beholds, as it were, the reflection of the lustre which caused Mosess face to shine when he held converse with God. It has ever been the pious mind which has through the eyes beheld the chain of revelation and the long series of Divine manifestations gradually unwind themselves. Just as they that watch for the morning gaze out from the height of the tower, longing with inexpressible desire for the approach of dawn; so does religious consciousness cast glances of fire upon the horizon as she looks out for the Divine Sunrise. The whole of the Old Testament pants and throbs with this Divine yearning, and it also shows us the finger of God writing in the heart of man the great preparation for the Gospel. The angels ever
Draw strength from gazing on its glance,
Though none its meaning fathom may;
The Words unwithered countenance
Is bright as at Mount Sinais day.
Gothe.
Sun-Splendours! Exo. 34:1-7. Countless and ceaseless as are the benefits which are imparted to us by the bright orb of day, the human eye cannot look upon his undimmed noonday face, without being blinded. We cannot look upon him in his full brightness; but when he is passing away, we can, as it were, enjoy and wonder at the beauty he has, or the splendour he leaves behind. A gorgeous canopy of cloudsglowing in every tint of gold, scarlet, and purple over the evening sky, alone remains to bear witness to the passing suns magnificence. As we enjoy the vanishing glory of the sun, so did Moses exult in the vision of the Divine glory. He could not look upon the face of God; but when the Lord had passed by then he could behold and delight in the shaded vision of Jehovahs back parts. And what sweet beauties did his eyes descryemblems of those invisible beauties which the soul in communion with God beholds
The vivid brilliant streaks
Of crimson disappear, but oer the hills
A flush of orange hovers, softening up
Into harmonious union with the blue
That comes a-sweeping down.
Carrington.
Written-Revelation! Exo. 34:1.
(1.) The stream which flows through many soils takes a bitter taste from one, and a dusky tint from another. Even so the true faith could not be kept alive by tradition. Mans memory was too treacherous to be entrusted with a matter so distasteful to his fallen spirit as the true character of God. Hence the need of a written revelation.
(2.) And even where there was a traditional theology, in its transmission from race to race it was found that the oral revelation grew dark and offensive. In this stagnant swamp, weltering with reptiles and fuming with pestilence, who can recognise the stream which bounded from the Alpine crag, pure as the melted snow and salubrious as Heavens own precipitate. Hence the need of a written revelation.
The which, in waves which clear as crystal seem,
Spreads like a swelling sea oer earths dry ground,
Mirrord therein heavens halls of azure gleam,
And gold and pearls amid its sands are found.
Hast thou not of this heaven-bright river heard?
There dip thy cup; it is Truths Holy Word.
Geroh.
Morning-Communion! Exo. 34:2. Fuller quaintly says, Spill not the morningthe quintessence of the dayin recreation; for sleep is itself a recreation. Add not, therefore, sauce to sauces. Beecher says, Let the day have a blessed baptism by giving your first waking thoughts into the bosom of God. The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day. Boerhaave says, Nothing more effectually restrains the passions, and gives spirit and vigour through the business of the day, than early meditation and prayer. Swain says, It is the early blackbird that catches the worms; and it is the early riser who sees the sun rise. Morning prayer brings bounties to the soul; and the Christian, who betakes himself betimes, beholds the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings! Green says, When the morning breaketh forth in crimson, the beauteous flowers of the field spread wide their odorous cups to drink the blooming influence of the rising genial sun. We should get us early to the hill of supplication, and catch the bright effulgence of the Saviours face.
That as the light, serene and fair,
Illumines all the tracts of sin,
His sacred Spirit so may rest
With quickning beams upon thy breast,
And kindly cleanse it all within
From darker blemishes of sin,
And shine with grace until we view
The realm it gilds with glory too.
Parnell.
Beatific-Vision! Exo. 34:2. Another morning came, so different from that other august occasion when a quaking multitude surrounded a thundering mount. This time there was neither blackness nor tempest, nor sound as of a trumpet; but, with his two stone tablets, the Lawgiver ascended in the clear, cool day-spring. He ascended and sought the appointed place, and as there in the cleft of the rock he waited, a cloud drew nigha cloud like that which floated above the Tabernacle. And as the Lord passed by, and spake, Moses bowed his head and worshipped. During the protracted interview of the forty following days, perfect love cast out fear; and from the pavilion of this friendly presence and its rapt communion, Moses came down with that shining face, which only reappeared on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Never the ken of mortal eye
Can pierce so deep, and far, and high,
As the eagle vision of hearts that dwell
In the lofty sunlit citadel
Of Faith that overcomes the world.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
THE TEXT OF EXODUS
TRANSLATION
34 And Je-ho-vah said unto Mo-ses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables, which thou brakest. (2) And be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Si-nai, and present thyself there to me on the top of the mount. (3) And no man shall come up with thee; neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount. (4) And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Mo-ses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Si-nai, as Je-ho-vah had commanded him, and took in his hand two tables of stone. (5) And Je-ho-vah descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Je-ho-vah. (6) And Je-ho-vah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Je-ho-vah, Je-ho-vah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth; (7) keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the childrens children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation. (8) And Mo-ses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. (9) And he said, If now I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.
(10)And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of Je-ho-vah; for it is a terrible thing that I do with thee. (11) Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Am-or-ite, and the Ca-naan-ite, and the Hit-tite, and the Per-iz-zite, and the Hi-vite, and the Jeb-u-site. (12) Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: (13) but ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and ye shall cut down their A-she-rim (14) (for thou shalt worship no other god: for Je-ho-vah, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God); (15) lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot after their gods, and sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee and thou eat of his sacrifice; (16) and thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods, and make thy sons play the harlot after their gods. (17) Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
(18) The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, at the time appointed in the month A-bib; for in the month A-bib thou carnest out from E-gypt. (19) All that openeth the womb is mine; and all thy cattle that is male, the firstlings of cow and sheep. (20) And the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break its neck. All the first-born of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.
(21) Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in plowing time and in harvest thou shalt rest. (22) And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first-fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the years end. (23) Three times in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord Je-ho-vah, the God of Is-ra-el. (24) For I will cast out nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou goest up to appear before Je-ho-vah thy God three times in the year.
(25) Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning. (26) The first of the first-fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of Je-ho-vah thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mothers milk.
(27) And Je-ho-vah said unto Mo-ses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Is-ra-el. (28) And he was there with Je-ho-vah forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
(29) And it came to pass, when Mo-ses came down from mount Si-nai with the two tables of the testimony in Mo-ses hand, when he came down from the mount, that Mo-ses knew not that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him. (30) And when Aar-on and all the children of Is-ra-el saw Mo-ses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him. (31) And Mo-ses called unto them; and Aar-on and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Mo-ses spake to them. (32) And afterward all the children of Is-ra-el came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all that Je-ho-vah had spoken with him in mount Si-nai. (33) And when Mo-ses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. (34) But when Mo-ses went in before Je-ho-vah to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and he came out, and spake unto the children of Is-ra-el that which he was commanded. (35) And the children of Is-ra-el saw the face of Mo-ses, that the skin of Mo-ses face shone; and Mo-ses put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
EXPLORING EXODUS: CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
QUESTIONS ANSWERABLE FROM THE BIBLE
1.
After careful reading, propose a brief title or topic for the chapter.
2.
What was Moses to hew out? (Exo. 34:1; Exo. 34:4)
3.
Who would write the words on the tablets? (Exo. 34:1; Deu. 10:2; Deu. 10:4)
4.
Is a little blame laid upon Moses for breaking the first tablets? (Exo. 34:1)
5.
Who was to come up into Mt. Sinai with Moses? (Exo. 34:2-3)
6.
Had anyone gone with Moses up on the mount during the first stay there? (Exo. 24:13)
7.
To what part of the mount was Moses to come? (Exo. 34:3)
8.
In what did Jehovah descend onto the mount? (Exo. 34:5; Compare Exo. 19:18; Exo. 24:15-16.)
9.
What did Jehovah proclaim? (Exo. 34:5)
10.
List the characteristics which Jehovah proclaimed about himself. (Exo. 34:6-7)
11.
Why should God visit the iniquity of fathers upon the children? (Exo. 36:7; Compare Exo. 20:5-6.)
12.
What three things did Moses ask God to do for the people? (Exo. 34:9)
13.
What did God declare he would make? (Exo. 34:10; Exo. 34:27)
14.
How impressive would Gods marvels be before the people? (Exo. 34:10)
15.
What was to be done with the Amorites, Canaanites, etc. (Exo. 34:11)
16.
What was to be done with Canaanite religious objects? (Exo. 34:13)
17.
What could making a covenant with the inhabitants of the land lead to? (Exo. 34:12; Exo. 34:15-16)
18.
What are molten gods? (Exo. 34:17; Exo. 32:4; Exo. 32:8; Exo. 32:24)
19.
What was to be done or not done during the feast of Unleavened Bread? (Exo. 34:18)
20.
What animals did God claim as his? (Exo. 34:19)
21.
What things were to be redeemed? (Exo. 34:20; Exo. 13:12-13; Num. 18:15-16)
22.
At what particular times were the people to be sure to rest on the seventh (Sabbath) days? (Exo. 34:21)
23.
How many compulsory feasts were to be attended by male Israelites each year? (Exo. 34:22-23)
24.
Why should the enlargement of the Israelites borders strengthen their obligation to keep the three annual feasts? (Exo. 34:24)
25.
What was not to be offered with the blood of the sacrifices? (Exo. 34:25)
26.
How many of the covenant laws of Exo. 34:10-26 have parallels in the covenant book of Ex. chs. 2023? (This will require some research.)
27.
What was Moses to do with the words that God spoke? (Exo. 34:27)
28.
What did Moses not do during the time he was with Jehovah? (Exo. 34:28)
29.
What words are called the words of the covenant? (Exo. 34:28) Were these words an eternal covenant? (Jer. 31:31-32; 2Co. 3:6-11)
30.
What was unusual about Moses appearance when he came down from the mount? (Exo. 34:29) What had caused this?
31.
How did the people react to Moses appearance? (Exo. 34:30)
32.
Could the people look at Moses without being blinded? (Exo. 34:30-31; Exo. 34:35)
33.
To whom did Moses speak the words of the commandment which Jehovah spoke with him? (Exo. 34:32)
34.
When did Moses put on a veil? (Exo. 34:33)
35.
Why did Paul say that Moses put on the veil? (2Co. 3:13)
36.
Did Moses wear the veil when he came in before Jehovah (in the tent of meeting)? (Exo. 34:34-35)
EXODUS THIRTY-FOUR: THE COVENANT RENEWED
1.
The tablets restored; Exo. 34:1-4.
2.
Gods name proclaimed; Exo. 34:5-9.
3.
Gods covenant pledged; Exo. 34:10.
4.
Gods ordinances commanded; Exo. 34:11-26.
5.
Gods words written; Exo. 34:27-28.
6.
Gods commandments reported; Exo. 34:31-32.
7.
Moses face shines; Exo. 34:29-30; Exo. 34:33-35.
SERMON ON THE NAME OF GOD (Exo. 34:5-7)
I.
An introduction by the Infinite God; Exo. 34:5.
II.
A theme beyond compare (THE NAME!); Exo. 34:5.
III.
An exposition (development) in detail; Exo. 34:6-7.
1.
Jehovah, Jehovah (A name doubly-declared).
2.
God (Mighty one!)
3.
Merciful!
4.
Gracious!
5.
Slow to anger!
6.
Abundant in lovingkindness!
7.
Abundant in truth!
8.
Keeping lovingkindness for thousands!
9.
Forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.
10.
Will by no means clear the guilty!
11.
Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children!
RENEWING THE COVENANT (Exo. 34:10-26)
1.
Promise of the covenant; Exo. 34:10.
2.
Prohibitions in the covenant; Exo. 34:11-17; Exo. 34:25.
3.
Practices (or precepts) in the covenant; Exo. 34:18-24.
GODS REQUIREMENTS OF HIS PEOPLE (Exo. 34:18-24)
1.
Keep the feasts; Exo. 34:18; Exo. 34:22-23.
2.
Present your firstborn; Exo. 34:20.
3.
Come before me with an offering; Exo. 34:20.
4.
Keep the day of rest; Exo. 34:21.
THE GLOW FROM GODS PRESENCE (Exo. 34:29-35)
1.
Comes from speaking with God; (Exo. 34:29).
2.
Comes upon a man unawares; (Exo. 34:29).
3.
Frightens sinful men; (Exo. 34:30).
4.
Veiled in mens presence; (Exo. 34:33).
5.
Unveiled in Gods presence; (Exo. 34:34-35).
THE FADING AND UNFADING GLORY (Exo. 34:33; 2Co. 3:13-18)
1.
The fading old covenant glory was veiled.
2.
The unfading new covenant glory is unveiled.
EXPLORING EXODUS: NOTES ON CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
1.
What is in Exodus thirty-four?
The chapter tells of Gods making a covenant anew with Moses and Israel. The broken tablets of the ten commandments were replaced (Exo. 34:1-4; Exo. 34:28). God proclaimed to Moses His basic nature (Exo. 34:5-9). God set forth some of the laws He required the people to keep under the renewed covenant (Exo. 34:10-26). (Nearly all of these laws are repeated from the decalogue and the covenant book of chs. 2123.) Again, as at the ratification of the covenant the first time (Exo. 24:4-8), Moses wrote the words of God and told them to the people (Exo. 34:27-35). When Moses came down to the people with the covenant words, his face shone. Moses veiled his face after uttering Gods words to the people.
The whole chapter is a magnificent witness to Moses power of intercession before God. (Ramm, op. cit., p. 193)
2.
What are the critical theories about Exodus thirty-four?
Many critics have held that Exodus 34 is a separate account of the giving of the Sinai covenant by a different author. Chapters 1924 have been attributed to E (an eighth century Northern Kingdom Elohistic writer), and chapter 34 to J (tenth century Jehovistic writer), who adapted old Canaanite rituals. Many critics have followed the conjecture of the German poet Goethe, who in 1773 said that the regulations of Exo. 34:14-26 could be grouped into ten laws, and that these laws were actually the original ten commandments! Chapter 20 has been entitled the ethical (or moral) decalogue and chapter 34 the ritual (or cultic) decalogue. M. Noth says that these titles express quite pertinently, though in somewhat unhappy terminology, a difference in the predominant interest [of the authors of chs. 20 and 34], but we cannot speak of a fundamental opposition.[451] Supposedly chapter 34 was written by a man predominantly interested in religious rituals, and came from an agricultural society; whereas chapter 20 was written by one primarily concerned with ethics, whose cultural and social setting cannot be identified. Such nonsense!
[451] Op. cit., p. 265.
Only by assuming that Exodus 34 has a corrupt, jumbled up text can Exo. 34:14-26 be arranged into ten commmandments. Noth admits that the passage (Exo. 34:10-26) now offers more than ten commandments, but he regards it as being full of later deuteronomistic insertions.[452] Goethe himself in his later and riper years spoke of his alleged discovery of ten commandments in Exo. 34:14-26 as a freakish notion due to insufficient knowledge.[453]
[452] Op. cit., p. 262.
[453] Quoted in J. H. Hertz, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, p. 368.
Actually Exo. 34:1 makes it perfectly clear that chapter 34 is a RENEWAL of the original covenant and not a distinct version of the covenant by another author. Also Deu. 9:9-20; Deu. 9:25-29; Deu. 10:1-5; Deu. 10:10-11 indicates that Exodus was a renewal of the covenant.
Almost all of the laws in Exo. 34:11-26 are like laws in chapters 2023. This is easily understandable if chapter 34 is a renewal of the covenant of 2023; but it is hard to explain if chapter 34 was a separate covenant document by a different author and two centuries older than chapter 20.
We should shun the terms ethical decalogue and ritual decalogue.
3.
What was Moses to bring up into the mount? (Exo. 34:1-4; Deu. 10:1-2)
He was to bring two new tablets of stone. Moses was to hew these out and then God would write upon them the words that were on the first tablets.
The first set of tablets had been completely the work of God, both the hewing out of the tablets and the writing (Exo. 32:16).
Gods comment to Moses concerning the first tablets which you broke seems to us a gentle reprimand to Moses. You broke them; you replace them. Keil and Delitzsch, suggest that God had Moses remake the tablets to show the same zeal that he showed in breaking them.
Moses was to be ready when he came up to God. Perhaps the readiness was similar to that commanded in Exo. 19:10-11; Exo. 19:14-15.
The top of the mount was the place by me of Exo. 33:21.
Moses was to go up completely alone this time. Not even Joshua was to go along. Compare Exo. 24:13.
No flocks nor herds were to feed before the mount while Moses was up in it. This restriction is similar to that imposed when the commandments were first given (Exo. 19:12-13). Compare Heb. 12:20.
God seems to have wanted His covenant WRITTEN. See Exo. 34:27; Exo. 24:4.
4.
What did the LORD proclaim about himself? (Exo. 34:5-7)
He proclaimed the name of Jehovah. The NAME of Jehovah expresses all that Jehovah is and does. Compare Exo. 6:3. God proclaims His saving ways; He proclaims Himself.
Luther called Exo. 34:6-7 the Sermon on the name of the Lord. It reveals the most hidden nature of Jehovah. It is impossible to express the Lords nature better than by His name.
The proclamation of the name of the Lord is a fulfillment of the promise in Exo. 33:19.
The statement that Jehovah descended in the cloud is somewhat similar to Exo. 19:20. We suppose that it was at this time that Jehovah covered Moses in the cleft of the rock as He passed by (Exo. 33:22). What Moses saw of God is not stated.
Some interpreters have translated Exo. 34:5 b, He (Moses) stood with him (God) there, and called upon the name. This is a grammatically possible translation, but is surely not the preferred one.
Exo. 34:5-7 is the second revelation of the NAME of the LORD. The first revelation (in Exo. 3:14-15) was of Yahweh as the self-existent savior, This revelation of the name is of a loving, forgiving, but NOT overindulgent savior.
Jewish interpreters (quite justly!) make much of Exo. 34:6-7, calling it The Thirteen Attributes of the Divine Nature.[454] Jewish interpreters have some variations among themselves in the way they divide Exo. 34:6-7 into thirteen attributes, but this is one such analysis:
[454] J. H. Hertz, op. cit., pp. 362, 364.
(1) The LORD; (2) The LORD. (The Talmud explains the repetition of Gods name as indicating that God is merciful to a man both before he sins and after he sins. Whatever change has to be wrought must be in the heart of the sinner, not in the nature of deity.[455]); (3) God (or Mighty one); (4) merciful; (5) gracious; (6) longsuffering; (7) abundant in lovingkindness (Heb., hesed); (8) abundant in truth; (9) keeping mercy to thousands; (10) forgiving iniquity (or guilt); (11) forgiving transgression; (12) forgiving sin; (13) will by no means clear the guilty.
[455] Ibid.
We do not regard the division of these descriptions of God into thirteen points as a divine revelation. But we thank God for providing us this description of his glorious name, and we worship Him!
Similar descriptions of God are in Psa. 103:8; Psa. 86:15; Num. 14:18; Deu. 5:9-10.
Some of the very FIRST things God says about Himself are that He is merciful and gracious. Compare Exo. 33:19!
To clear (Exo. 34:7) means to declare innocent, to let go unpunished.
Observe the balance between love and justice, grace and firmness in Gods nature.
Concerning visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, see notes on Exo. 20:5.
Some interpreters interpret Exo. 34:7 a to mean thousands of generations. The word generations is not actually in the text at that point. There have been barely two hundred generations of men since creation.
The synonyms for sin in Exo. 33:7 are hard to distinguish precisely. Possibly iniquity refers to turning from the right course; transgression is rebellion; and sin is an act of missing the desired mark,[456]
[456] Cassuto, op. cit., p. 440.
5.
What was Moses response to Gods self-proclamation? (Exo. 34:8-9)
He responded by worship and by asking for acceptance of the people. He took advantage of Gods description of Himself as merciful and gracious to ask a favor.
Anyone who becomes aware of God as He described Himself in Exo. 34:6-7 will hurry, and bow, and worship. What is worship other than a heartfelt acknowledgement of the greatness of the Lord?
The request that the Lord (Heb., Adonay) would go with them is repeated from Exo. 33:15-16. God had already accepted this request in Exo. 33:14; Exo. 33:17; but seemingly Moses was still uneasy about the matter, not because he did not trust God, but because the people were stiffnecked. Note that Exo. 34:9 uses the name Adonay (meaning my Lord) as Gods title.
Moses did not pray for God to give them an inheritance, but to take them as His inheritance. Compare Zec. 2:12.
6.
What did God promise to make and do before the people? (Exo. 34:10)
God promised to make a covenant, and to do marvels. Thus the request of Exo. 34:9 was answered and accepted by the promise of Exo. 34:10.
The first and the last I in Exo. 34:10 are emphatic personal pronouns.
The verb make is a participle, indicating in some way a continuous action.
Gods covenant would be like certain treaties and covenants called suzerainty treaties. Ancient kings (such as the Hittites) would make such covenants with their people. As covenants proclaimed by a superior to vassals, their effectiveness and force depended not on compliance by both parties to specified terms, but on the unilateral declaration and determination of the covenant-maker.[457]
[457] Cole, op. cit., pp. 228, 229.
God spoke to Moses (in Exo. 34:10) of thy people. But this expression no longer carried the idea of alienation that it carried right after the golden calf was made (Exo. 32:7).
God promised to do marvels before thy people. Marvels is a term referring to anything wondrous, or of which men stand in awe. The term was used in Exo. 3:20 to refer to the plagues sent upon Egypt. See also Jdg. 6:13; Psa. 26:7.
The marvels are spoken of (literally) as being created. This term suggests that the likes of these marvels was never known before. Probably the marvels are the deliverances during future desert wanderings and the conquest of Canaan. The covenant was to include a host of miracles, such as driving out the Canaanites. See Deu. 4:38. God is a God of miracles, not a subject for theological speculation.
Terrible means fearsome, fearful, dreadful, wonderful, astonishing. Compare Deu. 10:21; Psa. 145:6.
Probably Exo. 34:10 is the preamble to the covenant, and we Should regard Exo. 34:11 as starting a new paragraph (as in R.S.V.). Cole feels we should take Exo. 34:10-11 as closely joined together, and together forming the covenant preamble.
The terms of the covenant in Exo. 34:11-26 are in NO way to be considered the complete covenant requirements. They are only a sampler of the full requirements set forth in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The same thing was true of the longer set of ordinances in Exodus 20-23, as explained in our notes before. The very absence of the ten commandments in Exodus 34 shows that it was not a full statement of the covenant.
7.
What did God command about the Canaanites? (Exo. 34:11-16; Compare Exo. 23:23-24; Exo. 23:32-33; Deu. 7:1-5; Deu. 12:2-3.)
Israel was to make no covenant with them, and was to destroy their religious objects utterly. Sadly, Israel later violated this command repeatedly. See Jdg. 2:1-2; Jdg. 2:11-13; Jos. 9:3-27; Psa. 106:34-39.
It was GOD who would drive out the Canaanites, and not actually Israel. The verb translated I drive out expresses continuous action: I am driving out or I am about to drive out. Compare Exo. 23:27-30. God was already softening up the Canaanites, even before Israel arrived.
Regarding the various Canaanite peoples, see Exo. 3:17.
Regarding the pillars (K.J.V., images), see Exo. 23:24.
Asherim (K.J.V., grooves) were sacred trees or wooden poles dedicated to Asherah, a goddess of fertility often associated with Baal or with Baals father El. Asherim are mentioned here for the first time. See Deu. 16:21; Jdg. 6:25; 2Ki. 18:4; 2Ki. 21:3.
In the common Hebrew Bible the word for other in Exo. 34:14 is printed with an enlarged R (resh) (achaR) so no one could possibly confuse it with the quite similar-looking word meaning one (echad).
The word for jealous in Exo. 34:14 is a very strong word. It is used only of God in the Old Testament. It expresses none of the pettiness that is sometimes associated with jealousy, but means to burn with zeal, or be provoked to wrath. See Deu. 4:24; Deu. 6:15; Exo. 20:3-5.
Baal worship involved playing the harlot quite literally. See Num. 25:1-5; Hos. 4:13-14. Certainly it also constituted a spiritual immorality, and it is thus spoken of here for the first time. Compare Deu. 31:16.
Even the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac had recognized the dangers of intermarriages with Canaanites. See Gen. 24:3; Gen. 28:6; Jos. 23:12.
The commands against the Canaanites are sterner in Exo. 34:11-16 than in Exo. 23:23 ff, possibly because of the golden calf incident.
8.
What law was given about molten gods? (Exo. 34:17)
They were not to be made unto thee (same phrase as in Exo. 20:4). Molten means melted and cast. The golden calf was molten (Exo. 32:4), and therefore this command was a very live matter. The specific prohibition against molten images should have been needless after the very comprehensive law against idols of all types in Exo. 20:4-5; but the people had failed to heed it.
9.
What was the commandment about the feast of unleavened bread? (Exo. 34:18)
It was to be observed annually. Compare Exo. 12:14-20; Exo. 23:15. (Exo. 34:18; Exo. 23:15 are almost identical verses.) The feast of Unleavened Bread originated with the exodus rather than from events associated with an agricultural season, as some critics have alleged.
The Passover is not mentioned among the feasts in Exo. 34:18-23, probably because it was not one of the national feasts to which everyone journeyed, but was a feast observed in each home. It was very closely associated with the feast of Unleavened Bread.
Concerning the month Abib, see Exo. 13:4; Exo. 12:2.
10.
What was to be done with the firstborn? (Exo. 34:19-20)
They were given to the LORD or redeemed. See Exo. 13:2; Exo. 13:12-13; Exo. 22:29-30.
See Exo. 23:15 concerning the instruction None shall appear before me empty.
The R.S.V. renders Exo. 34:19, All that opens the womb is mine, all your male cattle, the firstlings, . … A footnote by the word male says Gk., Theodotian, Vg., Tg.: Heb. uncertain. It is simply not true that the Hebrew is uncertain. It differs hardly at all from the Greek. The Hebrew lacks a relative pronoun that we include in English, but it is quite clear. It reads, Every firstborn of the womb (is) mine, and (or even) all thy cattle (that is) born a male, (the) firstborn of ox and sheep.
11.
What days and feasts was Israel to observe? (Exo. 34:21-26)
The seventh day (Sabbath) was to be a day of rest. Compare Exo. 20:8-10; Exo. 23:12.
The instruction to keep the seventh day as a day of rest during plowing time (K.J.V., earing time) and harvest time is stated only in this verse. This was a faith-testing command. Rest days were to be strictly observed even at the times when the farmer was busiest and in greatest danger of losing his crop. The Sabbath day was a test of faith from its very first observance (Exo. 16:4), and it always kept this character about it. Gods people still must seek first the kingdom of God in all their activities. (Mat. 6:33)
The feast of weeks (also called the feast of harvest and the feast of firstfruits) came annually in June, after the harvest. See Exo. 23:16; Deu. 16:10.
The feast of ingathering (also called Tabernacles or Booths) came at the years end, literally at the revolution (or circuit) of the year, in September/October. See Exo. 23:16.
Exo. 34:23 is almost identical to Exo. 23:17. Compare Exo. 23:14.
Exo. 34:23-24 alludes to a central sanctuary, which the Israelites would set up and go to after conquering the land. Critics take this as evidence of a post-Mosaic date for the passage. But those who believe that God can prophesy about events and places that are yet in the future will accept the words as they stand. See Isa. 41:4; Isa. 41:23; Isa. 44:8.
Some Israelites feared that squatters and land thieves would claim and occupy their lands while they were away attending Gods feasts. This was probably more of an excuse for neglect of worship than any real danger. But God reassured them that while they were at the feasts, no one would even covet (desire) their land, much less try to seize it. Furthermore, He would enlarge their national borders until there was such an abundance of land that no one would have any cause to covet his neighbors land.
Exo. 34:25 resembles Exo. 23:18. Concerning the matter of not leaving Passover sacrifices uneaten till morning, see Exo. 12:10. Exo. 34:26 is similar to Exo. 23:19.
Observe the reference to my sacrifice in Exo. 34:25.
12.
What covenant words were written down? (Exo. 34:27-28)
The covenant commands of Exo. 34:10-26 were to be written by Moses. The ten commandments themselves were written by God. Compare Exo. 34:1. These words referred to in Exo. 34:27 seem to be the covenant words in Exo. 34:10-26.
From Exo. 34:27-28 alone it might be assumed that he who wrote the words of the ten commandments was Moses. However, this is not definitely asserted here. And the words of Exo. 34:1 and Deu. 10:2; Deu. 10:4 are conclusive in asserting that the writing of the ten commandments was the work of God.
In the same manner that Moses wrote the covenant ordinances of chapters 2123, he also wrote the words of this covenant. (Exo. 24:4; Exo. 24:7) It appears definite that God wanted His covenant in written form.
Tenor in Exo. 34:27 is literally face. It is probably best to translate the expression simply according to these words. (Harkavys Lexicon; R.S.V.)
Deu. 10:10 repeats a fact asserted here, that Moses fasted during this second stay in the mount. He had also fasted during the first prolonged stay on the mount. (Deu. 9:9)
Deu. 10:1-5 tells that Moses made an ark of acacia wood for the ten commandments when he came down from the mount, and this simple ark became the predecessor of the ark of the covenant described in Exo. 25:10 ff.
The ten commandments are specifically identified as the words of the covenant in Exo. 34:28. This passage makes clear to us what words are referred to as the covenant when contrasts are made in the scripture between the old covenant and the new covenant. (2Co. 3:6-13; Jer. 31:31-32; Heb. 8:7-13).
13.
What was amazing about Moses appearance when he came down from the mount? (Exo. 34:29-30)
His face shone, so that both Aaron and the children of Israel were afraid to come near him. The fear of Israel when Moses came among them with a glowing face is understandable after their recent experience with idolatry and the wrath of Moses!
Moses was unaware that his face was shining. He was not fully conscious of his own spiritual stature and privileges. Num. 12:13 rightly describes him as the meekest of men. The glow surely proved that Moses had been with God.
The Hebrew verb translated shone (shot forth beams) has a related noun often meaning horns. Therefore the Latin Bible translated Exo. 34:29 as having horns. From this rather bizarre translation, medieval art works, such as Michelangelos statue at Rome, represent Moses as having a pair of horns from his head!
The K.J.V. translation of Exo. 34:29, while he talked with him, is translated more properly because he had been talking with God. (R.S.V.)
Things exposed to light and radiation sometimes glow even after being removed from the light. Thus Moses, having been with God who dwells in light unapproachable (1Ti. 6:16), had acquired some of the glow of God (Rev. 21:23), even though he had seen only the back part of God (Exo. 33:23). How he would have shone if he had stood before God in all His glory! Gods glowing glory was manifested by Christ Jesus at His transfiguration. (Mat. 17:2; Compare Rev. 1:16.)
The countenance of Moses did not shine after his first stay on the mount. Probably this happened because the divine presence was then withdrawn from Israel.
14.
What did Moses tell the people after he came down from the mount? (Exo. 34:31-32)
Moses spoke (unveiled!) to Aaron and all the rulers of Israel, giving them in commandment all which the Lord had told him in Mt. Sinai. Compare Exo. 24:3.
The word returned in Exo. 34:31 suggests that Aaron and Israel had at first fled in terror from Moses with his shining face.
The acts of sprinkling the blood and public declaration of acceptance of the covenant were not done this time, as they had been done when the covenant was first accepted (Exo. 24:3-8). Possibly the reason for this was that this time the covenant was less based on the peoples compliance and more on Gods oath and His grace. Note in Jdg. 2:1 that God declared, I said, I will never break my covenant with you.
Ramm remarks that it is proverbial that second weddings are very short. And thus at this second making of the covenant Moses merely assembled the people and announced the covenant with a minimal statement or two of what was involved.[458]
[458] Ramm, op. cit., p. 201.
15.
When did Moses put on a veil? (Exo. 34:33-35)
He put it on after he finished speaking with them. He removed the veil when he went in to speak with Jehovah (presumably in the tent of meeting). Upon coming out, he spoke with the children of Israel that which was commanded by God. They saw his face shining and unveiled. Then he put the veil upon his face again, until he went in again to speak with God.
The Hebrew word for veil (masweh) is used only in this passage; but its meaning seems obvious from the story. Some interpreters have speculated that the veil was actually a priestly mask, such as priests in Egypt wore. But there is no real evidence for this idea, and it is contrary to the New Testament explanation of the veil.
Paul in 2Co. 3:7-18 says that Moses put the veil on his face so the Israelites would not see the end of the glory that was fading away (2Co. 3:13). The Exodus narrative does not tell us why Moses wore the veil. It surely was not because the Israelites were not allowed to see the glow, or because it was so bright it blinded them. We believe Paul was an inspired interpreter, not just another speculative rabbinic interpreter.
Paul used the fading glory of Moses face as a symbol of the fading glory of the old covenant that God made with Moses. That covenant has passed away, like the glow of Moses face.
The veil also was a symbol of the hardening of the minds of the Israelites in rejecting Christ (2Co. 3:14-15). For to this day, whenever Moses (that is, the writings of Moses, or the law) is read, a veil lieth upon their heart. This veil is removed when they turn to the Lord.
Somewhat as Moses had an unveiled association with the LORD, so believers in Christ, by the Spirit of the Lord, view with unveiled face the glory of the Lord, though beholding it as in a mirror. In the presence of that glory we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1Jn. 3:2).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(1) Hew thee two tables.Something is always lost by sin, even when it is forgiven. The first tables were the work of God (Exo. 32:16). the second were hewn by the hand of Moses.
Of stone.Literally, of stoneshewn, i.e., out of two separate stones, which could not be said of the first tables, since none knew how God had fashioned them.
I will write.It is quite clear, though some have maintained the contrary, that the second tables, equally with the first, were inscribed with the finger of God. (Comp. Deu. 4:13; Deu. 10:2; Deu. 10:4.) It is also quite clear that exactly the same words were written on each.
Upon these tables.Heb., upon the tables.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
XXXIV.
PREPARATIONS FOR A RENEWAL OF THE COVENANT.
(1-4) Before the covenant could be formally reestablished, before Israel could be replaced in the position forfeited by the idolatry of the golden calf, it was necessary that the conditions on which God consented to establish His covenant with them should be set forth afresh. Moses had asked for the return of Gods favour, but had said nothing of these conditions. It is God who insists on them. Hew thee two tables. The moral law must be delivered afreshdelivered in its completenessexactly as at the first (Exo. 34:1), and even the ceremonial law must be reimposed in its main items (Exo. 34:12-26), or no return to favour is possible. Hence Moses is summoned once more to the top of Sinai, where the Law is to be delivered afresh to him, and is ordered to bring with him tables of stone like the former ones, to receive their written contents from Gods hand.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
THE TABLES OF THE COVENANT RENEWED, Exo 34:1-35.
1. Hew thee two tables The others were, in Exo 32:16, called “ the work of God.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Moses Prepares Two Tablets of Stone For The Re-establishment of The Covenant And Goes Up To Meet God ( Exo 34:1-4 ).
Exo 34:1-3
‘And Yahweh said to Moses, “Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke. And be ready by the morning and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself to me there on the top of the Mount. And no man shall come up with you, nor let any man be seen throughout the mount. Nor let the flocks nor the herds feed before that mount.”
The first tablets had been fashioned by God (Exo 32:16; Exo 24:12; Exo 31:18). Now it was Moses who was to fashion the tablets. This in fact would bring out the part that Moses now played in the covenant. Previously the covenant had come from Yahweh directly to the people (Exo 20:1-18). It was all of God, for they were His people. Now it comes through the mediation and intercession of Moses. They owe to him (as we have seen) the fact that they can once more enter the covenant.
But it will still be written by God. And it will still be the same covenant as before, now renewed by this act. We are not told what was written on the tablets, but two tablets written back and front must surely have contained more than the ten ‘words’, unless they were written in very large letters. (Otherwise why not make the tablets smaller. For assuming that they followed the pattern of the previous tablets they were large enough to be able to be thrown down and smashed). But we are told that the ten words, the basis of the covenant, were the essential basis of what was written (Exo 34:28; Deu 10:4).
“ Be ready by the morning.” It would take Moses some time to fashion the tablets suitably, so he was given until the next day. But then he was to make suitable preparations, after which he was to present himself alone to Yahweh on top of the mountain.
But first he must give instructions that no one else enter the mountain, and that no cattle or flocks even come near the mountain. This was an extension of the provisions in Exo 19:21-24. It was clear that some extraordinary appearance of Yahweh was to take place.
Exo 34:4
‘And he hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and Moses rose up early in the morning and went up to Mount Sinai as Yahweh had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone.’
Moses did strictly as Yahweh had commanded him. He hewed two tablets of stone similar to the first. He also made a wooden chest to contain the tablets when he brought them back (Deu 10:1-5). But he did not take this with him. It was left in the camp to receive the tablets when he got back, probably in the Tent of Meeting. (Alternately that may have been a brief description of the Ark of the covenant, in which case it would be made later). They would be a reminder to the people that he was returning and that this time he would come with a confirmed covenant that stood firm.
Then next morning he rose early and went up Mount Sinai alone as Yahweh had commanded him. And with him he took the two empty tablets of stone.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Moses Sees God’s Glory – Note these insightful words by Sadhu Sundar Singh.
“Man also has a natural desire that he should see Him in whom he believes and who loves him. But the Father cannot be seen, for He is by nature incomprehensible, and he who would comprehend Him must have the same nature. But man is a comprehensible creature, and being so cannot see God. Since, however, God is Love and He has given to man that same faculty of love, therefore, in order that that craving for love might be satisfied, He adopted a form of existence that man could comprehend. Thus He became man, and His children with all the holy angels may see Him and enjoy Him (Col. i.15, ii.9). Therefore I said that he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father (John xiv.9-10). And although while in the form of man I am called the Son, I am the eternal and everlasting Father (Isa. ix.6).” [98]
[98] Sadhu Sundar Singh, At the Master’s Feet, trans. Arthur Parker (London: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1922) [on-line]; accessed 26 October 2008; available from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/singh/feet.html; Internet, “I The Manifestation of God’s Presence,” section 2, part 1.
Exo 33:18 And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.
Exo 33:18
[99] Benny Hinn, This is Your Day (Irving, Texas), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.
Exo 33:19 And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.
Exo 33:19
Rom 9:15, “For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”
Exo 33:20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
Exo 33:21 Exo 33:21
Exo 33:22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:
Exo 33:22
Exo 33:22 Comments The Scriptures record other accounts of men standing in the presence of God. Moses stood in the tent in behalf of the children of Israel as their intercessor and spoke with God face to face (Exo 33:9-11) and Elijah stood on Mount Horeb and experienced the presence of God (1 Kings 19:33).
Exo 33:9-11, “And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the LORD talked with Moses. And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door. And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.”
1Ki 19:13, “And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?”
Exo 33:23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.
Chapter 34
Exo 34:6-7
Num 14:18, “The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Glorious Vision
v. 1. And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, v. 2. And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai, and present thyself there to Me in the top of the mount. v. 3. And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before the mount, v. 4. And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first. And Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone, v. 5. And the Lord descended in the cloud, v. 6. And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, v. 7. keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. v. 8. And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped, v. 9. And he said, If now I have found grace in Thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us;
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
THE RESTORATION OF THE TWO TABLES, AND RENEWAL OF THE COVENANT.
EXPOSITION
THE TWO TABLES RENEWED. The fervent and prolonged intercession of Moses had brought about the pardon of the people; and that, together with their repentance and their prayers (Exo 33:7), had been accepted as a renewal of the covenant on their part; but it remained for God to renew the covenant on his part The first step to this was the restoration of the tables, which were essential to the covenant, as being at once the basis of the law and of the ordained worship. To mark, however, that something is always forfeited by sin, even when forgiven, the new tables were made to lose one glory of the firstthey were not shaped by God, as the first were (Exo 32:16), but by Moses.
Exo 34:1
Hew thee two tables of stone. Literally, “of stones“two separate tables, i.e; made of two separate stones. Moses is required to do this with strict justice, since it was by his act that the former tables were broken (Exo 32:19). Upon these tables. Literally,” upon the tables,” which has exactly the same force. The words that were in the first tables. It is quite true that we have not yet been explicitly told what these words were. (See Exo 31:18; Exo 32:15, Exo 32:16, Exo 32:19.) It has been left to our natural intelligence to understand that they must have been the “ten words” uttered in the ears of all the people amid the thunders of Sinai, as recorded in Exo 20:1-19, which are the evident basis of all the later legislation. We have, however, in verse 28, and still more plainly in Deu 10:4, and Deu 5:22, the desired statement. The fiction of a double decalogue, invented by Goethe and supported by Hitzig, and even Ewald, is absolutely without foundation in fact.
Exo 34:2
Be ready in the morning. An interval was required for the hewing of the tables. It was made as short as possible. In the top of the mount. Where he had been with God previously (Exo 19:20; Exo 24:12, Exo 24:18).
Exo 34:3
No man shall come up with thee. This time, no one, not even Joshua, was to accompany Moses. The new manifestation of the glory of God was to be made to him alone. Neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount, etc. Compare the injunctions given in Exo 19:12, Exo 19:13. The present orders are even more stringent.
Exo 34:4
Moses obeys all the directions given him to the letterhews, or causes to be hewn, the two tables, making them as like as he can to the former onesrises early, and ascends the mountain to the appointed spotand takes with him the tables, for God to perform his promise (Exo 34:1)of writing the commandments upon them. It has been questioned whether God did actually write the words upon the second tables; but Kurtz’s arguments upon the point are unanswerable.
HOMILETICS
Exo 34:1-4
The second promulgation of the moral law, by the renewal of the two tables
may teach us
I. THAT ALL COVENANT WITH GOD MUST REST ON THE BASIS OF THE MORAL LAW. Moses had not asked for a renewal of the tables. He had requested the return of God’s favour and the renewal of God’s share of the covenant. It was God who made the restoration of the tables a condition. God, that is, will not divorce favour from obedience, privilege from the keeping of his law. Man desires the rewards that God has to bestow, but is not anxious to have the rewards tied to a certain course of action. God insists on the combination. He can only enter into covenant with those who accept his law as their rule of life. This is not for his own sake, but for theirs. They can only be fitted to enjoy his favour, and the rewards which he has to bestow on them, by leading a life in accordance with his law and acquiring the character which such a life forms in them.
II. THAT THE MORAL LAW IS ETERNAL AND UNALTERABLE. The broken tables must be restored. In restoring them no change must be made. Their very form must resemble as nearly as may be the form of the preceding ones. This, of course, was typical. It foreshadowed the furthernot mere resemblance, butidentity of the words that were to be written on the tables. From first to last, “the words were those that were in the first table” (Exo 34:1). There is no hint of any alteration. Even Christianity changes nothing in the law that is moral. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets,” says our Lord; “I am not come to destroy but to fulfil” (Mat 5:17). No “jot or tittle” of the moral law is to pass away. Even with respect to the Sabbath, which verges upon positive law, nothing is changed but the day of the week, and to a small extent the method of observance. Apostolic writings show us the Decalogue as still binding (Rom 13:9; Eph 6:2; Jas 2:11; etc.).
III. THAT BREAKING THE MORAL LAW IMPOSES ON US FRESH OBLIGATIONS. “Hew thee”literally, “hew for thyself“”two tables of stone,” said the Lord to Moses; repair the loss caused by thine own action. Repentance is no part of man’s original duty to God; but if he once break the moral law, it becomes obligatory on him. Every infraction involves this new duty; some infractions involve more. Fraud involves the duty of restitution; calumny, that of retractation; insult, that of apology; and the like. Each of our sins lays upon us as a new burthen, not only of guilt, but also of labour, to efface it. We had best refrain from evil, even in our own interest, or we may increase our burthen till we sink under it.
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART
Exo 34:1-4
The renewal of God’s covenant.
I. THE FIRST EFFECT OF RECONCILIATION IS THE RE–WRITING OF THE LAW. Moses ascends that God may again inscribe his commandments upon the tables of stone; Jesus, that God may write them upon the fleshly tables of the heart. The sprinkling of the blood is “unto obedience.” We are to be “zealous of good works.”
II. THE AWFULNESS OF GOD‘S HOLINESS MORE EVIDENT IN THE RESTORATION THAN IN THE FIRST GIVING OF THE LAW. Formerly Moses had been accompanied so far by the elders, and further still by Joshua. Now he must go up alone. No man is to be seen throughout the mount. Neither flocks nor herds are to feed before it. The terrors of Sinai awe the heart less than the cross of him who treads the wine-press alone.
III. THE REDEEMER‘S ZEAL. “And Moses rose up early in the morning.” He cannot loiter; for man’s life hangs upon the issue; the world’s cry rings in his ears. “For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace,” etc. (Isa 62:1).
IV. THE MEDIATOR MUST MOULD THE HEART TO RECEIVE GOD‘S LAW. “He hewed two tables of stone, like unto the first.” The power of Christ’s love must cut between us and sin, and give again the form man wore when he came from the hands of God. We must experience the circumcision of Christ. Christ’s work may be measured by the heart’s tender receptivity for the re-writing of God’s law.
V. THERE MUST BE UNION BY FAITH WITH CHRIST IN HIS RISEN LIFE. He “took in his hand the two tables of stone.” We pass up with Jesus into the presence of God. That the law may be written upon the heart, our life must be hid with Christ in God.U.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Exo 34:1-4
The second set of tables.
Jehovah graciously answered the supplications of Moses (Exo 33:12-23) so far as it was possible to answer them. Supplications may be very importunate, and, therefore, so far well pleasing to God, and yet at the same time they may be faulty in two respects: first, they may ask for things which it is impossible altogether to grant; and, secondly, they may omit from the field of view, certain other things which form a necessary accompaniment of every Divine gift. In all his supplications, Moses said nothing about these broken tables; it would be too much to say that they were never in his thoughts. But whether in his thoughts or not, they assuredly had to be considered and provided for. Moses had asked for the presence of God to go with Israel; and the presence of God meant for one thing the commandments of God. Furthermore, all the elaborate furniture of the tabernacle had for the centre around which it was gathered, these very tables of stone. When Moses broke them, he broke the holiest thing in all Israel’s belongings; these tables, appointed to rest within the ark, and underneath the cherubim. No word of censure indeed is uttered against Moses for having broken them; but it does not therefore follow that he is to be praised for having broken them. The action, so to speak, was one to be regarded neither with praise nor blame, but simply as an inevitable result of Moses’ sudden and violent wrath. When Moses broke the tables, he was not in a mood of mind for considering anything but the monstrous transgression before his eyes. What had happened to the fragments we are not told; except this much, that they were no longer available. All that Jehovah does is simply to command from Moses the preparation of new tablets. As Moses prepares them, he may safely be left to his own thoughts. Whatever lesson he needed in respect of self-control, the opportunity was given him to learn. Opportunity was also given to learn the need of being continually on the watch for manifestations of human weakness and instability. If Moses was in so many things the type of Christ in respect of mediatorial office, it was, alas! also true that he was unlike Christ in respect of penetrating insight into human nature. Moses was not like Christ; it could not be said of him that he knew what was in man.Y.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Exo 34:1-10, Exo 34:28
Renewal of the tables, and fourth intercession.
One more mighty effort of intercession, and Moses will bear away the blessing which he seeks. It needs, however, that it be a mighty one. The covenant is not yet restored in its integrity. The people’s sin is not yet perfectly forgiven. God, indeed, has promised to go with them, but he has not said, as of old, “I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God” (Exo 6:7). The new relations are not those of perfected friendship. They are moreover, unstable. New transgressions of the people may at any moment upset them. Moses, accordingly, would not only have the covenant renewedrestored in its old completeness and integritythe last trace of the Divine displeasure wiped awaybut would have God give him a pledge of grace beyond anything he has yet receiveda pledge that he will show great forbearance with the people: that he will not deal summarily with them, or cast them off, on account of backslidings which he now perceives to be inevitable (Exo 34:9). It was a high thing to ask: too high, Moses may have thought, for him to be able to attain to it. If he did, it could only be as the result of an earnestness, a perseverance, and a sublimity in intercesssion beyond everything of which he had yet felt himself capable. The strength he needed, however, was not to be withheld from him. He had already, though, probably, without this being present to his mind as a motive, put himself in the way of getting it, by asking for a vision of the Divine glory. From this would flow into his soul a spiritual might which would make “all things possible” to him. By sheer power of prayer, he would obtain what he desired. Jehovah, on his side, was too well pleased with his servant’s zeal and devotion, too willing to be entreated of him, too entirely in accord with the object of his supplication, not readily to grant him the opportunity of pressing his request.
I. JEHOVAH‘S “COME UP HITHER” (Exo 34:1-4).
1. The command to hew out tables (Exo 34:1). Formerly, it was God himself who furnished the tables on which the law was written (Exo 32:16). Now, the tables are to be provided by Moses. This may have had reference to the facts
(1) that it was Moses who had destroyed the former tables (Exo 32:19); and
(2) that it was by the mediation of Moses that the covenant was being renewed. It was a suitable reward for his intercession, that God should give him this honour of supplying the tables on which the covenant terms were to be inscribed.
View the command to hew out tables as
(1) Retrospective. God had already promised that his presence should go with Israel (Exo 33:14). This implied, on the part of the people, return to their obedience. The law is unalterable. God can walk with men only as they are willing to walk with him in the way of his commands. The tables testified to the unchangingness of the obligation.
(2) Anticipative. It had in view the fact that, through Moses’ intercession, the covenant was about to be restored.
(3) Promissory. It gave Moses encouragement to entreat for its restoration.
2. The command to ascend the mount (Exo 34:2). The summons to ascend the mount was,
(1) An answer to prayer”Shew me thy glory” (Exo 33:18).
(2) A preparation for vision.
(3) An opportunity for intercession.
3. The command to preserve the sanctity of the mount (Exo 34:3). This was to be done by keeping man and beast from approaching it. Moses was to ascend alone. The commanda parallel to that in Exo 19:12-13has for its end the warning back of intruders from what, for the time being, is “holy ground” (cf. Exo 3:5). Other reasons are, that there might be
(1) No interruption of communion.
(2) No distraction in intercession.
(3) No injury done by the manifestation of the Divine glory.
“The manifested glory of the Lord would so surely be followed by the destruction of man that even Moses needed to be protected before it” (Exo 33:21, Exo 33:22).
II. THE NAME REVEALED (Exo 19:4-8).
(1) Jehovah “passed by before him” (Exo 19:5), i.e; gave him the glimpse of his glory promised in Exo 33:22, Exo 33:23.
(2) He “proclaimed his name”i.e; made known to Moses the essence of his character. This was the higher revelation. The other is only alluded to; this is dwelt on and expanded (Exo 33:6, Exo 33:7).
1. The name itself. Note here in regard to it
(1) It unites mercy and justice.
(2) The merciful attributes preponderate.
(3) The word which syllables it is “Love.”
Love is the union of goodness and holiness. The history of revelation has been but the spelling out of this name. Christ is the perfect embodiment of it.
2. The effects on Moses.
(1) It awed him (Exo 33:8).
(2) It encouraged him. It gave iron a new ground of confidence in entreaty (Exo 33:9).
(3) It strengthened him. Cf. the chorus of the archangels in Goethe’s “Faust”
“Though none may fathom theethy sight
Upon the angels power bestows,” etc.
III. THE COVENANT RESTORED (Exo 33:9, 27, 28).
1. The intercession. This fourth and last intercession presents us with several noteworthy features.
(1) It was very prolonged. The account here is summary; but Moses tells us in Deuteronomy (Exo 9:25), that he “fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights as at the first,” and prayed earnestly that the people might not be destroyed (cf. verse 28).
(2) It included intercession for Aaron (Deu 9:20).
(3) It is marked by a deep perception of the root of depravity in the people’s nature. Moses has no longer the same optimistic views regarding them as when he disputed with God the necessity of giving them further warning about not approaching the mount (Exo 19:23). Note how, in the first intercession, it is the people’s danger; in the second, the people’s guilt; and in the last, the people’s depravity, which is chiefly before the intercessor’s mind. He here pleads the innate tendency as a reason why God should deal mercifully with them (verse 9). Human nature does not improve on closer inspection. But there is weakness as well as sin in its condition. The Divine ruler may be trusted to make the requisite allowances (cf. Gen 8:21).
(4) It is markedand this is the outstanding circumstance in connection with itby the degree in which Moses is now able to identify himself with the people for whom he intercedes. “Let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us . And pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance” (verse 9). More than ever he feels himself one with his nation. Intercession has perfected sympathy. But not intercession alone. It may be inferred that no act had more to do with this result than the supreme act of self-devotion, already considered, in which he expressed his willingness to die, and, if need be, to be blotted out of God’s book, for the salvation of the people. In that amazing act, the last traces of selfishness must have perished. He has given himself for Israel, and is thenceforth one with it. Subsequent intercessions can but develop, and give clearer and fuller expression to the sense of unity with his people born within him in that supreme hour in his experience. Sinful as the people are, accordingly, Moses, in his present entreaty does not shrink from including himself among them. “Our iniquity””our sin.” The just takes part with the unjust. He makes their sin his, and pleads for its forgiveness. The worse they show themselves, the more earnestly he holds by them, and endeavours to sustain them by his prayers. If sympathy be a qualification for the task of mediation, Moses thus possesses it. His intercession, in this respect, throws striking lights on Christ’s.
2. The success. The prolonged, fervent, and sympathetic intercession of Moses did not fail of its reward. “The Lord,” he tells afterward, “hearkened unto me at that time also” (Deu 9:19). Nothing was wanting to the completeness of his success. The last frown had. disappeared from the countenance of Jehovah. Covenant relations were perfectly restored. The people were reinstated in privilege. No wonder that the mediator’s face “shone” as he descended from the mount! We, too, have an intercessor whom the Father “heareth always” (Joh 11:42).J.O.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Exo 34:1-4. Hew thee two tables of stone, &c. See Exo 34:28. God being reconciled through Moses’s intercession, the covenant is renewed.
REFLECTIONS.1. Moses is commanded to hew new tables for God to write upon, instead of those which were broken. Note; (1.) Wherever God through Christ is reconciled to a soul, there he will anew engrave on the heart the law which sin had utterly defaced. We shall be under a dangerous delusion, if we promise ourselves peace with God, and live in the allowed transgression of his commandments. (2.) Whatever pains ministers may take to hew the table of the heart, it is God alone that can write his law there.
2. He goes up without delay into the mount of God, while the people with fear and trembling stand at a distance, and are left to lament for a season their late rebellion against God. Note; (1.) We can never be in too great haste to make up the breaches between God and our souls. (2.) Though God forgive our sins, we ought not to forget them.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
THIRD SECTION
The New Tables of the Law for the People prone to a Hierarchy. Clearer Revelation of Gods Grace. Sterner Prohibition of Idolatry. Stricter Commands concerning the Passover, the First-born, the Sabbath, and the Feasts. Return of Moses with the Tables. Moses Shining Face and his Veil
Exo 34:1-35.
A.The new stone tables for the divine writing
Exo 34:1-4
1And Jehovah said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these [the] tables the words that were in [on] the first tables, which thou brakest. 2And be ready in the morning, and come [go] up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in [on] the top of the mount. 3And no man shall come [go] up with thee, neither let any [and also let no] man be seen throughout [in] all the mount; neither let the flocks nor [also let not theflocks and the] herds feed before that mount. 4And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as Jehovah had commanded him, and took [him: and he took] in his hand the [hand] two tables of stone.
B.Jehovahs grand proclamation of Jehovahs grace on mount sinaihenceforth an accompaniment of the tables of the law
Exo 34:5-10
5And Jehovah descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed 6the name of Jehovah. And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah God, merciful [Jehovah, a God merciful] and gracious, long-suffering, 7and abundant in goodness [kindness] and truth, Keeping mercy [kindness] for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will [sin: but he will]1 by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children [of fathers upon children] and upon the [upon] childrens children, unto 8[upon] the third and to [upon] the fourth generation. And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward [himself to] the earth, and worshipped. 9And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Jehovah, let my Lord [the Lord], I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance. 10And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of Jehovah: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.
C.The golden calf an occasion for a most stringent prohibition of intercourse with the heathen canaanites. The more definite establishment of the Israelitish commonwealth in its negative relations
Exo 34:11-17
11Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before [from before] thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 12Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for [become] a snare in the midst of thee: 13But ye shall destroy [tear down] their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves [Asherim]:2 14For thou shalt worship no other God: for Jehovah whose name is Jealous, is [Jehovahhis name is Jealous;he is] a jealous God: 15Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do [and] sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; 16And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods. 17Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
D.Leading positive features of the religious commonwealth of Israel. Supplementary laws likewise occasioned by the newly arisen necessity of emphasizing the distinctions
Exo 34:18-24
18The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee in the time [set time] of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt. 19All that openeth the matrix [womb] is mine: and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male [all thy male cattle, the first-born of ox and sheep]. 20But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the first-born of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty. 21Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing [ploughing] time and in harvest thou shalt rest. 22And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the first-fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the years end. 23Thrice in the year shall all your men-children 24[thy males] appear before the Lord God [Jehovah], the God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before [from before] thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go [goest] up to appear before Jehovah thy God thrice in the year.
E.The three symbolic principal rules for theocratic culture
Exo 34:25-26
25Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven [leavened bread]; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning. 26The first of the first-fruits of thy land [ground] thou shalt bring unto the house of Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not seethe [boil] a kid in his [its] mothers milk.
F.Moses lofty and inspired mood at the renewed giving of the law. Contrast between the present and the other descent from the mountain
Exo 34:27-35
27And Jehovah said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. 28And he was there with Jehovah forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant the ten commandments. 29And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of [of the] testimony in Moses hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist [knew] not that the skin of his face shone3 while he talked 30[because of his talking] with him. And when [And] Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold [and behold], the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him. 31And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with [spake unto] them. 32And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh; and he gave them in 33commandment all that Jehovah had spoken with him in mount Sinai. And till Moses had done speaking [And Moses left off speaking] with them, he [and he] put a veil on his face. 34But when Moses went in before Jehovah to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out. And he came out and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded. 35And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses face shone: and Moses put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[Exo 34:7. The A. V. here entirely neglects the accentuation, and thus almost creates a paradox out of these antithetic clauses. By translating as a relative clause (and that will, etc.), it makes the impression that the same construction is continued, whereas not only does the Athnach precede it, but, instead of the participle of the preceding clause, we have here a finite verb without the Relative Pronoun. The A. V., moreover, makes the chief division of the verse before visiting, contrary to the Hebrew accentuation, which, quite in accordance with the sense, connects the last clause with the declaration: he will not clear, etc.; the confusion of thought is thus made complete.Tr.].
[Exo 34:13. The word , here and elsewhere rendered groves in the A. V., always refers either to a heathen goddess or to images representing hercommonly the latter, especially when (as here and most frequently) it is used in the plural (). It must denote the goddess, e.g. in 1Ki 15:13, whore it is said: She had made an idol for Asherah (A. V. in a grove). This goddess sometimes seems to be identical with Ashtaroth. For particulars vid the Lexicons and Encyclopedias. That the word cannot mean grove is sufficiently shown by such passages as 2Ki 23:10, where the Asherim are said to have been set up in every high hill and under every green tree; and 2Ki 17:6, where it is said that Josiah brought out the Asherah from the house of the Lord.Tr.].
[Exo 34:29. The verb occurs only in this section in Kal; it is used once (Psa 69:31) in Hiphil, where it means to have horns, while the noun ordinarily means horn. Hence originated the Latin translation of the Vulgate cornuta, horned; and this accounts for the notion, incorporated in art representations of Moses, that he had horns growing out of his face. The point of resemblance is in the appearance of the rays of a luminary shooting out like horns.Tr.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
This chapter contains the acme and bloom of the Mosaic revelation, and so, of the three middle books of the Pentateuch. In the first place, the renewed law is wholly removed into the light of grace by Jehovahs grand proclamation of the significance of the name JehovahJehovahs own proclamation on Sinai itself concerning the very name Jehovah, that it means that He is a God merciful, gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in grace and truth, etc.:all this most prominently; but for this very reason, next in prominence, and on account of His righteousness, that He is a punisher of all sin and guilt
Next, the Israelitish community is put on its guard against the danger of wrong intercourse with the Canaanites; and everything severe that is ordained against these is founded on a religious and moral ground. In contrast with the corruptions of the heathen worship the outlines of the worship designed for Israel are then summarily given, and finally the great blessing of peace secured by this worship is proclaimed. In this attempt to give the main features of the chapter a universal application, the specific precepts inserted in Exo 34:25-26, create a difficulty. We regard them as symbolic precepts, requiring a strict form of worship, sanctified culture, humane festivity free from luxury. The last section, however, presents unmistakably the real glory of the Mosaic covenant in Moses shining face (vid.2Co 3:7).
a. The New Stone Tables for the Divine Writing. Exo 34:1-4.
Exo 34:1. And Jehovah said unto Moses. Keil holds that Moses has already restored the covenant-relation through his intercession, according to Exo 33:14. But if we refer to the first ratification of the covenant, we find that it presupposed the preparation of the tables of the law and a covenant-feast. Since now nothing is said of a new covenant-feast, Keils assumption may in some sense be admitted. For the covenant is not simply restored; it is at the same time modified. The law is now made to rest on pardon, and is accompanied by Jehovahs proclamation of grace; yet nevertheless in many of its provisions it is made stricter in this chapter. The relation between the tabernacle and the camp is made more hierarchical; and in relation to His form of revelation, Jehovah distinguishes more sharply between His face and the display of His essence. But with the notion of the face4 is introduced also a further development of revelation, as also with the proclamation of grace. Jehovahs command, Hew thee two tables of stone, leads Keil to express the opinion that the first tables, both as to writing and material, originated with God, as contrasted with any co-operation from Moses, i.e. that they were made by God in an entirely supernatural way. This literalness of interpretation is made to receive support from the distinction between tables of stone (Exo 24:12; Exo 31:18) and tables of stones (Exo 34:1; Exo 34:4 of this chapter).5 Hengstenberg and Baum-garten have in a similar way vexed themselves with this variation of the letter. It is barely possible that the stony hardness of the law was meant to be more strongly emphasized in the second case than in the first.
Exo 34:3. And no man.The sharp command not to approach the mountain is, it is true, substantially a repetition of the previous one; but it is to be considered that the mountain after the conclusion of the covenant had been made accessible up to a certain height to Aaron, his two oldest sons, and the seventy elders of Israelnay, that they had been invited by Jehovah to celebrate there a feast. This is now changed since the sin in the matter of the golden calf.
Exo 34:4. And Moses hewed two tables of stone.Was he obliged to do it himself, because he had broken the first, as Rashi holds? Or, was he not rather obliged to do it before the eyes of the people, in order by this act to give the people another sermon? The tables were designed for the ten words (Exo 34:1)a truth which ought to be self-evident, though Gthe and Hitzig have conjectured that the precepts of Exo 34:12-26 are meant; vid. Keils note II., p. 239. The Epistle of Barnabas (Epistola XIV.) takes quite another view, and gives an allegorical interpretation of the difference between the first tables and the second. It was not till now that the ten words of the instruction (thorah, law), the angelic words (Act 7:53), really became words of stony ordinance.
*b. The grand Proclamation of Grace on Sinai, henceforth an Accompaniment of the Tables of the Law. Exo 34:5-10.
Exo 34:5. And Jehovah descended.This is the heading. Then in Exo 34:6 first follows the fulfilment of the promise that He would let all His goodness pass before him. The narrative goes beyond this in the grandly mysterious expression, Jehovah passed by before him. Then follows the proclamation. Here much depends on the construction. Would Jehovah Himself call out Jehovah, Jehovah? This is a form of expression appropriate to human adoration, but not to the mouth of Jehovah Himself. We therefore construe thus: and Jehovah proclaimeda rendering favored by the fact that we are thus obliged to make a decided pause after the words, Jehovah passed by before him.6 Jehovah, then, has expounded the name Jehovah on Mount Sinai; and what is the proclamation? It is not said, Jehovah is the Eternal one, but Jehovah as the Strong one () is Lord of time, in that He remains the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, in His faithfulness. His loving-kindness () branches out in compassion (He is ) on the miserable, grace (He is ) towards the guilty, long-suffering towards human weakness and perverseness. But He is rich in His loving-kindness and in the reconciliation of it with His truth, or faithfulness (). His kindness He keeps unto the thousands (beginning with one pardoned man); in His truth He takes away (as Judge, Expiator, and Sanctifier) guilt, unfaithfulness, and sins; but He also lets not the least offence pass unpunished, but visits, in final retribution, the guilt of the transgression of fathers upon children and childrens children, upon the third and the fourth generationgrand-children and great-grand-children, vid. Exodus 20. As Elijah afterwards covered his face with his mantle at the still small voice, Moses at these words quickly prostrates himself on the ground. Thus the presentiment and the anticipation of the Gospel casts the strongest heroes of the law upon their faces in homage, vid. Luk 9:30-31. The petition which Moses feels encouraged by this great revelation of grace to offer is also a proof that the first covenant relation is not yet quite restored. He asks that Jehovah Himself, as the Lord () may go with them. This must mean, as a mighty, stern ruler of the stiff-necked people, in distinction from the angel of Jehovahs face; this is one point. But he then asks that God, as the Lord, may go with them in the very midst of them, not merely go before them at a distance; this is the second point, little in harmony with the first. For it is again in a more definite form, as in the petition, let me see thy facea petition for New Testament relations, a petition for the presence of Jehovah as the guiding Lord in the midst of the congregation. The addition, for it is a stiff-necked people, would be a poor reason for the request, were it not this time an excuse for the peoples sin on the ground of their natural slavery to sin, their inborn wretchedness, which makes it necessary that the personal presence of the Lord should be vouchsafed in order to overcome and control it. The thing aimed at in his petition is perfect fellowship; hence he says, Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and make us thine inheritance. He has in mind an ideal servile relation bordering on the N. T. idea of adoption, but one more likely to be realized in the N. T. hierarchy, just as the Platonic ideal state is realized in monasticism. Jehovahs answer now does not point to a complete restoration of the violated covenant, but as little does it involve an immediate promise of the new covenant; He describes rather His future rule as a constant, continuous establishment of a covenant ( , behold, I am making a covenant), a transition, therefore, from the old covenant, which already as a legal covenant has been violated, to a new covenant. And this is the means by which He will establish it: Before all thy people I will do marvels. The miracles are by this description put above all others that have been done in all the earth. All the people in the midst of which thou art, it is said in contrast with Moses desire that Jehovah should be in the midst of them, shall see the work of Jehovah, how terribly great that is which I shall accomplish with thee. Thus Moses himself is prominently elevated and appointed to be the animating soul of the people; the sublime and terrifying miracles of Jehovah are to proceed from Jehovahs intercourse with him as the administrator of the law. Doubtless the sight which the people are to have of these miracles is designed to be a salutary one; but the strong expression indicates the decisive solemnity of the sight. Keil makes prominent among the terrible works of Jehovah the overthrow of all the powers that hostilely resist the kingdom of God.
Keil says: This sermon on the name of the Lord, as Luther calls it, discloses to Moses the inmost essence of Jehovah. It proclaims that God is love. But in this way the old covenant is made the perfect new one. It is true, however, that here compassion, grace, and long-suffering are combined by means of kindness and truthnot merely in addition to kindness and truthwith holiness and justice, and that grace here appears in the foreground. Keil also rightly notices the collective expression, it is a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity, etc. Keils remark, moreover, that the reference made to the natural ground of the sin mitigates the wrath, is not Augustinian.
According to Knobel Jehovah is to call out His name to Moses only in order that he may by means of it recognize Jehovahs appearance. Also he makes mean, He will not leave entirely unpunished.7 Exo 34:9-28 he calls a repetition, and therefore ascribes to the second narrator.
*c. The Golden Calf an Occasion for a most Stringent Prohibition of Intercourse with the Heathen Canaanites. The more Definite Establishment of the Israelitish Commonwealth negatively considered. Exo 34:11-17
To the religion of the law, supplemented by the proclamation of grace, corresponds the religious community, destined to be the upholders of this religion. A more exact fixing of their relation than that laid down in Exo 23:23 has become necessary on account of the affair of the golden calf. In the paragraph before us this community is defined chiefly in a negative way. It has been already said, that Jehovah would drive out the Canaanites (vid. the names, Exo 23:23), but not all at once. This may well refer to a destruction of them in war, but not to a destruction of them in so far as they have submitted themselves to the civil law. We know how, as being strangers, they are even put under the protection of the law. But inasmuch as they may tend to ruin Israel with their heathenish abominations, all intimate alliances with them are forbidden at the outset. Religion is the thing here chiefly concerned. The signs of a public heathen worship, especially the wooden pillars of the voluptuous worship, as well as the images of Asherah, they are to extirpate; they are to destroy the seductive symbols wherever found. There is here no trace of a persecution of private religious opinions and devotions. Moreover, the reason for that severity is given in Exo 34:14 : it is to secure the adoration of the true God, who is jealous of His relation to Israel. Over against the dark, voluptuous religious worship is presented the pure image of conjugal fellowship between Jehovah and His people (vid. Keil II., p. 243)a representation growing more and more definite all the way through the Scriptures to the Apocalypse, and introduced as early as Exo 20:5, where Jehovah is called [jealous] in the giving of the lawan expression which twice recurs here. As heathen idolatry is in itself to be regarded as whoredom, i.e. as apostasy from the living God, so the Canaanitish heathenism particularly has developed within itself the consequences of moral whoredom. But Israel may become involved in this double whoredom, especially in two ways. In the first place, by taking part in the seductive sacrificial meals of the heathen, to which they will be invited, as afterwards such participation became a snare to the people at Shittim (Numbers 25); but especially by intermarriages between Israelitish sons and heathen women, such as afterwards caused Solomon to fall. The dangerous influence of female bigotry on the religion of the men, the dangerousness, therefore, of mingling religions in marriage, is thus early expressed with the strongest words of warning. An impure marriageoften induced by lustful views of spiritual Asherah-imageseasily works destruction to the archetype of pure marriage, the relation of Jehovah to His congregation. Therefore also the law here expressly treats of the setting up of molten gods, as being a transition to the lapse into complete idolatry. On the notion of whoredom in the religious sense, as well as on the names Asherah and Astarte, comp. especially Winer, Realwrterbuch. That the name Asherah denotes the idol-image of Astarte, the Syrian goddess, who was worshipped with voluptuous rites, is proved by the fact that it stands together with other monuments, and can be destroyed; but whether the form of it suggests Phallic worship is not determined; at all events the name might indicate something of the sort, as containing an allusion to lust.8 The LXX. and Luther [so A. V.] have rendered the word by grove (idol-grove).
d. Leading Positive Features of the Religious Commonwealth of Israel. Exo 34:18-24
The leading features of the theocratic commonwealth are sacred feasts, resting on the facts and doctrines which have given the community an organized existence. This section insists on the three chief feasts of Israel as essential to the life of the Israelitish commonwealth. But why is the first feast, which is a double feast, called the feast of unleavened bread rather than the Passover? The unleavened bread was the symbol of separation from Egypt and heathenisma separation combined with abstemiousness; for this reason probably this idea is here made prominent, since the thing in point is to establish a perpetual opposition to heathenism. With this there is also united the fundamental law of the sacrifice of renunciation. With the claim actually made by Jehovah on all the male firstborn is asserted His right to all that are born, as being represented by the first-born; or, conversely, the entire dependence of the people, with all their possessions, on Jehovah. This consecration of the first-born has three leading forms. The first-born son is by birth a priest; he must therefore be released by an offering from the service legally required of priests. Also the first-born ass (this code of laws knows nothing of horses) must be either ransomed or killed. The first-born of cattle is the choicest offering; the calf, moreover, as an offering from among the larger animals, forms a suggestive contrast to the calf as an idol. It is then intimated, furthermore, that other offerings, besides those of the first-born, are to be brought, in the expression: None shall appear before me empty.
The first distinction between the people of God and heathendom involves renunciation of the world; the second, labor. In heathendom labor and holidays are confusedly blended; in the theocracy a clear contrast is made. Labor is marked by the time devoted to it, the weekdays. The Sabbath, as the seventh day, marks consecrated labor which has reached its goal in a holiday. After seven weeks, or seven times seven days, comes next the second feast, the feast of weeks, Pentecost. The grain harvest, which began after the Passover-Sabbath, is now finished; the feast of harvest is celebrated as the annual festival of the blessing of labor. The feast which embodies the highest form of theocratic enjoyment, the feast of the fruit-gathering and the vintage, or the feast of tabernacles, is here only briefly mentioned. It forms a contrast to the first feast of harvest; for Pentecost is the feast of the daily bread which is obtained by labor and at last by reaping, and two specimens of which are laid on the altar. The feast of tabernacles is the feast of the gathering up of the blessing poured out by God in gifts which contribute to joy and prosperity. This festival of joy and blessing is the real vital oil of the theocratic community. It is, however, a condition of the three feasts, that all the men (voluntary attendance of women and children not being excluded) must appear three times a year before Jehovah, i.e. at the sanctuary. There is something grand in the assurance of the security which the land will enjoy, in that no danger will accrue from the going up to the feasts. But never was the nation stronger and more warlike than when it had in this way obtained concentration and inspiration (vid. Exo 12:15; Exo 13:6; Exo 13:12; Exo 23:17; Leviticus 16, 23; Numbers 29). Knobel records only one contradiction in this section.
e. The Three Symbolic Principal Rules for Theocratic Culture. Exo 34:25-26
The first of these main rules requires first of all that the feast of unleavened bread shall be kept pure, and so stands for the duty of keeping worship in general pure; it is marked by the precept requiring all leaven to be removed before the time when the passover was slain, and not less by the requirement that the remains of the passover must be burnt, not desecrated by common use, and not allowed to pass over, as an element of desecration, into the abstemious season of unleavened bread.
The second main rule requires that labor and enjoyment shall be kept sacred, and is marked by the requirement to bring, first of all, the first-fruits into the house of Jehovah. It has a special relation to the second feast.
The third main rule requires that the enjoyment of food shall be kept sacred by the avoidance of inhuman and luxurious forms of it (vid. Exo 23:19; Deu 14:21). This indicates a special relation to the third feast.
f. Moses Lofty and Inspired Mood at the Renewed Giving of the Law. Contrast between the Present and the Former Descent from the Mountain. Exo 34:27-35
Here is to be observed, first of all, a difference in the law which is given. The ten commandments were originally addressed directly to Israel, and through Israel designed for mankind, as the immutable fundamental laws of morality, which are now also repeated on the new tables, Exo 34:28. But Moses received the fundamental laws of the Israelitish theocracy for Israel; before the conclusion of the covenant he received the outlines of the three-fold code of laws (Exo 20:22-23), which, it is implied, are also written down; but after the conclusion of the covenant he received the ordinance concerning the tabernacle, 2531. Now, however, he is commanded to write down also the more minute regulations for the theocratic community, which have been shown to be necessary by the apostasy of the people, Exo 34:11-26. We may therefore distinguish three classes: (1) The general ethical law of the ten commandments; (2) the general legislation for the Jewish national theocracy; (3) the special regulations made necessary by the alteration of the covenant, in which connection it is not to be overlooked that the covenant is here defined as a covenant which Jehovah has made with Moses and with Israel; more positively than before, therefore, is the covenant now made dependent on the mediation of Moses. The stay of forty days and nights on the mountain is then only briefly mentioned. Observe, first, the sacred number of forty days, a repetition of the first forty days (Exo 24:18); next, the circumstance that Moses neither ate nor drank, one that recurs in the sacred history of the Old and the New Testament (1Ki 19:8; Matthew 4), and is to be conceived as indicating a total self-forgetfulness as regards the ordinary need of nourishment (vid. Comm. on Matthew, Exodus 4); finally, the specific statement that Moses again wrote the ten commandments on the tableswhich, literally taken, may be understood as different from the first account of the writing, but, according to the spirit, as a supplementary interpretation of the first report. Keil makes Jehovah the subject of he wrote [in Exo 34:28], referring to Exo 34:1.
When Moses now came down from the mountain, his face shone, or beamed, without his knowing it. A strongly materialistic conception (such as Keils) may regard this as a reflection of the outward splendor of the glory that had appeared to him; but his face was covered by Gods hand. Doubtless the resplendence is a reflection of the divine splendor, produced through the agency of the soul, this splendor, together with the law, having passed through his soul, filled it, and put it into an elevated mood. Thus Christ in a higher sense came with divine power from the mount of beatitudes (Mat 8:1 sqq.); so, in some degree at least, preachers of the Gospel ought to come down from their pulpit eminence; but how far they fall short of it in many cases!
The great difference between the lofty standpoint of the Law-giver and that of the people at the foot of the mountain becomes evident in the fact that not only the common Israelites are terrified by the splendor, and fear to approach him, but even Aaron also; and that Moses is obliged to encourage him and the rulers of the congregation to come near to talk with him, and in this way to inspire the people also with courage to approach in order to hear Jehovahs precepts.
After giving the message Moses puts a veil on his face, in order to make it possible to hold familiar intercourse with the people. This continued for a period of time not definitely stated; when Moses entered the provisional tabernacle and came out again to proclaim Jehovahs directions, he uncovered his face, but afterwards he veiled it again. This, too, serves as a type for those who hold office in the New Testament Church. Christian people should not be frightened away by the splendor of the priest or preacher, and a separation thus effected between the officials and the congregation.
This narrative, however, became a symbol of two things: first, of the glory of the Mosaic law and covenant (2Co 3:7 sqq.); secondly, of the predominantly slavish fear of the people, which makes them unable, in the exercise of an enthusiastic devotion, to understand Moses mood and to get a view of the spiritual nature of his law. The veil remains even to-day, as in Pauls time, on the face of Jews proper, and, in a degree, of Judaizing Christianseven on the face of those who imagine that they are far beyond the spirit of this law. In Moses case we cannot, with Keil, call it a symbol of the veiling of the saving truths revealed in the Old Testament, for Moses always took the covering away, after he had spoken to the people; but it is a symbol of the great distance between the Old Testament revelation and the popular Judaismbetween two things which modern theology loves to identify. Knobel here records again several contradictions.
Footnotes:
[1][Exo 34:7. The A. V. here entirely neglects the accentuation, and thus almost creates a paradox out of these antithetic clauses. By translating as a relative clause (and that will, etc.), it makes the impression that the same construction is continued, whereas not only does the Athnach precede it, but, instead of the participle of the preceding clause, we have here a finite verb without the Relative Pronoun. The A. V., moreover, makes the chief division of the verse before visiting, contrary to the Hebrew accentuation, which, quite in accordance with the sense, connects the last clause with the declaration: he will not clear, etc.; the confusion of thought is thus made complete.Tr.].
[2][Exo 34:13. The word , here and elsewhere rendered groves in the A. V., always refers either to a heathen goddess or to images representing hercommonly the latter, especially when (as here and most frequently) it is used in the plural (). It must denote the goddess, e.g. in 1Ki 15:13, whore it is said: She had made an idol for Asherah (A. V. in a grove). This goddess sometimes seems to be identical with Ashtaroth. For particulars vid the Lexicons and Encyclopedias. That the word cannot mean grove is sufficiently shown by such passages as 2Ki 23:10, where the Asherim are said to have been set up in every high hill and under every green tree; and 2Ki 17:6, where it is said that Josiah brought out the Asherah from the house of the Lord.Tr.].
[3][Exo 34:29. The verb occurs only in this section in Kal; it is used once (Psa 69:31) in Hiphil, where it means to have horns, while the noun ordinarily means horn. Hence originated the Latin translation of the Vulgate cornuta, horned; and this accounts for the notion, incorporated in art representations of Moses, that he had horns growing out of his face. The point of resemblance is in the appearance of the rays of a luminary shooting out like horns.Tr.].
[4][Lange refers, in what is here said, more especially to the preceding chapter, Exo 34:14 sqq., where (literally my face) is rendered in A. V. my presence.Tr.].
[5][So according to the literal translation of the Hebrew.Tr.].
[6][This change is secured by simply neglecting the Masoretic punctuation, and making the Jehovah following proclaimed the subject of the verb. But there seems to be hardly sufficient reason for the change. The repetition of the name is, on the contrary, natural and impressive, and need not in this connection be made to seem at all like an expression of mere awe.Tr.]
[7][This seems like a very questionable translation, since the Absolute Infinitive in a negative clause strengthens, rather than weakens the negation. But there are some cases in which the reverse seems to be the case, e.g. Jer 30:11, where we have precisely the same phraseology as here in Exo 34:7, and where the A. V. translates, Yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct tbee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished, . The context makes this translation natural, but not necessary. A more plausible case is Amo 9:8, I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy ( ) the house of Jacob. Here it is necessary to give the Inf. Abs. a qualifying force; but hero the negative precedes the Inf. Abs.Tr.]
[8][Gesenius finds no such meaning in the root , or , the radical significance of which he defines as happiness, fortune. Hence he regards as = Fortuna. Frst, however, assumes as the radical meaning to be united, sc. by love; and Lunge probably refers to this derivation.Tr.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The Lord having in his great mercy received Israel again into favour, commenceth the treaty afresh, which had been interrupted by their idolatry. Moses is commanded to prepare two tables of stone, and to come up to God into the mount: there the Lord proclaims himself a gracious God, in covenant with his people. God renews his promise of Canaan: appoints certain offerings, which the people are to offer: in the return of Moses to the people, the skin of his face shone. These are the contents of this Chapter.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Observe: the first tables, as well as the writing upon them, were wholly of the Lord. But these must now be hewn, and prepared by Moses. Is not the spiritual sense of it this? The original law, in the time of man’s innocency, was written in the tables of the heart; and both the tables and the writing, were from the Lord. But when man by sin had broken the law, the ministry of man, like Moses, is made use of, but the law itself, even the scriptures of truth, are still of God. Reader! what a mercy is it that when you and I have by sin broken God’s law, the Lord again writes his law, by his Spirit, upon our hearts. Jer 31:31-34 , with Heb 8:10 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 34:3
St. John of the Cross remarks that by this verse the soul is taught that ‘he who seeks to climb the mount of perfection and to hold communion with God must not only renounce all things but must not even allow his appetites, which are the beasts, to feed within sight of the mount.’
The Use of Isolated Moments
Exo 34:3
I. Here was a Divine call to solitude. There are moments of many souls in which they are doomed to be alone to have no man with them. The inspirations of genius are such moments; the voices of the crowd then sound from afar. The throbs of conscience are such moments; the heart then speaks to itself alone. The arrests by sickness are such moments; we feel shunted from the common way. The approaches of death are such moments; the hour comes to all, but it comes separately to each. We should have missed something from the Bible if amid the many voices of God there had been no place found for such moments as these. But with this verse of Exodus before us, the want is supplied. I learn that my times of solitude as well as my days of crowdedness are a mission from the Divine.
II. There is a lesson which my soul can only get from solitude; it is the majesty of the individual. Society tells me I am only a cipher an insignificant drop in a mighty stream. But when I am alone, when the curtain is fallen on my brother man, when there seems in the universe but God and I, it is then I know what it is to be an individual soul; it is then that there breaks on me the awful solemnity, the dread responsibility, the sublime weightedness, of having a personal life.
III. Therefore it is that betimes my Father summons me into the solitude. Therefore it is that betimes He calls me up to the lonely mount and cries, ‘Let no man come with thee’. Therefore it is that betimes He shuts the door on my companionships, and bars the windows to the street, and deafens the ear of the world’s roar. He would have me see myself by His light, measure myself by His standard, know myself even as I am known.
G. Matheson, Messages of Hope, p. 23.
Reference. XXXIV. 5. J. Halsey, The Spirit of Truth, p. 34.
Exo 34:6
Compare Cromwell’s words in his letter to Fleetwood of 1652: ‘The voice of Fear is: If I had done this; if I had avoided that; how well it had been with me. Love argueth in this wise: What a Christ have I; what a Father in and through Him! What a Name hath my Father: merciful, gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth; forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin. What a Nature hath my Father: He is Love; free in it, unchangeable, infinite!’
Then the Recorder stood up on his feet, and first beckoning with his hand for silence, he read out with loud voice the pardon. But when he came to these words, ‘The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, pardoning iniquity and transgressions, and sins; and to them, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven,’ etc., they could not forbear leaping for joy. For this you must know, that there was conjoined herewith every man’s name in Mansoul; also the seals of the pardon made a brave show.
Bunyan, Holy War.
Reference. XXXIV. 6. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Exodus, etc., p. 195.
Exo 34:7
In his reminiscences of Erskine of Linlathen, Dean Stanley recalls how the Scottish theologian ‘was fond of dwelling on the passages in the Bible which bring out the overbalance of love and mercy as against vengeance and wrath. “This,” he said, “shows the right proportion of faith.” And one of these to which he often referred was the close of the second commandment “visiting the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto ( not thousands, as of individuals but) unto the thousanth and thousanth generation (quoting the words of the Hebrew original ) of them that love Me”. I never read that part of the commandment without thinking of this saying, and of the tones in which he uttered it.’
The Dark Line in God’s Face
Exo 34:7
I. Consider the Proof of this Dark Line. ‘And that will by no means clear the guilty.’ Mark, at the outset, how clear is the testimony of Scripture. In the first story of God’s dealing with man, that story of the Garden which foreshadows all His love and grace, we see it in the face of God. Adam and Eve are driven out of Eden, and the angel with the flaming sword which turned every way keeps the way of the tree of life. That is the first declaration that God will by no means clear the guilty.
Mark it again on the broader page of universal history. The one truth of which all secular historians are sure is that the Nemesis of judgment forgets nothing and forgives nothing. In narrower spheres of life the truth is as evident and as appalling. The little child who is ushered into life, misshapen in body, cramped in mind, darkened in spirit, has done no sin, but its helplessness and torture are the terrifying proofs that God will by no means clear the guilty, and that He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children’s children.
Mark it again in the teaching of Jesus. There is scarcely a parable which does not emphasize it. But the more convincing and definite sayings of Jesus are those which affirm that this dark line remains in God’s face in the world to come. He speaks in grave warning of the outer darkness, the everlasting fire, the shut door, the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
II. Consider the Significance of this Dark Line in the Pace of God. Have you never known a human face in which there were lines, at first sight stern and forbidding, but as you learned their meaning, and came to know what lay behind their severity, they gave the face its strength and distinction and charm? This dark line makes God wondrously beautiful.
Its first significance is His inflexible justice. It declares that God is unswervingly just and impartially righteous towards all men. Now we can look up at that dark line and see its beauty.
Its second significance is His wrath at sin. The darkest line in a human face is the line of an anger which is shot through with grief. It is not otherwise with the face of God.
The third significance is His passionate desire for holiness. Here we touch the deeper significance. Where only justice and aggrieved wrath are found there is no room for mercy or for healing, but where a passionate desire for holiness lodges, there is hope even for the worst. This line in God’s face is darker when it sees the sin of His own, because of His passion for holiness.
III. Now let us Learn why so Many Refuse to see the Truth and Beauty of This Dark Line. The reason is that one of the most controlling truths in God’s character is overlooked. What stirs God to the depths is not suffering, but sin. If men would take God’s way, and deal first with the world’s sin, the world’s suffering would greatly cease.
Nowhere can it be more movingly seen than at the Cross that God will by no means clear the guilty. Nowhere is it more sadly plain that He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, than when He laid the sins of men upon the Son of Man. In the Cross we see the dark line of God’s face, and understand His justice, His grieved anger, and His passionate desire for holiness. Had there been no dark line in God’s face there would have been no Cross. What Jesus saw as He was dying was this line in a face of love dark with anger at the sin of man.
W. M. Clow, The Cross in Christian Experience, p. 28.
References. XXXIV. 7. H. Ward Beecher, Sermons (4th Series), p. 183. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Exodus, etc., p. 199. XXXIV. 8, 9. J. K. Popham, Sermons, p. 116.
Exo 34:9
Read that account on the proclaiming of God’s name to Moses given in the 33rd and 34th chapters of Exodus, ‘The Lord, The Lord God, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, without clearing the guilty’ (which last expression refers to the sacrifice of Christ, and just means through an atonement). As soon as Moses heard it, he thought, This is just the God that we want, for the people are continually committing sin, and this is a sin-forgiving God; and Moses made haste and said, Go with us; for this is a stiff-necked people. That for is an extraordinary word.
Thomas Eeskine of Linlathen, Letters, p. 121.
The Divine Jealousy
Exo 34:14
Is jealousy primarily a vice masking as a much-suffering virtue, or is it a virtue that has caught many of the basenesses of a vice? May we ascribe jealousy to the holy and glorious God without reflecting the least stain of dishonour upon His nature?
I. Our literature, like that of all nations, indeed, abounds in pictures of this consuming passion. Perhaps the most familiar and impressive delineation of the passion is that presented by Shakespeare in his great masterpiece, ‘Othello the Moor’. If you recall the chief outlines of the tragedy you will have a concrete illustration before you from which to start in studying the subject of the Divine jealousy.
1. Our condemnation of jealousy is not infrequently condemnation of the ignorance and infatuation with which it is mixed. Jealousy must always rank with the vices rather than virtues when, like that of Othello, it is blind blind with the guilty blindness that will not consent to see.
2. Our condemnation of jealousy is very often condemnation of the despotic temper, in which it has its root. We class it with the vices rather than the virtues, because in many cases it is not love seeking the just return of love. How often is it thinly disguised ambition, aggressive and overbearing egotism? I have no doubt Shakespeare meant us to recognize an element of this sort in the jealousy of Othello.
3. Our condemnation of jealousy, again, is sometimes the condemnation of moral unfitness to win and to retain the love that has been vainly sought or miserably abused. The temper is often a vice, because the chilled affection that has provoked it is the just retribution of neglect, ungraciousness, intemperance of disposition and behaviour.
4. Our condemnation of jealousy is often a condemnation of the merciless and savage forms in which it expresses itself. We class it with the vices rather than with the virtues, because when the passion is once encouraged it tends to become a masterful impulse akin to homicidal madness.
II. The flaws in our current human jealousies notwithstanding, may not the very highest moral and spiritual forces go to inform and energize this sentiment? The heart which upon just and righteous occasion is incapable of jealousy is likewise incapable of love. Love has rights it can never renounce without proving false to its own deepest qualities. And if no love can compare with God’s, no right can rival the right that is inherent in the foundation qualities of that love.
All humane and civilized governments which account themselves responsible for the well-being of the people committed to their care are characterized by this temper of jealousy, and the strength of the temper is a test of their very right to exist. In such cases the passion is emphatically a virtue.
The jealousy exercised in the interests of others must be holy and beneficent. God will brook no intrusion into His work, no division of His authority, no departure from His laws. He alone can guide us through the rocks and whirlpools, and bring us to our far-off goal. That He should be supreme is the very salvation of the universe.
III. Now let us face the question: if jealousy has this high and holy basis, and if God’s jealousy does not need to be held in check because of the imperfection of knowledge, the risk of mistake, or the fear lest the passion once kindled should hurry into inordinate and unconsidered excess, is not the Divine type of the passion likely to be more terribly intense and overwhelming than any of the modern types we find around us? God gives incalculably more love than others, and He is moved with a deeper indignation when you suffer a rival to reign in His place.
Mark how this feature reappears in the character and teaching of Jesus Christ, who is the image of the Father’s person and glory. ‘He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.’ The holy jealousy of Christ’s life is as true a hint of the surpassing qualities of His love as the vicariousness of His bitter death.
T. G. Selby, The Lesson of a Dilemma, p. 102.
References. XXXIV. 14. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix. No. 602. XXXIV. 23. C. S. Robinson, Simon Peter, p. 41.
Spiritual Beauty
Exo 34:29
Spiritual beauty is loveliest when it is unconsciously possessed.
I. Moses has been closeted with God. The glory of the Lord has been poured upon him, bathing him in unearthly brightness, so that when he returns to the mountain-base his countenance shines like the light. The same transformation is effected every day, and by the same means. Spiritual communion alters the fashion of the countenance. The supreme beauty of a face is its light, and spirituality makes ‘a face illumined’. The face of Moses was transfigured by the glory of the Eternal.
II. But ‘Moses wist not that his face shone’. That is the supreme height of spiritual loveliness; to be lovely, and not to know it Surely this is a lesson we all need to learn. Virtue is so apt to become self-conscious, and so to lose its glow.
1. Take the grace of humility. Humility is very beautiful when we see it unimpaired. It is exquisite with the loveliness of Christ. But there is a self-conscious humility which is only a very subtle species of pride. Humility takes the lowest place, and does not know that her face shines. Pride can take the lowest place, and find her delight in the thought of her presumably shining face.
2. Charity is a lovely adornment of the Christian eye, but if charity be self-conscious it loses all its charm. The Master says that true charity does not let the left hand know what the right hand doeth. The counsel is this do not talk about thy giving to thyself. Do not let it be done in a boastful self-consciousness, or its beauty is at once impaired.
3. It is even so with the whole shining multitude of virtues and graces. No virtue has its full strength and beauty until its possession is unnoticed by its owner. Virtue must become so customary as to be unconsciously worn.
III. And so it is that the problem shapes itself thus we must become so absorbed in God as to forget ourselves. We cannot gaze much upon God’s face and remain very conscious of ourselves.
J. H. Jowett, Meditations for Quiet Moments, p. 22.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Exo 34:29
Christians that are really the most eminent saints, and therefore have the most excellent experiences,… are astonished at and ashamed of the low degrees of their love and thankfulness, and their little knowledge of God. Moses, when he had been conversing with God in the mount, and his face shone so bright in the eyes of others as to dazzle their eyes, wist not that his face shone.
Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections (part iii.).
Men of elevated minds are not their own historians and panegyrists. So is it with faith and other Christian graces. Bystanders see our minds; but our minds, if healthy, see but the objects which possess them. As God’s grace elicits our faith, so His holiness stirs our fear, and His glory kindles our love. Others may say of us, ‘here is faith,’ and ‘there is conscientiousness,’ and ‘there is love’; but we can only say, ‘this is God’s grace,’ and ‘that is His holiness,’ and ‘that is His glory’.
Newman, Lectures on Justification, p. 337.
Let thy face, like Moses’, shine to others, but make no looking-glasses for thyself.
Jeremy Taylor.
The late Dr. Andrew Bonar, when visiting Mr. Moody at Northfield, was out in his garden at early morning one day talking with his host. Along came a band of happy students, who shouted out: ‘We’ve been having an all-night prayer meeting; can’t you see our faces shine?’ Dr. Bonar turned to them, and said, with a quiet smile, and shake of the head: ‘Moses wist not that his face shone’.
References. XXXIV. 29. W. J. Back, A Book of Lay Sermons, p. 247. S. G. McLennan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxv. 1904, p. 83. T. Teignmouth Shore, The Life of the World to Come, p. 157. W. A. Gray, The Shadow of the Hand, p. 177. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Exodus, etc., p. 204. XXXIV. 29-35. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxvi. No. 2143.
Exo 34:30
Make conscience of beginning the day with God. For he that begins it not with Him, will hardly end it with Him. It is he that finds God in his closet that will carry the savour of Him into his house, his shop, and his more open conversation. When Moses had been with God in the mount, his face shone, he brought of that glory into the camp.
Bunyan.
High gracious affections leave a sweet savour and relish of Divine things on the heart, and a stronger bent of soul towards God and holiness; as Moses’ face not only shone while he was in the mount, extraordinarily conversing with God, but it continued to shine after he came down from the mount.
Jonathan Edwards.
‘Millais was the best trained of all,’ says Mr. Holman Hunt in his History of Pre-Raphaelitism (i. p. 139). ‘Not one hour of his life had been lost to his purpose of being a painter. The need of groping after systems by philosophic research and deductions was superseded in him by a quick instinct which enabled him to pounce as an eagle upon the prize he searched for…. He felt the fire of his message; it seemed to make his face shine, so that Rossetti, to justify an expression of his in “Hand and Soul,” said that when he looked at Millais in full, his face was that of an angel.’
Reference. XXXIV. 30. John Ker, Sermons, p. 170.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Morning on the Mount
Exo 34:2
God wishes me to be alone with him. How solemn will the meeting be! Father and child; Sovereign and subject; Creator and creature! The distance between us will be infinite, unless he shorten it by his mercy! Oh, my poor broken and weary heart, think of it and be glad; God wants thee to meet him alone! He will heal thy wounds; he will shed his light upon thy tears, and make them shine like jewels; he will make thee young again. Oh that I might be on the mountain first, and that praise might be waiting for God! I will be astir before the sun; I will be far on the road before the dew rises; and long before the bird sings will I breathe my sweet hymn. Oh, dark night, flee fast, for I would see God and hear still more of his deep truth! Oh, ye stars, why stay so long? Ye are the seals of night, but it is for other light I pine, the light that shows the way to the Mount of God. My Father, I am coming; nothing on the mean plain shall keep me away from the holy heights: help me to climb fast, and keep thou my foot, lest it fall upon the hard rock. At thy bidding I come, so thou wilt not mock my heart. Bring with thee honey from heaven, yea, milk, and wine, and oil for my soul’s good, and stay the sun in his course, or the time will be too short in which to look upon thy face, and to hear thy gentle voice. Morning on the mount! It will make me strong and glad all the rest of the day so well begun!
How shall I go before God? In what robe shall I dress myself? “All the fitness he requires is to feel my need of him.” That I do feel. Without him I am lost. But when I think of him the thought of my great sin comes at the same time, and it is like a black cloud spread between me and the sun. When I think of anything else, I am happy for the moment; but when I think of God, I burn with shame and tremble with fear. I cannot answer him. His questions are judgments. In his eye there is fire that burns me. This morning I must meet him on the mount, meet him alone! Alone! Alone! Surely he need not have said expressly so; for to be with God is to be in solitude, though the mountain be alive with countless travellers. But he bids me come; and is not the bidding itself a promise? Would he take me to the mount to kill me? Is it that he may bury me in some unknown rock, that he bids me climb the steep path? Oh, my faithless heart, these very questionings are the beginnings of sin. Why do I question God? Why do not I arise at once, and flee to him as my soul’s one delight? It is not my humility that keeps me back, but my pride. I am not modest, I am guilty; I will speak plainly to myself, and set my shameful fault in a burning light.
God asks me to meet him in the top of the mount. I am called to climb as far away from the world as I can. Surely the very place of meeting has meaning in it. For many a day I have not seen the top of the mount. I have stood on the plain, or I have gone to the first cleft, or have tried a short way up the steep. I have not risen above the smoke of my own house, or the noise of my daily business. I have said, “In my climbing I must not lose sight of my family; I must be within call of my children; I must not go beyond the line of vegetation; even in religion I must be prudent.” Thus I have not seen the top, nor have I entered into the secret place of the Most High. Oh that I might urge my way to the very top of the hill chosen of God! “What must it be to be there?” The wind will be music The clouds will be as the dust of my feet. Earth and time will be seen as they are, in their littleness and their meanness. My soul, move up to the top; let no stone be above thee; higher and higher; God awaits thee, God calls thee, God will give thee rest! God means that the very climbing should do me good. He could come to me, but he bids me go to him. There is mercy in the going. There is comfort on the road. The very weariness has a promise. The mountain is measured; God does not ask me to climb an unknown distance; he knows my strength, and he fixes the meeting-place within its limits. This day I will see the sacred top. The enemy will try to turn me back, but I will meet him in the strength of God, and abash him by the name of Christ Lord, help me this day to see the very top of the mount, and let my poor soul taste the sweetness of the liberty which is assured to it in Christ.
The morning is the time fixed for my meeting the Lord. What meaning there is in the time as well as in the place! This very word morning is as a cluster of rich grapes. Let me crush them, and drink the sacred wine. In the morning then God means me to be at my best in strength and hope; I have not to climb in my weakness; in the night I have buried yesterday’s fatigue, and in the morning I take a new lease of energy. Give God thy strength all thy strength; he asks only what he first gave. In the morning then he may mean to keep me long that he may make me rich! In the morning then it is no endless road he bids me climb, else how could I reach it ere the sun be set? Sweet morning! There is hope in its music. Blessed is the day whose morning is sanctified. Successful is the day whose first victory was won in prayer. Holy is the day whose dawn finds thee on the top of the mount! Health is established in the morning. Wealth is won in the morning. The light is brightest in the morning. “Wake, psaltery and harp; I myself will awake early.”
“Come up in the morning.” A tender morning light shines upon the life of the elder saints and gives it the freshness of youth. The Bible is full of morning. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” The dew of thy sorrow shall be taken up by the sun, and God shall set it in his light like a bow of hope. “My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord, and in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.” “The Lord’s mercies are new every morning.” May we “pass over Jordan by morning light”! Of old “the morning stars sang together.” “I, Jesus, am the bright and morning star.” The Holy Book is full of the spirit of morning. No evening shadows darken it. Truly the day declines, but “at eventide there is light” where in the morning there has been converse with God. My soul, I would charge thee to be as those who watch for the morning. The morning makes the day. The Sabbath of the day is in the morning. Oh, may this morning bring me near to God! May it be the time of resurrection; an hour of immortality; a gleam of the upper light, a breath of the holy world! A morning misspent is a day ruined. A morning saved is a day completed. Lord, awake me at sunrise, and by the beauty of the coming light give hope for the whole day.
“Be ready in the morning.” This is my Lord’s command. On my part there is to be preparation. As the ground is tilled to receive the seed, so must my heart be made ready to receive the good word of God. I may not rush into my Lord’s presence in violent haste; I must be calm, knowing well myself, feeling my unworthiness, and taking with me words of humility and reverence. He bids me come. That is my plea for going. Alas, what making “ready” I require! My thoughts are so worldly; my plans are so mean; my motives are so selfish; my affections are so entwined around unworthy objects. “Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” God himself must make me ready, for “the preparation of the heart” is from heaven. “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation; he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels.” Lord, make me ready. Truly all is from the Lord. My awaking and my preparation, my desire to go, and my ability to move these, Lord, are thine, and these show the might and the gentleness of thy holy hand. Being thus made ready, may I have grace to go forth and climb the appointed hill. Doth the bridegroom hide himself in the chamber of his preparation? Doth he not rather go forth that he may find his heart’s desire and his heart’s delight? So would I be made ready, and go out to the hill, and scale its utmost height. “Arise, let us go hence.”
“Come up in the morning.” “I will arise and go to my Father.” It is not to Lebanon that he calls me, nor to the top of Shenir and Hermon, nor to “the mountains of the leopards”; it is to “mournful Calvary” it is to the holy, tender, mighty Cross! Nothing shall keep me back. The orchard of pomegranates shall not detain me, nor will I tarry by the streams of Lebanon; I will bend my steps towards the Cross, for all my salvation is there. We shall meet where the sacred blood flows for sin. No tainted wind of earth blows through that solemn sanctuary. There I will speak of my guilt, and keep back nothing that I have done. The Lord shall see my heart of hearts, and my Saviour’s blood shall cleanse my secret thoughts. To see his holiness will be to see my own corruption; then shall I tremble with fear, and my strength shall be as water poured forth, but my weakness will not be despised by the Lord. “To them that have no might he increaseth strength.” He is gentle with his weary sheep. In the green pastures he leads them, and by the still waters is their quiet lot. He carrieth the lambs in his bosom, and he maketh his flock to rest at noon. My Lord calls me, and I will go. When I see him I will say, How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings! And when he bids me climb the still higher heights, I will be “like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of spices.” Lord, help me; Lord, pity me!
The mountain on whose top I have to meet the Lord is very high. Sometimes, because of the poverty and feebleness of my faith, it seems as if I could never reach the far-away height. There are places upon the steep where I would gladly sit down, saying, It is enough: but a still small voice comes to me asking, What doest thou here? The Lord is on the top of the mount, and wilt thou keep him waiting as if he were thy servant? He hath bowed the heavens and come down; shame on thee, my soul, not to be there before thy Lord’s chariot! Oh, the seducing spirits, how they beguile me! Oh, the cold winds, how they strike me and urge me down! Saviour! give thine angels charge concerning me, for thou hast made them all ministering spirits, and by their help I shall this day see the top of the sacred mount! “Keep me this day without sin.” Let me have one day’s rest from evil works. Give me a sweet Sabbath of pure love and unbroken rest. One such day will make me young again. One such day shall make me forget my polluted yesterdays, and cause me by sweet foretaste to enjoy the heaven that has begun to come. Blessed are they that breathe the mountain air! Theirs is enduring health, and the keenest joys are theirs. Bear me beyond the cold and killing fogs of earth and time, and let me breathe the pure air of liberty and heaven. I give myself to thee this day. This day I bid farewell to all that is unworthy of the Blood by which I am redeemed. Henceforward I would climb the mount of God every morning, that afterwards I may return to do the work of earth as a citizen of Holy Zion. My Father, I start for the mount this day; may I not fail to reach the top, where thy glory rests like a tabernacle of light!
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXV
THE FEAST OF THE COVENANT, THE ASCENT OF MOSES AND JOSHUA INTO THE MOUNTAIN, THE BREACH OF THE COVENANT, THE COVENANT RESTORED BUT MODIFIED
Exo 24:9-34:35
1. What is this lesson and its outline?
Ans. The lesson is from Exo 24:9 to the end of that chapter, with a mere glance at the next seven chapters, 25-31, and then 32; it covers three full chapters, nearly all of another chapter, and a glance at seven other chapters. I will explain to you about that glance as we go along.
The outline of the lesson is:
The Feast of the Covenant, Exo 24:9-11 .
The Ascent of Moses and Joshua into the Mountain, Why and How Long, Exo 24:12-31:18 .
The Breach of the Covenant, Exo 22:1-6 .
The Covenant Restored but Modified, Exo 32:1-34:35 .
We commence at the first item of the outline, viz.:
The Feast of the Covenant. That part of the lesson is Exo 24 and commences at Exo 24:9-11 . Let us read that: “Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu [two sons of Aaron], and seventy of the elders of Israel [and we learn from Exo 24:17 that Joshua, the minister or servant of Moses, was along. That makes seventy-five persons [: and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were the very heaven for clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: and they beheld God and did eat and drink.” That is the feast of the covenant.
2. What of the custom after ratifying a covenant and an example from Genesis?
Ans. Nearly always just after a covenant was ratified the parties to the covenant partook together of a meal to show their fraternity and communion. The Genesis example you will find where Laban and Jacob made a covenant. The covenant is prepared, they agree to enter into a covenant, they put up a token of the covenant, they build an altar, they make sacrifices, they ratify the covenant in the blood of that sacrifice. Then they sit down and eat a meal together, which is the feast of the covenant. You will find all of that in the Genesis account of Laban and Jacob. So here a covenant having been proposed, an agreement to enter into it made, a preparation for it, the terms of the covenant given as stated in their threefold characters, that covenant carefully read, an altar erected, sacrifices offered, the blood of the covenant sprinkled upon the altar and upon the people, and so ratified, then follows this feast of the covenant.
3. What are the provisions used at the feast in such cases?
Ans. The provisions are the bodies of the peace offering. There are two offerings, viz.: the burnt offering, which has to be burned up, then the eucharistic or thank offering. That thank offering furnishes the material of the feast after the covenant is ratified.
4. Who was the representative at this feast with God and a New Testament analogy?
Ans. The representatives here are: First, Moses, then his servant Joshua, his army chief; second, the high priest and his two sons that is five; and third, the seventy elders of Israel. All Israel did not meet God and partake of a feast, but the representatives of Israel in the persons of Moses, Joshua, Aaron and his two sons, and the seventy elders, who meet God and partake of this feast. Now the New Testament analogy is that the Lord’s Supper which was to memorialize the sacrifice of Christ was participated in by representatives of the church, the apostles. The apostles were there, but not there as individuals. They represented the church just as they represented the church in receiving the Commission, so that it was simply a church observance even at the time of its institution.
5. What of the communion in this feast and the New Testaments analogy?
Ans. The communion is not the communion between Moses, Aaron, and the elders, that is, it is not a communion with each other, but it is a communion with God, and the New Testament analogy is as Paul expresses in his first letter to the Corinthians: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion, or participation, of the blood of Christ?” and yet how often people misrepresent the idea of that communion, as when A, B, and C commune together to show their fellowship for each other, or a man’s communing to show his fellowship for his wife. The word means “participation” and the one in whom is the participation is God: “The loaf which we bless, is it not a participation, the communion of the body of Jesus?” So here these representatives of all Israel communed with God a little way up the mountain, not far.
6. The record says that they saw God. What kind of a sight of God did they see, and what other cases in the Old and New Testaments?
Ans. They did not see any form or likeness of God. Moses is very careful to say that “no man can see God and live.” He is careful to say in Deu 4 that at Sinai they saw no similitude or likeness. Now, in Isa 6 he (Isaiah) sees God as they saw him, that is, he sees the throne; he sees the pavement; he sees a great many things about the throne, the angels, the cherubim and the seraphim, but he doesn’t see any likeness of God, though he hears God talking. Precisely so you find it in Eze 1 . He sees the chariot of God, four cherubim, their wheels, their wings, and their faces looking every way, but he doesn’t see the One in the chariot, and so it is in Rev 4 where John is caught up to heaven and he sees the very same thing, this very pavement, and the throne, the cherubim, the angels round about the throne, and he sees something that represents the Holy Spirit, and he sees something that represents Jesus Christ, a precious stone which represents God, but he doesn’t see God.
7. Apply this thought to transubstantiation and consubstantiation in our feast, as the Romanists and Luther taught.
Ans. The Romanist says, “This is the very body and the very blood of Christ; you can see it and you can taste it.” And the consubstantiation advocate, Luther, says, “The bread is not the body of Christ and the wine is not the blood of Christ, but Christ is there this way: You take a knife and put it in the fire and take it out of the fire when it is red hot, and you have the same metal, but you have something there that was not there before, viz.: heat, you can touch it and feel the effect of that heat burning.” You can take cognizance of that kind of a presence, but in this analogous communication with God they saw no similitude, no form.
8. Explain that part of the feast where it is said that “God laid not his hand on the elders of Israel, though they saw him.”
Ans. It means that God did not slay them. The declaration is often made, “Whoever sees God shall die.” They can’t bear the sight of God. But the kind of a sight of God that these people saw, they were able to see without having the hand of God laid on them, and what a beautiful lesson! Before the covenant was made, when the trumpet sounded and the darkness came and the earth quaked and the lightning flashed, and that strange, awful voice speaking the ten words, the people were scared almost to death; they wanted a mediator, somebody to come between them and that awful Being. But knowing that a covenant had been established and had been ratified by the blood of a substitute, they can see God in the sacrifice of the substitute and not die; see him in perfect peace, just as you, before you are converted, look upon God as distant and unapproachable, but after you see him in Christ in the covenant, the terror of God is taken away and you can sit there just as if eating a meal with a friend.
9. Give again a complete outline of the covenant.
Ans. The complete outline of the covenant is:
(1) God’s proposition of a covenant and their agreement to enter into a covenant;
(2) Their preparation for the covenant;
(3) The three great terms of the covenant;
(4) The ratification of the covenant;
(5) The feast that follows the covenant. Will you keep that in mind? You need to be drilled on that every now and then, so that when anybody asks you where there can be found a copy of the Sinai covenant and all the parts of it, you can answer: “It commences with Exo 19 , and closes with Exo 24 .” That is the whole thing in all its parts.
The Ascent of Moses into the Mount, Why and How Long? This is the second item of the outline. That is found immediately after what we have been discussing, commencing at Exo 24:12 . “And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there”: that means, Moses, you are to be there quite awhile; “and I will give thee the tables of stone, and the law and the commandment, which I have written, that thou mayest teach them.” And Moses rose up, and his servant Joshua; and Moses went up into the mount of God. And he said unto the elders, Tarry ye here for us, until we come again unto you: and, behold, Aaron and Hur are with you; if any man have any matters to do, let him come unto them. And Moses went up into the mount, and the cloud covered the mount. And the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel. And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and went up into the midst of the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.” Now here are the questions on that:
10. Why is Moses, after the covenant is ratified and the feast is held, taken up into the mount? (He and Joshua alone go).
Ans. He is carried up to receive the same law which had been spoken orally, now in writing “which I have written.” And what he went up particularly to get was the two tables or the Ten Commandments, and in God’s own handwriting that he might keep them as a witness. “The tables of the Testimony” is the name of them. Moses wrote a copy that the people learned, but that particular copy was God’s own autograph. That was put up and preserved as “tables of the testimony.”
11. What is the meaning of “tables of stone,” “the law,” and “the commandment”?
Ans. The tables of stone I have just described. But what was the law that Moses goes up after? You would miss that if you had to answer it off-hand, and the commentators all miss it. They don’t get in a thousand miles of it. You will find that it was what he received when he went up there a special law, and that special law was that the sabbath, God’s sabbath, should be the sign of the covenant. You find that at the end of this section that we are now on. So the law he went after was the law of the sign. Then what was the commandment he went after? The Commandments are all given in seven chapters (25-32) and every one of them touches the law of the altar. We will glance at the outline of that directly.
12. Why were these tables of testimony and this sign of the covenant and these laws concerning the altar given to Moses?
Ans. The lesson says, “That thou mayest teach them.”
13. Who was to represent Moses in the camp while he was absent in the mount?
Ans. Aaron and Hur.
14. What reminder of a New Testament incident is in these words of Moses: “Tarry ye here for us until we come again”?
Ans. It is Jesus in Gethsemane, when he let the representatives stop, and said, “Stay here while I go yonder and pray.”
15. What was the visible token that God was present with Moses, and why that token?
Ans. Exo 24:16-17 : “And the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it and the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.” Now, why is that last word, or clause, “In the eyes of the children of Israel”? That was a token to them not to get impatient. “When you begin to say, ‘Moses stays a long time,’ you look up there at that cloud on top of that mountain, how exceedingly glorious it is, you may know that Moses is right in that cloud communing with God.”
16. How long was Moses up there in that cloud before God spoke to him, and why did he speak to him on the particular day that he did?
Ans. Moses was up there six days. God called him up there: “Don’t you get impatient. Here is the test of your faith. You wait. I have called you up here, to have an interview and to receive certain things, and you wait; be patient.” Now on the seventh day, that is, the sabbath, which was the sign of the covenant, God spoke.
17. How long was Moses in the mount, and what is the New Testament parallel?
Ans. Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights, and the New Testament parallel is that after Christ was sacrificed for the ratification of the covenant and they had eaten the feast of the covenant and Christ was risen from the dead, he remains with them forty days, instructing them. That is just exactly what God is doing with Moses. Just as Jesus uses forty days after his sacrifice in careful instruction of his disciples, so God after this sacrifice and ratification of the covenant, takes Moses up into that mountain for forty days of continued explanation.
18. Give, for the present, a mere summary of what Moses received on the mount, set forth in the seven chapters, 25-31.
Ans. Just now all we want is a summary and the reason we don’t want to go into the details is that we take that up in the next chapter in connection with what follows. But all you want to know now is the outline. The outline is:
(1) He received the tables of the testimony;
(2) He received the law of the sign;
(3) He received the commandments as follows:
(a) The commandment upon the people to furnish voluntary offerings for what was to be made;
(b) The making of the ark with the mercy seat on it where God was to be met; the making of a tabernacle for the shewbread; the making of the candlestick; the making of a tabernacle or tent with its subdivisions and its marvelous veil between the divisions; and the court and the oil that was to supply the lampstand or candlestick;
(c) The garments for Aaron, the high priest, when he officiated before God;
(d) The law of the consecration of Aaron to the office of high priest;
(e) The law of the consecration of the altar by which approach to God was to be made;
(f) The law of the daily sacrifice;
(g) The law of the golden altar, or the altar of incense, and bow it is to be offered. Incense is to be offered twice a day just like the lamp is to be lit twice a day and the sacrifice is to be offered twice a day in the morning Aaron goes to trim the lamps as the morning offering and the ascent of the morning cloud of incense representing the going up of the prayers of God’s people, and in the afternoon he goes to light the lamp, and there is the evening sacrifice and the going up of the incense;
(h) The atonement or ransom money and what that signifies;
(i) The laver, that was to be between the altar and the mercy seat, and what it was to be used for;
(j) The marvelous recipe of the anointing oil that was to be poured upon the head of a prophet or a priest or a king or a sacrifice;
(k) The perfume that was to be put at the place of entrance, indicating that they were to meet the fragrance of God right at the threshold of entrance or approach to him;
(l) The inspiration of the artificers of all this work. Just as an apostle was inspired to do his work, so certain men were here named that were inspired to do this work called for in all these things;
(m) That sabbath for a sign which I have already mentioned.
The Breach of the Covenant. This is the third item. Where do you find that breach of the covenant? In chapter 32. We are coming to awful things now. The most interesting thing in the Old Testament: “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him. And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received it at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf: and they said, These are thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To-morrow shall be a feast to Jehovah. And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace-offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.”
19. Give the seven elements of this breach of the covenant.
Ans.
(1) The rejection of Moses and of God and a demand for other gods to be made: “Make us gods.”
(2) This god, of course, being man made, was an idol.
(3) The form of the god was the Egyptian god, Apis, calf or ox, the Egyptian god that died of the murrain through one of the miracles of Moses.
(4) They built an altar of worship and of sacrifice.
(5) They offered both burnt and peace offerings.
(6) They had a feast to follow this covenant they were making with this new god, and,
(7) Stripping off their clothes, naked, they go into a drunken orgy and practice all of the beastly and infamous lusts that characterized that worship in Egypt and in other idol worshiping countries. Paul says, “The people sat down to eat and rose up to play,” and then adds, “Be ye not fornicators and adulterers as they were.”
20. What was God’s announcement to Moses and what were the purposes announced concerning Israel and the raising up of a new people?
Ans. God saw that breach of the covenant that had just been made. The answer is this, commencing with Exo 32:7 : “The Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and have said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and now, behold it is a stiffnecked people: now therefore let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.” That is the terrible announcement. They have broken the covenant. “I will instantly destroy them; I will raise up a new people from Moses. He will be the basis of the new people.” Now before they get out of this trouble there will be four intercessions of Moses.
21. What was the first intercession of Moses and its result?
Ans. I quote it, commencing at Exo 32:11 : “And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swearest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.” So the first thing was to stop instant destruction of that people. The result: “And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.” He didn’t kill them right then, but he at least suspended that terrible bolt of divine wrath that was about to fall upon them.
22. What did Moses and Joshua see on their return to the camp?
Ans. All the above happened before Moses came down from the mount. Joshua says, “I hear a great shout down in the camp. There must be an army or there must be a battle.” Moses says, “No, that is not the shout, neither of men on the battlefield, nor of men crying for mercy. That is the shout of singing; those people are singing down there.” And they came down and saw that calf; they saw their naked and beastly orgies; they saw the whole hideous sin which the people had committed.
23. What was the first token that the covenant was broken?
Ans. Moses took the tables of the testimony and broke them all to pieces right in the sight of the people. “You do not need these tokens any more. I have brought you in the handwriting of God the witness of the covenant; you broke it; let the token be broken.”
24. What, in order, are the other things done in that camp by Moses when he got down there?
Ans. Moses was not a man to go down there and hold his finger in his mouth. When he sees that thing he is stirred. Let us see now what, in order, were the things that he did. First, he took that calf and burned it until it pulverized; then he mingled the ashes of it in water and made the people drink it. Second, he shook his finger in the face of Aaron and said, “What have these people done unto you that you led them into this sin? I went up in that mountain to meet God; I left you as my representative. Now what have these people ever done to you that you should lead them into this?” And Aaron pleads the baby act if ever a man did in the world. He says, “Well, they they they said, ‘Make us a god,’ and I told them to bring me the earrings and I put the earrings into the fire and there came out this calf; the fire did it.” An old father who, when his boy came home disappointed and broken in health and knowing nothing, after several years away at school, said, “All that money I put into the fire of education and there came out this calf.” Third, Moses said unto them in the camp, while naked and half drunk they stood before him not daring to open their lips, “Whoso is on the Lord’s side, let him stand by me. I am going to draw a line. Somebody in this great camp surely is on the Lord’s side.” And the Levites came. You remember when Jacob pronounced the prophecy of blessing on his children he gave a big slice to Levi. When Moses goes to pronounce a blessing he is going to pronounce a great honor on Levi, and he is going to assign as a reason what Levi does this day. That whole tribe lined up on the side of Moses. They didn’t stand up there just as a show. “Now, if you are on the Lord’s side, draw your swords and wade into that crowd. Don’t stop if it is your brother, or father, or mother, no matter how close kin to you. There must be a penalty inflicted for this awful sin,” and Levi pitched in and slew three thousand. Fourth, he began to take steps toward saving those people from temporal and eternal destruction, and that brings us to the next question:
25. What was the second intercession of Moses and God’s reply?
Ans. Moses said, “You have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord: peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.” Now you come to the next intercession of Moses: “And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said [and this is the greatest piece of intercession that ever took place on earth except in the case of Christ], Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin ; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.” Only one other man ever said anything like that, and concerning this same stiffnecked people, and that was Paul, “I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren’s sake.” Moses, in other words, offered himself as a substitute for the people: “Don’t, don’t destroy them! Destroy me!” It was a grand proposition. Now, what did God say to that intercession? “The Lord said to Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me,, him will I blot out of my book. I will not blot you out for them. The soul that sinneth it shall die. Therefore now go, lead these people unto the place of which I have spoken unto them; behold mine angel shall go before thee; nevertheless in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them. And the Lord plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made.”
26. What of the effect of this upon the people?
Ans. They mourned and laid aside their ornaments and did not put them on from Mount Horeb onward.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
XXVI
THE BREACH OF THE COVENANT (Continued) AND ITS RENEWAL
Exo 33:7-34:35
27. What was the second token that the covenant was broken?
Ans. The temporary tent of the Lord, on which the cloud rested, when he communed with Israel, was moved outside the camp to show that the presence of the Lord was no longer with them. (See Exo 33:7-11 .) Their own conduct had made the Lord an outsider.
28. Analyze the third intercession of Moses.
Ans.
(1) He recites as the ground of his petition the fact (a) that the Lord had placed on him the responsibility of taking his people to the Land of Promise and (b) had assured him of his own gracious standing before the Lord (Exo 33:12 ).
(2) The petition itself, number 1.
(a) Show me Thy way.
(b) Consider this people as Thy people, i.e., take them back into favor.
(c) The petition granted in part; the presence of the Lord himself and not a deputy would be with Moses and he should find rest Exo 33:4 .
(d) Petition number 2. Moses renews and presses the petition for the people, that the Presence should be with them, and not him alone, and that they should be the Lord’s peculiar people separated from all other nations, Exo 33:16 .
(e) Petition number 2 granted, Exo 33:17 .
(f) Petition number 3. “Show me thy glory,” Exo 33:18 .
(g) Petition number 3 granted in a modified way, Exo 33:19-23 .
29. How was the success of this intercession evidenced?
Ans.
(1) New tables of testimony, to contain the Decalogue, were ordered to be prepared for God’s own inscription on the morrow, Exo 34:1-3 .
(2) The Lord did show Moses his glory, Exo 34:4-7 .
30. Analyze this glory and its modification.
Ans.
(1) the Name proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah Elohim, i.e., (a) Jehovah is the Lord in a covenant of revelation and mercy with sinners, (b) This Jehovah is a revelation of the invisible Elohim. For example, in Genesis I the name of the invisible, unknowable Deity is Elohim. But in chapter 2, where he is revealed to Adam and enters into covenant with him, the name is Jehovah Elohim. After man’s sin Jehovah Elohim is not only a revelation of the invisible Deity but a revelation of him in grace as a Saviour. Adam could see and know, commune with, and enter into covenant with Jehovah Elohim but not with Elohim direct. Moses could see, talk with, Jehovah Elohim, both revelator and Saviour, but he could not see Elohim. This explains Exo 33:23 . See similar case, Joh 14:8-11 .
It is also the explanation of the names of God throughout the Old Testament, “Elohim,” “Jehovah,” “Jehovah Elohim,” over which radical critics have needlessly puzzled themselves and darkened counsel for others by words without knowledge.
(2) The character of this revelation of God as a Saviour:
(a) Merciful and gracious, Psa 103:8-14 ; Jas 5:11 ;
(b) Longsuffering (as in the case of Paul the individual), 1Ti 1:16 ; and in the case of the world at large, 2Pe 3:9 ;
(c) Abundant in goodness and truth;
(d) Keeping mercy for thousands;
(e) Will not clear the guilty; this is justice;
(f) Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation; law of heredity.
31. Who preached great but widely different sermons on “Show me thy glory,” Exo 23:18 ?
Ans. Henry Ward Beecher and Spurgeon; the first, beautiful and rhetorical; the second evangelical.
32. What great Colonial preacher began but never finished a series of masterly sermons on Exo 34:6-7 ?
Ans. Davies of Virginia, who prophesied the greatness of Washington after Braddock’s defeat.
33. Explain Exo 33:22 Moses hid in the rock as God passed by, and what great hymn is based thereon?
Ans. Now, the idea is that God, Elohim, is as a consuming fire out of Christ; man cannot see him and live. Hence Moses was placed in a refuge, while God’s hand closed the aperture as Elohim passed by. But after Elohim passed, Moses might safely see Jehovah Elohim, that is, God revealed as a Saviour. The hymn is Toplady’s “Rock of Ages.” The idea is just the same when the children of Israel were placed behind the blood sprinkled door as the angel of death passed by.
34. What was the fourth intercession of Moses?
Ans. See Exo 34:8-9 :
(1) Come back among us;
(2) Pardon our sins;
(3) Make us thine inheritance.
35. Result of this final petition?
Ans. The covenant was renewed. Covenant Restored but Modified.
36. The terms as renewed?
Ans.
(1) On God’s part: He agrees to accept them again as his peculiar people and promises to do mighty things by them, driving out all their enemies, Exo 34:10-11 .
(2) On the people’s part:
(a) They must make no covenant with the Canaanites nor intermarry with them. Their altars, groves, and images must be destroyed.
(b) They must worship Jehovah only and make no idols.
(c) They must give to the Lord for service, or by ransom, the firstborn.
(d) They must assemble three times a year before the Lord to keep the three national feasts, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, God himself guarding their frontiers while they were absent from home.
(e) They must keep his sabbaths. In other words, it is a modified restatement of the covenant, Exo 19:1-24:11 .
37. How long was Moses in the mount to receive again the written Decalogue and the other parts of the covenant?
Ans. Forty days and nights as before.
38. What new fact is here brought out?
Ans. He fasted absolutely the whole time.
39. Is it possible to fast that long without dying?
Ans. (1) Elijah did it, 1Ki 19:18 ; (2) Jesus did it, Mat 4:2 ; (3) a Dr. Tanner did it in the memory of the author, only he used a little water.
40. What prodigy appeared in the face of Moses?
Ans. His face was illumined.
41. What laws here fulfilled?
Ans. (1) The law of assimilation, viz.: We become like that which we steadfastly contemplate, 2Co 3:18 ; (2) The inner light radiates through the body and glorifies the face.
42. What New Testament case is given?
Ans. Transfiguration of Jesus; case of Stephen.
43. What style of art gives us the face illumined?
Ans. The Rembrandt style.
44. Was Moses conscious of the shining at first and if not what made him conscious?
Ans. At first, “Moses wist not that his face was shining.” He learned it by noting the effect on the people.
45. What was that effect?
Ans. – “They were afraid to come nigh him,” Exo 34:30 .
46. How did he cause them to come nigh?
Ans. By veiling his face when talking to them.
47. Was this shining permanent?
Ans. No.
48. Where, in the New Testament, is this incident expounded, and what use is there made of it?
Ans. 2Co 3 : Paul uses it to contrast the two covenants. He admits that the Old Testament was glorious, but like the light on the face of Moses was transitory, its light passing away when the greater glory of the covenant appeared.
49. Why, according to Paul, did Moses veil his face?
Ans. That the people might not see the light fading away and so despise him, 2Co 3:13 .
50. How do the Jews misunderstand the veiling and yet cling to Moses?
Ans. They think the shining is still there behind the veil, and that the veiling is a mercy to them lest they be blinded by the too dazzling light.
51. How does Paul expound this delusion and its remedy?
Ans. See 2Co 3:14 : “But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament; which veil is done away in Christ.”
52. How does he contrast Christians?
Ans. There is no veil over their faces, and hence seeing Christ plainly, they are changed into his image from glory to glory, 2Co 3:18 .
53. How does Paul explain that even the brighter and more enduring gospel light is veiled to some people?
Ans. 2Co 4:3 : “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
54. How does the poet, Tom Moore, illustrate the misunderstanding of the Jews concerning the veiled face of Moses and the awful disappointment that must come at the unveiling if they reject Christ?
Ans. In his poem “The Veiled Prophet of the Korassan” in Lalla Rookh . This prophet always wore a silver veil. He taught his victims that to unveil his face before they were prepared would blind and slay them. At the close of the story, having ruined the maiden Zeiica by what he called preparing her, he then unveils and shows to her despair the hideous face that had been covered.
55. Quote from the poem about this unveiling.
Ans. But turn and look then wonder, if thou wilt, That I should hate, should take revenge, by guilt, Upon the hand, whose mischief or whose mirth Sent me thus maim’d and monstrous upon earth, And on that race who, though more vile they be Than mowing apes, are demigods to me! Here judge if hell, with all its power to damn, Can add one curse to the foul thing I am I” He raised his veil the maid turned slowly round, Look’d at him shrieked and sunk upon the ground!
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Exo 34:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon [these] tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.
Ver. 1. Which thou brakest. ] Not without a tincture of passionate infirmity, as some conceive. He that was the meekest upon earth, saith one, a in a sudden indignation abandons that which he would in cold blood have held faster than his life. But Augustine cries out, O ira Prophetica, et animus non perturbatus, sed illuminatus!
a Dr Hall.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
And. Moses must have descended for the fifth time. See note on Exo 19:3.
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
the LORD said. See note on Exo 3:7, and compare note on Exo 6:10.
Hew thee. Moses makes these second tables; Jehovah made the first. See on Exo 31:18.
write. See note on Exo 17:14 and App-47.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 34
And the Lord said unto Moses, Cut out two tables of stone, hew them out like the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which you broke. And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before the mount. So Moses hewed out the two tables of stone like the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone. And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by [Now the Jehovah Witnesses think the name is Jehovah but other evidence seems to point to Yahweh, “The Lord passed by”.] before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation ( Exo 34:1-7 ).
Now there are people who try to say that there is a God of the Old Testament, and a God of the New Testament. “And the God of the Old Testament, is a God of wrath, and judgment, but I love the God of the New Testament who is forgiving, and gracious and kind.” They see actually two Gods, the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New.
But in the Old Testament you will find very much concerning the character of God as far as His graciousness, as far as His mercy. Here we find God declaring Himself to Moses as merciful, gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping the mercy for thousands, and forgiving the iniquities and transgressions. And so surely tremendous declarations of God’s grace, God’s mercy, God’s forgiveness, God’s goodness, God’s truth. People who seem to think that the God of the New Testament is all love and forgiveness, and the abrogating of the capital punishment and all of this, had better read the book of Revelation, and they’ll find out that He is also a God of judgment, and a God of wrath that shall come and be visited.
Grace and truth were demonstrated in Jesus Christ, but to those who reject that grace and truth, as Hebrews tells us, “There remains then a fearful looking for the fiery indignation of the wrath of God that will devour His adversaries. For they who despised Moses’ law were put to death in the mouth of two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, he could be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and who hath counted the blood of His covenant, wherewith He was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the spirit of grace? For it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God”( Heb 10:27-29 , Heb 10:31 ). That wasn’t the prophet Isaiah thundering out, that was the writer of the book of Hebrews declaring the judgment of God that shall come upon those who have rejected His grace, and His mercy, through Jesus Christ.
So in the Old Testament we have a God of grace and mercy, and longsuffering and forgiveness revealed to us. In the New Testament we have a God of judgment and wrath revealed to us. They are one in the same God. There isn’t a God of the Old Testament, and a different God of the New. People only read in it what they want to read, but in reality He is revealed in both Testaments as gracious, and loving and kind, and merciful, and forgiving and in both Testaments as a God of judgment and wrath, by no means clearing the guilty; that is, without there being repentance. God doesn’t just say to a person, “Well, that’s all right, you’re forgiven.” Jesus emphasized over and over, “unless you repent, you will likewise perish”.
People are troubled with the fact that it declares, “visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” That is clarified a little bit more in the commandments that God gave, for it there adds, “to those that continue in them.”
Now it is sad that the sins of the parents are visited upon the children. We see this demonstrated all the time. It is tragic indeed that really the real victims of divorce are the children. I can go into the classrooms here at Maranatha Academy and sit and observe in one day, and at the end of the day I can tell you each child that comes from a broken home, just by watching the characteristics within the child. Children become the innocent victims because their parents aren’t able to soften their hearts before God and each other enough to make the marriage work. It’s tragic but there are so much pressures, so many pressures being placed upon the home today. Divorce has become such an easy thing. There are all kinds of pressures that have been placed upon the home, and love has been made out to be something that it really isn’t. I get so tired of hearing them say, “Well, I just don’t love them anymore.” An unwillingness, a hardness of the heart, and an unwillingness to see that the marriage goes. The children have to suffer because of the sins of the parents.
There are even worse cases of children suffering for the sins of the parent, for there are parents who are-mothers who are addicted to drugs. And when their child is born, it is born with an addiction to drugs. Many children go into withdrawals after birth because of the mother having been hooked on particular drugs. There, the sins of the parents being visited upon the children.
Taking it from a sociological standpoint, and a psychological standpoint there are people today who are having a hard time making it in life because their parents were so totally messed up. So many young girls having extreme emotional difficulties because their stupid fathers were abusing them sexually. Surely the scripture describes the days in which we live when it refers to “unnatural affections”. For any father to make any kind of a sexual advance towards his daughter, something’s got to be sick, sick, sick. Because what he is doing is psychologically destroying that daughter of his.
There are so many of the young girls who come in with tremendous problems of adjusting to life because of the stupidity of their dads. Not just-I can’t, in my wildest imagination, I cannot imagine a father abusing his own daughter, or even being attracted to his own daughter in a sexual way. That is so absolutely sick I can’t even think of it. Yet what perhaps, well it’s not even any worse, but fathers that abuse their own sons. It’s just plain sick. You cannot do that to a child without marking the child, without damaging the child psychologically, putting psychic scars upon that child’s mind that’s gonna be with him the rest of his life.
Thank God for the power of the blood of Jesus Christ; it’s the only thing that I know that can straighten up the mess that people’s minds are in because of some of the stupid things their parents did. If it weren’t for the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the world would be in a much greater mess than it is today, because people are doing such absolutely foolish things in destroying their own children.
Oh how glorious it is that we can come to Jesus Christ and receive that beautiful work of His Holy Spirit and He can absolutely cleanse, and clear. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature and the old things are passed away, and every thing becomes new”( 1Co 5:13 ). You can enter into a totally new, beautiful life in Christ, and only He can erase the psychic scars that so damaged some of you from your childhood and the things that you experienced in childhood.
There are many young adults today that cannot even remember years of their childhood because their minds have blocked them out. Their relationship with the parents was just so off the wall that their minds just block out years of their childhood and they can’t even tell you about areas of their childhood because the psychic wounds are so great that they just-they’ve had to build a wall and they just blocked it out. They have-it’s just hid and suppressed and lying dormant underneath there.
So it is true, it is tragically true that often the sins of the parents are visited upon the children. That they become the innocent victims of their parents’ folly. Thank God there’s always a way out, there’s always-God has provided a way out through the blood of Jesus Christ that can wash, and cleanse us. But if it isn’t there, then it’ll go on and it passes from generation to generation.
You’ll find that in your psychology and in your sociological studies that the-that a person gets his role for parenthood from his parents. So if their dads were guilty of doing a stupid thing, they’ll usually follow that because that’s the role model that they had. Unless Jesus Christ comes into their life, unless there comes that change through the power of the gospel, they follow the role model and it goes down from generation to generation to generation. We see the degraded society around us today that is in such desperate need of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, to deliver us out of the cesspool and the pits, and to raise us up.
Oh, how I thank God for the godly home in which I was raised. How I thank God that both of my parents were committed Christians. On the list of blessings that God has given to me, I’ll tell you that’s the-near the top of the list that godly home that I had. How I thank God for it more and more, especially as I see people who-my heart goes out to them, they’ve never had a chance to know what a real loving home is all about, a real godly home is all about.
Moses made haste, and he bowed his head towards the earth, and he worshipped. [God passed by and declared His name, declared His glory. Moses, man just got down on his face and began to worship God.] And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance ( Exo 34:8-9 ).
Now that’s asking God for an awful lot. “Now Lord, I’ve seen Your glory. You’ve passed by me, declared Your name, now Lord go ahead and pass among the people, pardon their sin; and take us for Your inheritance.” Now that’s the part that I have, “Here God, You can have me for Your inheritance.” “Take this stiffnecked people for Your inheritance.” Yet the Bible declares, Paul the apostle prayed for the Ephesians that they might know what are the riches of His inheritance in the saints. What he is saying is, “If you only knew how much God valued you.”
Now Moses is just saying that, “Lord, take these people, put the value on them as Your inheritance.” If you only knew the high value God placed upon you, you’d be amazed, if you knew how highly God prized you. He prized you so highly that He sent His Son to die for your sins so that He could have you for His own. That’s how high God prizes you. He delivered up His own Son for you because He prizes you that much. I cannot understand it, don’t ask me to explain it.
Here is the place where I, as a devout Jew, though I am not a Jew, but as a devout Jew who’s just comes to that place where he bows his head and says nothing, when I think of how God has placed such a high value on my life. All I can do is just bow my head and worship in wonder and in awe, that God should love me, and care for me, and place value in me so much that He would give His Son for my redemption. Oh how I thank God and praise God for the value that He’s placed upon my life.
So the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and in all the people among whom thou [shalt, among whom thou] art shall see the work of the Lord: for it is an awesome [The word terrible is an old English word, should be translated “awesome”] thing that I will do with thee. Observe thou that which I command thee this day ( Exo 34:10-11 ):
Now God is saying, “Observe it, not just see it”. There’s a difference between seeing and observing, and God isn’t saying, “see the things I command you, but observe”, that is see and live in harmony with it.
behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, Perizzite, Hivite, and Jebusite. Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God ( Exo 34:11-14 ):
Now there are people who have difficulty with God demanding the extermination of the people within the land. No covenant was to be made with them, no peace treaty. “Go in and utterly wipe them out.” With this, people have a great difficulty with God because of His orders to wipe them out, to exterminate them. God is oftentimes faulted. As people are arguing about God, God is faulted for the order of the extermination and not making covenants with these people. God ordered their idols to be cut, to be destroyed, their groves to be cut down. What were they doing in their groves? What were they doing at the high places? How were they worshiping their gods?
If you go into the Museum of Natural History in Jerusalem, and you go downstairs, in one area you will find diggings from the archeologists of the pre-Israel culture from the Canaanite period. In one of the cases you will see many of the little gods that were representing Baal. As you see these little gods that are representations, or were representations to the people of Baal, you’ll see that Baal’s arms are always folded, and the hands in an upright position like this. They are made of iron; they are made of stone. They would place these in the fire and heat them until they became- until the iron became red hot. And then they would take their babies and place them in the arms of Baal and allow them to be burned to death as they sacrificed unto this little idol. Human sacrifice was commonly practiced, as well as all kinds of licentious practices.
Now by the very nature of their worship they would soon destroy themselves. They could not exist. No society can exist that is that corrupted. So they are going to destroy themselves. But if they are allowed to make a covenant and live among the people, they will infect God’s people with this same deadly corruption. So God is ordering their extermination in order to keep His own people protected from their madness.
If we were to hire you here as a lunchtime monitor for the school, and as you were out there watching these beautiful little children that we have here at our academy, and you were watching them playing out there in the yard, and skipping and chasing around and all, and there was to come upon the yard a dog foaming at the mouth, running around and snapping at the children, would you be justified in going over and grabbing that dog and killing it? You bet your life you would. And I love dogs, but the dog has rabies. Because it has rabies, it’s gonna die. The rabies are gonna kill the dog. But if I don’t kill it, that mad dog can actually kill a lot of these beautiful, innocent little children. If I do nothing to stop it, if I do nothing to hinder it, that little dog could actually kill a lot of the children on the playground, infect them so that they also would die. So I would be thoroughly justified in killing that dog so that it would not infect the innocent children and destroy them. No one would really fault me for it because they know a rabid dog is gonna die anyhow.
You’ve got the same thing, only it isn’t a dog, it’s people and they’ve got a deadly infection in their whole religious system. God ordering their extermination; they’re gonna die anyhow, they’re gonna destroy themselves. He’s only protecting the innocent children that He’s bringing in to inherit the land, His children. He’s only watching over them. Thus God has given the order of extermination to protect His own innocent children. They’re not to make any covenant because, verse fifteen,
Because if you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one calls to you, to eat of his sacrifice; And you take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods. Thou shalt make thee no molten images ( Exo 34:15-17 ).
Now there are all kinds of molten images in the land of Canaan. “Thou shalt make thee no molten images.”
The feast [Now God lays out the various feasts that they were to have, the three feasts, “the feast”,] of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. [This is a feast of Passover.] For seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, [Verse nineteen] All that openeth the matrix is mine; [So the first born of everything belongs to God.] of your cattle, ox, sheep, all of the first born male. But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if you do not redeem him, then you shall break his neck. All of the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty ( Exo 34:18-20 ).
Now your first born son, you had to redeem from God. He belonged to God automatically. You see the first born son used to always be the priest of the house, he belonged to God. Now that God has a priesthood through the tribe of Levi, if you want to keep your first born son, then you had to redeem him from God.
Six days shalt thou work, but the seventh day shall be a day of rest: even in the harvest time and in the earing time thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, [that is] the first of the wheat harvest ( Exo 34:21-22 ),
In June, fifty days after Passover, after seven weeks after Passover, then the next day began-seven weeks would be forty-nine days. The next day, the fiftieth day would begin the Passover, which was the first fruits of the winter, wheat harvest, as they began to harvest it there in Israel in the first part of June. Then it was sort of a Thanksgiving.
and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end. [So that’s sort of equivalent to our Thanksgiving in the fall time of the year.] Now three times in a year shall all your men children appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel ( Exo 34:22-23 ).
You know, that would be such a glorious thing if you had a religious nation. You know, a nation who was really committed unto God. It would be a glorious thing that three times a year all the men in the nation would have to come and stand before God in this time of worship and so forth. That would be absolutely glorious. So three times a year they were to appear before God, the God of Israel.
For I will cast out the nations before thee, enlarge your borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice in the year. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; [Leaven is a type of sin.] neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto morning. The first of the firstfruits of the land ( Exo 34:24-26 )
Notice, “the first of the firstfruits” is what God demands from you, not the leftovers. “Well, we’ll see if we have enough left for ourselves, and if we have enough we’ll give it to God.” No way. “The first of the firstfruits of thy land.”
thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seethe kid in his mother’s milk. [It was a part of the practice for the land to increase fertility they thought.] The Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights; and he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the ten commandments ( Exo 34:26-28 ).
You say, “Well, that’s impossible. You can’t go forty days and forty nights without food or water.” That is very true; it is impossible if you’re only dealing with natural things. How big is your God? God was able to sustain him without food, without water. Thus, though physically it is an impossibility, we are dealing with a God of miraculous power and God who can set aside certain laws of nature.
Now I don’t recommend that you try and go forty days and forty nights without water or food. Can’t go more than nine days without water; we’ll dehydrate and die. Yet Moses was able to, only by the sustaining hand and power of God. It’s a miracle that he could do it. I believe that it happened because the Bible declares that it happened. I have no problem with a God who is able to work miracles. I would have problems with any god that couldn’t work miracles.
“And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant the Ten commandments.”
And it came to pass, when Moses came down from the mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses knew not that the skin of his face was shining while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all of the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face was shining; and they were afraid to come near him. And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them. And afterward all the children of Israel came near: and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in mount Sinai. And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out. And when he would come out, and speak with the children of Israel that which was commanded. The children of Israel saw the face of Moses, the skin of Moses’ face it was shining: and Moses put the veil upon his face again, until he went to speak with the Lord ( Exo 34:29-35 ).
So he would veil his face when he would go out and talk with the children of Israel, because he would have this shining on his face. When he’d go before the Lord he’d take the veil off.
Now twice in the New Testament this veil is mentioned there in a couple of different ways. Number one, why the veil over the face of Moses? Because it was hard to look at his shining face? No.
In Corinthians we are told that the reason for the veil over his face is so that they would not see the shining go away, fading. But the fact that the shine was fading away from his face, was indicating the fact that the law that God was given was to fade away when God established the new covenant with man through Jesus Christ. So that they would not see the fading away of the old covenant, his face was veiled.
But Paul goes on to say, “But even today their faces are still veiled when it comes to the word of God.” They can’t see the truth of God in Jesus Christ. They still have that veil over their face as God seeks to speak to them today, and they cannot see that Jesus Christ is indeed the Messiah that God had promised to the nation Israel. So the veil still over their eyes, not being able to behold the truth of Jesus Christ. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Moses was called again into the mount and the promised unveiling was made to him. It consisted of a declaration by God of the truth concerning Himself, first, as to His nature and second, as to His methods with men. In these we have the merging of the two essential truths that God is love and God is light. He is full of compassion and yet absolutely holy, He forgives and yet cannot clear the guilty. It was strange and paradoxical, yet an infinite music, fully interpreted when Moses was superseded finally by the Son of God.
Following these things, the terms of a covenant between the people and God were enunciated. In view of this covenant they were to make no covenant with the people of the land to which they were going. We have no detailed account of the happenings of this second period in the mount, save that the tables of the law were written anew. Probably in holy silence, Moses looked deeply into the nature of God and thereby was further strengthened for the work that lay before him.
He returned to the people, his face radiant with the glory of this solemn period of communion. He was not conscious of the shining of his face until he learned it from the people. After the words of the law had been delivered, he put a veil on his face. It is in the New Testament we learn clearly the purpose of that veiling. “Moses . . . put a veil upon his face, that the children of Israel should not look steadfastly on the end of that which was passing away.” Whether Moses understood that the fading of the glory on his face was symbolic of the ultimate passing away of the dispensation of Law it is impossible for us to say. It is equally impossible, however, for us to read this story without rejoicing in the fact that the glory which shines in the faces of those who hold communion with God through Jesus Christ increases ever unto the perfect light.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
the Covenant of the Law Renewed
Exo 34:1-17
Before we can behold the vision of Eternal Love we must be willing to fulfill three conditions: (1) Earliness: My soul, be ready in the morning. (2) Solitude: No man shall come up with thee. (3) The open heart: That God may write there what He will. God is always passing by and covering us with the shadow of His hand, and proclaiming His loving kindness and tender mercy. He keeps mercy for thousands, and limits the entail of sin to the third and fourth generation.
Whenever we get near to God we should begin to think of and pray for others. As the last notes of the divine procession were dying away Moses bowed his head and worshiped, saying, Let the Lord go in the middle of us and forgive. It was as though he said, If thou art a God like that, thou art the God that stiff-necked people need. Go with us, therefore, for thou canst bear with us. He went on to ask that they might be pardoned, and that God would account them His heritage. His request was more than granted! God entered into covenant with them and promised to drive out their enemies on conditions which He proceeded to enumerate.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Exo 34:5-8, Exo 34:29-35
This was the transfiguration of Moses. Let us consider the narrative as a spiritual parable, and try to read in it some of the conditions and privileges of exalted communion with God. Communion with God is the highest prerogative of spiritual beings. It is the instinctive craving of human souls; it is the supreme privilege and joy of the religious life; it is the inspiration and strength of all great service. God redeems us and saves us by drawing us to Himself. By mysterious voices He solicits us; by irrepressible instincts He impels us; by subtle affinities He holds us; by ineffable satisfactions He makes us feel His nearness and fills us with rest and joy.
Notice:-
I. We are admitted to fellowship with God only through propitiatory sacrifice. Moses builds an altar under the hill, offers sacrifices upon it, and sprinkles the blood thereof before he ascends the holy mount to commune with God. We must seek fellowship with God through the one propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Not only is the sacrifice of Christ the medium through which the forgiving love of God becomes possible; it is the supreme expression of it.
II. We are qualified for our highest intercourse with God by the spiritual grace of our own souls; Moses was qualified for this revelation of the supreme glory of God by his peculiar magnanimity and self-sacrifice. When God admits us to intercourse with Himself, what we see will depend upon our capability of seeing. Only the pure in heart can see God.
III. We are admitted to visions of the higher glory of God only when we seek them for the uses of practical religious duty. If selfishness be a disqualification, so is mere sentiment. A man who seeks God for his own religious gratification merely may see God, but he will not see God’s supreme glory. Our chief reason for desiring to know God must be that we may glorify Him in serving others.
IV. The most spiritual visions of God, the closest communion with God, are to be realised only when we seek Him alone. In our greatest emotions we seek solitude instinctively. Human presence is intolerable to the intensest moods of the soul. No man can be eminent either in holiness or service who does not often ascend to the mountain-top, that he may be alone with God and behold His glory.
V. The supreme revelation of God to which we attain through such fellowship with Him is the revelation of His grace and love. When a man sees this, the glory of God has passed before him.
VI. The revelation of God’s glorious goodness transfigures the man who beholds it.
H. Allon, The Vision of God, p. 41.
Exo 34:6-7
There were thirteen names, or thirteen attributes, which went to make the names, as God showed Himself on Sinai, of which thirteen nine were mercy, two were power, two were justice, (1) The Lord. There we lay our basis. Unless we are prepared to admit the sovereignty of God, we can go no further, we shall see no more. (2) The Lord God. There we put the two names in combination. The word God in its root means kindness. We put the infinitude of His sovereignty in combination with the boundlessness of His affection, and we say, “The Lord, the Lord God.” (3) We come next to the goings forth of that wonderful mystery of Godhead to man in mercy. The strict meaning of the word “mercy” is, a heart for misery. The first thought here is the Lord God stooping down to the wretched, going forth to the miserable. (4) And why merciful? Because gracious. Grace is the free flowing of undeserved favour. In two things especially God shows His grace: in the pardon of sin and the gift of the Holy Ghost. (5) “Long-suffering.” We now come to a wonderful part of the character of God-patience. The end of this world is stayed because “the longsuffering of God leadeth men to repentance.” This is the most marvellous part of the character of God-His patience; it contrasts so strongly with the impetuosity, the haste, the impulsiveness, of man. (6) “Abundant in goodness and truth.” Abundant is enough and something over, cup so full that it mantles. He is abundant in (7) goodness and (8) truth. (9) “Keeping mercy for thousands.” There are many people who do not see their mercy, for whom God is now keeping it in reserve. He is holding it till His own appointed time, till His own season comes. (10) “Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” This brings us more and more into the work of Christ. All God’s attributes met that He might pardon sin. (11) “By no means clear the guilty.” The word “guilty” is not in the original; it is simply “by no means clear.” He will not clear any one whom He has not pardoned. God’s mercy is infinite in its own bounds, but it keeps within these bounds most strictly. (12) “He visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children,” etc. This is an ever-standing, visible proof and monument of God’s holiness and justice. He visits sin from generation to generation. There are inherited dispensations, inherited calamities, inherited evils.
J. Vaughan, Meditations in Exodus, p. 97.
References: Exo 34:6.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 217. Exo 34:6, Exo 34:7.-H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 325; Bishop Temple, Rugby Sermons, 3rd series, p. 173. Exo 34:14.- Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix., No. 502; J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 169. Exo 34:20.-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 291; W. M. Taylor, Limitations of Life, p. 219. Exo 34:27, Exo 34:28.-R. Lee, Sermons, p. 388. Exo 34:28, Exo 34:29.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 116.
Exo 34:29
“He wist not that the skin of his face shone.” Few and simple as these words are, there could be none grander written to the memory of a hero. The noblest and loftiest character is assuredly that of the man who is so absorbed in the Divine nature of his calling, and so conscious of the need of those for whom he labours, that he becomes forgetful of the beauty in his character which others recognise, and almost unconscious that he is himself the worker.
I. There are many unconscious believers and workers in the world still, who may gather helpful thoughts from this fact concerning Moses. Much time and ability has been devoted to discussing the question of “Christian assurance.” To say that if we do not feel that we are saved, we are not saved, is to lose sight of what salvation really means. It is nowhere stated in Scripture that an assurance of that salvation which is a gradual matter, a day-by-day struggle and deliverance, is either universal or necessary. God may think it best that some of us should not have assurance, as on that great day He kept Moses unconscious that the skin of his face shone.
II. Perhaps some of us may feel that there were moments of such bright and hopeful experience once, but they are past now, and that seems to us the saddest thought of all. Still we need not despair. We should go back as Moses did to the mount where God had spoken to him, to the source of the old enthusiasm and the former faith. If we go back and stand face to face with the crucified Christ, our life will glow anew with the radiance of His love, even though we ourselves are unconscious of it.
III. This holds good also regarding our work for God. Many a splendid silent work is done on earth, and the doer is perhaps unconscious of it, and may remain unconscious till the great day of the Lord shall reveal it.
T. Teignmouth Shore, The Life of the World to Come, p. 159.
Reference: Exo 34:29-35.-H. Wonnacott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 115.
Exo 34:30
(with Act 6:15)
In reading the account of Stephen’s death and of the supernatural light that flushed over his face, one is led to think of a similar scene in the life of Moses, and to put the two together for the sake of comparison. The more attentively we study the two incidents, the more we shall find that they have much in common, as both men belong to the same Divine mould, and yet much in contrast, as they belong to ages and dispensations wide apart.
I. We may compare that view of God which is reflected on the face of each of them. The vision that Moses saw was what is termed (Exo 33:18, Exo 33:22) “God’s glory.” It revealed the purity of God, but had no distinct features; it promised mercy, but the way of pardon was not made plain. The object presented to the eye of Stephen was “Jesus Christ standing on the right hand of God.” The purity which in the day of Moses had no distinct features has formed itself into the countenance of the Son of God, and the mysterious mercy descends from God’s throne by a new and living way, in the person of the Mediator.
II. We may compare the effect of the view on the immediate witnesses. In the case of Moses the effect was mainly an external brightness; the beauty of his face had something of terror with it. The beauty of Stephen’s face consisted more in Divine expression than in supernatural brightness. Its appearance did not outdazzle or overawe the beholders. The one transfiguration was bright, but formless, the shadow of the shechinah on him who sees it; the other was the beauty of the soul that has beheld Christ.
III. We may compare the crisis of life in which each of these transfigurations occurred. Moses was in the fulness of his power and success as a Divine messenger; Stephen was placed as a criminal before those who sat in Moses’ seat, and was charged with breaking in pieces the law which Moses gave.
IV. We may compare the effects on the surrounding spectators. In the case of Moses the impression made soon passed away; in the case of Stephen the ashes of the martyr became the seed of the Church.
V. We may compare the permanence of the transfigurations in the subjects of them. The brightness on the face of Moses faded away as he receded from the great vision. Moses was descending the hill of God with a brightness which was continually dying; Stephen was ascending the higher mount with a glory growing to all eternity.
J. Ker, Sermons, p. 170.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 34 The Result: The Second Covenant and the Glory
1. The command to hew two tables of stone (Exo 34:1-4)
2. The proclamation of Jehovah (Exo 34:5-7)
3. Moses worship and prayer (Exo 34:8-9)
4. The covenant restated (Exo 34:10-26)
5. The second tables written (Exo 34:27-28)
6. The glory upon the face of Moses (Exo 34:29-35)
The command is given to Moses to hew two tables of stone like the first, which Jehovah Himself had hewn and which were broken by Moses. The first were hewn of one stone; the second of two stones. Moses was permitted to furnish the material for the second tables, while the Lord had furnished it for the first. The second tables were given as the result of the intercession of Moses. But God wrote the words on the second tables of stones as He had done on the first.
The manifestation of Jehovah recorded in this chapter is deeply interesting. In chapter 33:21-23 the Lord promised Moses a vision. This is now fulfilled. Jehovah came down from heaven in a cloud and stood with him there; He proclaimed the name of Jehovah. This reminds us of Exo 19:24. What Moses saw is not stated. The Lord had come down to him and the descended Lord made known the name of the Lord. It is a most blessed hint on the incarnation of Jehovah and the manifestation of the name of Jehovah through Him, who is Jehovah. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (Joh 1:17). The descended Lord makes known grace, but also divine righteousness. The full manifestation of grace could not be then made known; only in the cross of Christ, where Gods righteousness is revealed, grace shines forth in all its marvelous glory. In the gospel of Jesus Christ the justification of the ungodly is announced as well as the glorious inheritance of eternity for justified believers. Of this the law had nothing to say, for it could not give righteousness and God never meant to give to man eternal glory by keeping the commandments.
Moses worshipped and bowed his head toward the earth. His prayer to Jehovah is that He might come among them. He confessed the sinful condition of the people and asks for pardon. He includes himself. In chapter 33:5 Jehovah called the people stiff-necked. Moses then did not use this word; but here when Jehovah speaks of grace he pleads this charge of Jehovah for forgiveness and mercy. This is a blessed foreshadowing of the gospel of grace. But there is another lesson here. Moses realizes that the presence of Jehovah who had uttered such gracious words, if He were among them, would result in their forgiveness. The Holy One of Israel will some day be in the midst of His earthly people, then He will forgive their sins and remember them no more, and they will be His inheritance.
In the statements of the renewed covenant the separation of the people from the inhabitants of Canaan is made prominent. They were to have nothing to do with the impure and abominable idolatries of these nations. He called His people unto holiness. Moreover, they were to destroy their altars, their images and their groves. The word groves is asherah. It was an image used for the most lascivious practices, commonly known as the phallic worship. It flourished among all the ancient nations, but was especially used by the Canaanites. When Israel later fell in with these abominations, the judgment fell upon them. The commandments concerning the feasts, the Sabbath, and the firstfruits are repeated.
The conclusion of this chapter is used in 2 Cor. 3.
When Moses was on the mountain the first time to receive the first tables of stone no glory was seen on his face, because the covenant was altogether legal and not a ray of glory can come from that. The second time, because grace and mercy were mingled with it, glory shines from the mediators face. But they could not look upon that glory. He had to cover his face with a vail. Thus grace and glory are covered in the law. This vail is done away in Christ. In Him grace and glory in the most perfect splendor shine forth. And it is a glory which does not wane, but increases. But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2Co 3:18).
Of Israel it is written, But their minds were blinded, for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their hearts. Nevertheless, when it shall turn unto the Lord, the veil shall be taken away (2Co 3:14-16). And that glorious day is coming, when they will believe.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Hew
(See Scofield “Exo 20:4”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Hew: Exo 31:18, Exo 32:16, Exo 32:19, Deu 10:1
I will: Exo 34:28, Deu 10:1-4
the words: Psa 119:89
which: Exo 32:19, Deu 9:15-17
Reciprocal: 2Ch 5:10 – save 2Co 3:3 – not 2Co 3:7 – written Heb 8:10 – I will put
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Exo 34:1. Hew thee two tables of stone like the first Before, God himself both provided the tables and wrote on them; now, Moses must prepare the tables, and God would only write upon them. This might be intended partly to signify Gods displeasure on account of their sin; for though he had pardoned them, the wound was not, healed without a scar; and partly to show, that although the covenant of grace was first made without mans care and counsel, yet it should not be renewed without mans repentance. And as the tables of stone were emblematical of the hardness of their heart, so the hewing of them by Moses, and writing on them by the Lord, might denote that circumcision and renovation of their hearts by the ministry of Gods word, and the influence of his Spirit, which were necessary to prepare them for receiving Gods mercies and the performance of their duties. We may observe also, that although the first tables were broken, to show that there was no hope for mankind to be saved by their innocence, yet God would have the law to be in force still as a rule of obedience, and therefore, as soon as he was reconciled to them, ordered the tables to be renewed, and wrote his law on them. This plainly intimates, that even under the gospel (of which the intercession of Moses was typical) the moral law continues to oblige believers. For though Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, yet not from the command of it, but still we are under the law to Christ. When our Saviour, in his sermon on the mount, expounded the moral law, and vindicated it from the corrupt glosses with which the scribes and Pharisees had obliterated and broken it, he did, in effect, renew the tables, and make them like the first, that is, reduce the law to its primitive sense and intention. And by his writing it on our hearts by his Spirit, as he wrote it on the tables by his finger or power, we may be enabled to conform our lives to it.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Exo 34:1. I will write upon these tables. Deu 10:4. The Lord wrote on these tables according to the first writing. In the last clause of Exo 34:28, the pronoun he refers, not to Moses, but to the Lord, who wrote on the two tables while Moses was commanded to write the words of the covenant in a book. They contained the duties we owe to God and man.
Exo 34:9. Oh Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us. This address is to Adonai, who is twice named, as Messiah or Angel of the covenant. Adonai is addressed as My Lord, probably in imitation of Moses in this place, in Psa 110:1.
Exo 34:15. Goafter their gods. Israel as a nation was betrothed and married to the Lord; hence the worship of idols is branded, in continuous language, with the detestable epithets of fornication and adultery. Jer 2:3, and Ezekiel 16.
Exo 34:16. And thou take their daughters. Marriage with the daughters of the land was absolutely prohibited to prevent idolatry. 1Es 9:7. Though the Idumeans, the Edomites, and the Ammonites were related to them; yet Solomon is censured for taking wives of those nations. Moses allows, however, of a female captive being married to a Hebrew, because, it would seem, that no danger of idolatry existed from a solitary child. Deu 21:10.
Exo 34:21. In harvest thou shalt rest. This marks the sabbath to be hallowed above the most urgent labours of secular life. He who grants a dispensation to violate this day of rest, arrogates to himself a sovereignty above his Maker, who has sanctified the sabbath from the creation of the world.
Exo 34:29. The skin of his face shone. The Hebrew, the Septuagint, and the Vulgate read, his face was horned. Rabbi Kimchi gives the true sense in saying, that his face was radiated with splendour. The variations are merely idioms of speech. This refracted splendour of uncreated glory designates the divine authority of the law, but veiled with shadows till they were superseded by the perfect and ever-during splendour of the glorious gospel of Christ. So St. Paul illustrates this passage. 2 Corinthians 4.
REFLECTIONS.
As the sweetest serenity and fragrance are diffused through the air after a thunder storm; so after the storm of divine anger, excited by the calf, had subsided, every blessing of peace and joy was shed down on the pardoned Hebrews. The Lord heaped new favours and new promises on their heads, and seemed to love them the more, because he had forgiven their sin. How sweet, how divinely sweet and attractive are the reconciling charms of grace! Israel were instructed by their fall, and God rejoiced to see his people have a better mind.
Though the sacred tables had been broken, yet God, now reconciled to his people, was once more pleased to write the precepts with his own hand. Carnal men, ever biased by passion and self-love, have need that the laws of heaven should ever be before their eyes, and in broad characters. But the end of the commandment being charity, out of a pure conscience and faith unfeigned, let us pray the Lord to write all these laws on our hearts by his Holy Spirit.
When this law was given the Lord clothed himself with every character of terror, and suffered no one to approach him but the mediator of the covenant. Now, iniquity being purged with blood, the Lord assumes every character of mercy and compassion. He caused his goodness to pass before his servant, while the voice proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious to his people; longsuffering to the wicked, forgiving iniquity on repentance, and keeping mercy to thousands of generations: but withal guarding the riches of grace by the terrors of justice, for he will visit the iniquities of the impenitent world upon their descendants. Where children on coming of age fall in with their fathers habits and crimes, they seem to inherit their sins, as well as their substance. Because the Jews persecuted our Saviour and his apostles, he accounted them guilty of their fathers crimes in killing the prophets. Let all ministers therefore learn of Moses to hold forth the gracious idea of God, but never to preach mercy to wavering men in an unqualified way. How gracious, how good is the Lord! Of the eleven attributes named here, nine are attributes of grace, that sinners might be encouraged to repent and serve so gracious a Being.
Israel once more restored to the divine favour, are cautioned against future falls. They were enjoined to make no covenants, to contract no marriages with the idolatrous nations, because it would draw them into all the sins of the heathen, and into greater punishments, as having more light and higher privileges. In future ages, the truth of this prediction was evinced by sad experience. Samson, mighty Samson, the glory of Israel and the terror of all its foes, lost the divine favour by feasting with the Philistines. The danger is equally great to the christian world. If regenerate people intimately connect themselves with those whom the Holy Spirit calls uncircumcised in heart and ear, they will surely imbibe the same spirit, and be involved in the same punishment.
God having promised very great things to Israel, was graciously pleased to give a specimen of the evangelical and eternal glory, couched in these proclamations of grace, by communicating a divine lustre to the countenance of Moses. He saw in a vision the Word made flesh, and the uncreated glory was for a while reflected by the face of his servant, though he knew it not. Oh let it be the object of our heart, the end of all our life, to see him as he is, and then we shall be like him. And in order to that, let us seek the glory of perfect love and sanctifying grace. Let us behold, as with open face in the gospel glass, the glory of the Lord, that we may be changed from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. 2Co 3:18. But the lustre of Moses face soon faded, intimating that the glory of the shadowy law was to be superseded by the everlasting glory of Christ. Hence, one day, we shall see him in the brightness of the Fathers glory, and reflect his lustre for evermore. And even here, communion with God gives, I know not what, of lustre to the soul. It purifies it from low desires, fills it with every sentiment and affection noble and divine; and from this participation of the divine nature, it sheds looks of grace and heaven on all around.
Moses, surprised to see the elders embarrassed, and shrinking from his presence, was obliged to veil his countenance. This is figurative of the dark veil of ignorance on the Jews, and on the carnal world. But when they turn to the Lord, the veil is done away in Christ. The mystery of the gospel hid in ages past under the shadows of the ritual law is made manifest. The Saviour reveals himself under them as he does not unto the world; and even to the christian world the veil which covers futurity is but slightly rent. Now we see through a glass darkly, or by the analogy of crowns, robes, feasts, glory, &c; but then we shall see his face. The Truth himself cannot lie; if it were not so he would have told us; and our faith which is the substance of things hoped for, shall deceive us only by revealing a heaven ten thousand times happier than it could enter into the heart of man to conceive.
Exo 34:3. No fire. The manna being prepared on the preseding night, they had no need of fires for dressing their food, Exo 16:29; and fires for furnaces and other works are here expressly forbidden. Some think that this precept was temporary, and respected only the time they dwelt in the desert: but I see no authority for limiting the precept to that period. Be that as it may, the law was not absolutely observed among the Jews, as appears from the diversity of opinion among the rabbins on the subject; and it was never considered as binding on the christian church. In the colder regions of Europe, our little infants and sick people require the indulgence of a fire: nevertheless, as God has twice written the law of the sabbath with his own hand, we may mark its sanctity to be immutable and inviolably great.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Exodus 33 – 34
Jehovah refuses to accompany Israel to the land of promise. “I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiff-necked people; lest I consume thee in the way.” At the opening of this book, when the people were in the furnace of Egypt, the Lord could say, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.” But now He has to say, “I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people.” An afflicted people is an object of grace; but a stiff-necked people must be humbled. The cry of oppressed Israel had been answered by the exhibition of grace ; but the song of idolatrous Israel must be answered by the voice of stern rebuke.
“Ye are a stiff-necked people: I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment and consume thee: therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee that I may know what to do unto thee,” It is only when we are really stripped of all nature’s ornaments that God can deal with us. A naked sinner can be clothed; but a sinner decked in ornaments must be stripped. This is always true. We must be stripped of all that pertains to self, ere we can be clothed with that which pertains to God.
“And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the mount Horeb.” There they stood beneath that memorable mount, their feasting and singing changed into bitter lamentations, their ornaments gone, the tables of testimony in fragments. Such was their condition, and Moses as once proceeds to act according to it. He could no longer own the people in their corporate character. The assembly had become entirely defiled, having set up an idol of their own making, in the place of God – a calf instead of Jehovah. “And Moses took the tabernacle and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of the congregation.” Thus the camp was disowned as the place of the divine presence. God was not – could not – be there. He had been displaced by a human invention. a new gathering point was, therefore, set up. “And it came to pass that every one which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp.”
There is here a fine principle of truth, which the spiritual mind will readily apprehend. The place which Christ now occupies is “without the camp,” and we are called upon to “go forth unto him.” It demands much subjection to the word to be able, with accuracy, to know what “the camp” really is, and much spiritual power to be able to go forth from it; and still more to be able, while “far off from it,” to act towards those in it, in the combined power of holiness and grace – holiness, which separates from the defilement of the camp; grace, which enables us to act toward those who are involved therein.
“And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle. Moses exhibits a higher degree of spiritual energy than his servant Joshua. It is much easier to assume a position of separation from the camp, than to act aright towards those within.
“And Moses said unto the Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me: yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight.” Moses entreats the accompanying presence of Jehovah as a proof of their having found grace in His sight. Were it a question of mere justice, He could only consume them by coming in their midst, because they were “a stiff-necked people.” But directly He speaks of grace, in connection with the mediator, the very stiff-neckedness of the people is made a plea for demanding His presence. “If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.” This is touchingly beautiful. a “stiff-necked people demanded the boundless grace and exhaustless patience of God. None but He could bear with them.
“And He said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.” Precious portion! Precious hope! The presence of God with us, all the desert through, and everlasting rest at the end! Grace to meet our present need, and glory as our future portion! Well may our satisfied hearts exclaim, “It is enough, my precious Lord.”
In Ex. 34 the second set of tables is given, not to be broken, like the first, but to be hidden in the ark, above which, as already noticed, Jehovah was to take His place, as the Lord of all the earth, in moral government. “And he hewed two tables of stone, like unto the first: and Moses rose up early in the morning and went up unto mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone. And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with them there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third, and to the fourth generation.” This, be it remembered, is God, as seen in His moral government of the world, and not as He is seen in the cross – not as’ He shines in the face of Jesus Christ – not as He is proclaimed in the gospel of His grace. The following is an exhibition of God in the gospel: “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself, by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself; NOT IMPUTING their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.” (2 Cor. 5: 18, 19) “Not clearing” and “not imputing” present two totally different ideas of God. “Visiting iniquities” and cancelling them are not the same thing. The former is God in government, the latter is God in the gospel. In 2 Cor. 3 the apostle contrasts the “ministration” recorded in Exodus 34 with “the ministration” of the gospel. My reader would do well to study that chapter with care. From it he will learn that any one who regards the view of God’s character given to Moses, on Mount Horeb, as unfolding the gospel, must have a very defective apprehension, indeed, of what the gospel is. Neither in creation, nor yet in moral government, do I, or can I, read the deep secrets of the Father’s bosom. Could the prodigal have found his place in the arms of the One revealed on Mount Sinai? Could John have leaned his head on the bosom of that One? Surely not. But God has revealed Himself in the face of Jesus Christ. He has told out, in divine harmony, all His attributes in the work of the cross. There “mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Sin is perfectly put away, and the believing sinner perfectly justified “BY THE BLOOD OF THE CROSS.” When we get a view of God, as thus unfolded, we have only, like Moses, to bow our head toward the earth and worship,” – suited attitude for a pardoned and accepted sinner in the presence of God!
Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch
Exo 34:1-28 J. The Covenant Words.After removing Exo 34:5-9, the sublime account of the revelation of Yahwehs nature as mercy and truth in their unity, which follows on Exo 33:23, the remainder is the sequel of Js account of the descent upon Sinai in Exodus 19, and the clauses (Exo 34:1; Exo 34:3) referring to the first (tables) are glosses of the editor who displaced this section (cf. p. 183). And it may be that originally, as in Deu 10:1-3, the construction of the Ark was included here. The announcement of the covenant in Exo 34:10 leads up to its conclusion in Exo 34:27 f., and the ratifying covenant- feast in J is described in Exo 24:1 f., Exo 24:9 f.* The Words have been, as in the case of the Decalogue and Es Covenant Book, freely glossed, Exo 34:10 b Exo 34:13, Exo 34:15 f., Exo 34:18 b, Exo 34:24, at least being additions. The several laws are parallel to others already given in E: i.e. Exo 34:14 a || Exo 20:3; Exo 20:23 a; Exo 34:17 || Exo 20:4; Exo 20:23 b; Exo 34:18 || Exo 23:15; Exo 34:19-20 a || Exo 22:30; Exo 34:20 b || Exo 22:29 b; Exo 34:20 c || Exo 23:15; Exo 34:21 || Exo 23:12; Exo 34:22 ab || Exo 23:16 ab; Exo 34:23 || Exo 23:17; Exo 34:25 ab || Exo 23:18 ab; Exo 34:26 ab || Exo 23:19 ab. It is probable that the original Ten Words (Exo 34:28) have been increased by additions from E. The peculiarity of this code is that it is exclusively concerned with religion. As, however, morality rests on religion, and religion is weakened by disunion, the importance for morals of wise and generally accepted regulations for religious practice is obvious.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
THE SECOND GIVING OF THE LAW
(vs.1-28)
Though the first tables of the law had been given to Moses, they never came into the camp. Thus Israel never was under absolute law. This would have meant death for all Israel. But the Lord instructs Moses to cut two more tables of stone and again come up the mountain to meet the Lord who would write the commandments on these stones. Again, however, Moses was to be alone: neither people, herds or flocks were to come near the mountain.
When Moses came with the stone tables, the Lord descended in the cloud, standing with Moses to proclaim the name of the Lord. This was different than the first giving of the law (ch.20), for the Lord speaks of Himself as “the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (vs.6-7). In verse 6 and the first part of verse 7 the Lord is not declaring law at all, but that which is in contrast to law, for it expresses what is actually in the heart of God, and what is now manifested in perfection in the person of the Lord Jesus and in His great sacrifice of Calvary.
However, what follows seems practically contrary to this: “by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” This was really a mixture of mercy and law, or in other words, law tempered with mercy. If this had not been the case, Israel could not possibly have continued under law for the years they did. In fact, all the sacrifices they had to make continually were a constant reminder of God’s mercy toward them, while at the same time they were told to obey the ten commandments.
Even under law God would forgive cases of sin, transgression and iniquity, which includes badly aggravated cases of sin, but such forgiveness could only be where there was genuine repentance. So long as one took sides with his guilt, he would by no means be cleared. Also, the iniquities of the fathers would have solemn results in their children and children to the third and fourth generation. If a man was a thief or an adulterer, his children would suffer for this, on earth. In spite of such governmental results, the children can still be saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus. Yet we know that even when law was tempered by mercy, Israel’s failure and disobedience has been total and complete.
This declaration by God moved Moses to bow and worship, also entreating the Lord’s grace in going amongst Israel in spite of their obstinacy. God had already promised this (ch.33:17), yet no doubt Moses felt it right to add this extra plea.
The Lord tells Moses then that He will make a covenant with Israel. This is still a conditional covenant, though not one of absolute law. In fact, it is not based upon what God had already done (Exo 19:4), but begins with what God would do, that is, “marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation” (v.10). Though the covenant was conditional, yet what God would do was not conditional. God would also drive out the inhabitants of Canaan before Israel. While this took place, yet Israel allowed part of some of these nations to remain in the land later (Judges 1:21; 27-31,33). God kept His covenant, but Israel was responsible to make no covenant with any of the inhabitants of the land (v.12), but rather to destroy their religious altars, their sacred pillars and images.
They were to keep themselves clear of every complicity with those nations and their practices. There was to be no intermarriage (v.16) and no making of molded idols.
On the positive side, they were to remember each year to keep the feast of unleavened bread at God’s appointed time. Also, they were to recognize that the firstborn male child was the Lord’s. The firstborn of their livestock also belonged to the Lord, whether ox or sheep (v.19). Verse 20 raises an interesting point, however. The firstborn of a donkey could be redeemed by the sacrifice of a lamb. If not redeemed, its neck was to be broken. The donkey is an unclean animal, typical of man is his rebellious state, and who therefore needs the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. If he is not redeemed, then violence is necessary to break the strength of his stubbornness: he will fall under the judgment of God. So that it is in the same verse we are told, “all the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem.”
Also, no one could appear in God’s presence without something to present to God. Law always required that man should present something to God, but law never provided the only sacrifice that God can possibly accept on man’s behalf. The law proves man to be empty, devoid of the righteousness which the law required.
Again, the second covenant of the law still required the keeping of the seventh day Sabbath: people must rest on that day even in the busiest seasons of the year (v.21). They must also observe the feat of weeks, when the firstfruits were gathered, bringing these to the Lord before they harvested the rest of their crop. Then at the year’s end, when crops were harvested, they must observe the feast of ingathering. Three times in the year the men must all appear at Jerusalem, for these two feast and for the Passover (ch.23:14-16). When this was observed, God would take care of their families, as verse 24 implies: they and their land would be safe.
God’s claims must be fully recognized by the bringing of the first of the firstfruits to the house of the Lord. Interestingly, a kid was not to be boiled in its mother’s milk. Milk symbolizes the elementary truths of the Word of God (1Pe 2:2), and milk is intended to nourish the little ones, not to kill them. So, while God’s rights are of first importance, the proper rights of even the youngest children are to be recognizes.
All of those things from verse 13 to verse 26 deal with Israel’s side of the covenant, and while they were things to be done or avoided, yet it should be clear that the motives behind these were the most important. Without faith these things could never be properly carried out.
The Lord then told Moses to write these words of the covenant (v.27). The writing of Moses was not on the tables of stone, for God had said that He would write on these (the ten commandments), but Moses was to write what was told him in verses 10 to 26. For a second time Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights, neither eating or drinking. In not drinking at all, he would have to be miraculously sustained by God. Then God wrote on the tables the ten commandments.
THE LAW INTRODUCED WITH GLORY
(vs.29-35)
In returning now to Israel with the two tables of stone, Moses did not realize that the skin of his face was shining. This was a reflection of the glory of the Lord, not a full manifestation of God’s glory, which is seen only in the Lord Jesus. In Mat 17:2 we read of the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus, and that “His face shone as the sun.” Only the skin of Moses’ face shone, for this was a reflection exterior to Moses himself. But the face of the Lord Jesus shines with a brightness that comes from within, not a reflection (2Co 4:6), for He is God.
Still, God’s glory is reflected in the giving of the law, as 2Co 3:7-11 tells us, though this gave only a faint picture of the fact that far greater glory was to be revealed in the person of the Lord Jesus. Aaron and the children of Israel were afraid to come near Moses when they saw this reflected brightness, so that it was necessary for Moses to put a covering over his face while he talked with them. When he went in to speak with the Lord he removed the veil. Even this reflected glory was too much for the people to endure, for it symbolizes only a partial manifestation of God’s glory as seen in the giving of the law, which man is proven utterly unable to keep. Only in Christ, now revealed in pure grace, is the veil removed, but Israel, having refused Christ, still has the veil on their heart (2Co 3:14-15).
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
The text does not record what Moses saw of God’s self-revelation (Exo 33:18), but it does tell us what he heard. Moses stressed the mercy of God in this exposition of God’s name, Yahweh (cf. Exo 29:5-6).
"There is nothing more terrible than the way in which sin clings to a man and dogs his footsteps. Let a man once steal, and he is never trusted again, even though he has made reparation for it. Men look at their fallen brothers through their sin; but God looks at man through the idealised [sic] life, with a love that imputes to him every virtue for Christ’s sake." [Note: Meyer, pp. 448-49.]
Moses’ response to God’s gracious revelation was submission and worship (Exo 34:8). [Note: See J. Carl Laney, "God’s Self-Revelation in Exodus 34:6-8," Bibliotheca Sacra 158:629 (January-March 2001):36-51.]
Encouraged by this revelation Moses requested again (cf. Exo 33:15) that God would dwell in the midst of Israel and lead His people into the Promised Land (Exo 34:9). He besought the Lord again to re-establish His covenant acknowledging the sinfulness of the Israelites with whom he humbly identified.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE VISION OF GOD.
Exo 34:1-35
It was when God had most graciously assured Moses of His affection, that he ventured, in so brief a cry that it is almost a gasp of longing, to ask, “Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory” (Exo 33:18).
We have seen how nobly this petition and the answer condemn all anthropomorphic misunderstandings of what had already been revealed; and also how it exemplifies the great law, that they who see most of God, know best how much is still unrevealed. The elders saw the God of Israel and did eat and drink: Moses was led from the bush to the flaming top of Sinai, and thence to the tent where the pillar of cloud was as a sentinel; but the secret remained unseen, the longing unsatisfied, and the nearest approach to the Beatific Vision reached by him with whom God spake face to face as with a friend, was to be hidden in a cleft of the rock, to be aware of an awful Shadow, and to hear the Voice of the Unseen.
It was a fit time for the proclamation which was then made. When the people had been righteously punished and yet graciously forgiven, the name of the Self-Existent expanded and grew clearer,–“Jehovah, Jehovah, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children’s children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.” And as Moses made haste and bowed himself, it is affecting to hear him again pleading for that beloved Presence which even yet he can scarce believe to be restored, and instead of claiming any separation through his fidelity and his honours, praying “Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Thine inheritance” (Exo 34:10).
Thereupon the covenant is given, as if newly, but without requiring its actual re-enactment; and certain of the former precepts are rehearsed, chiefly such as would guard against a relapse into idolatry when they entered the good land where God would bestow on them prosperity and conquest.
As Moses had broken the former tablets, the task was imposed on him of hewing out the slabs on which God renewed His awful sanction of the Decalogue, the fundamental statutes of the nation. And they who had failed to endure his former absence, were required to be patient while he tarried again upon the mountain, forty days and nights.
With his return a strange incident is connected. Unknown by himself, the “skin of his face shone by reason of His speaking with him,” and Aaron and the people recoiled until he called to them. And thenceforth he lived a strange and isolated life. At each new interview the glory of his countenance was renewed, and when he conveyed his revelation to the people, they beheld the lofty sanction, the light of God upon his face. Then he veiled his face until next he approached his God, so that none might see what changes came there, and whether–as St. Paul seems to teach us–the lustre gradually waned.
His revelation, the apostle argues, was like this occasional and fading gleam, while the moral glory of the Christian system has no concealments: it uses great frankness; there is nothing withdrawn, no veil upon the face. Nor is it given to one alone to behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, and to share its lustre. We all, with face unveiled, share this experience of the deliverer (2Co 3:12, 2Co 3:18).
But the incident itself is most instructive. Since he had already spent an equal time with God, yet no such results had followed, it seems that we receive what we are adapted to receive, not straitened in Him but in our own capabilities; and as Moses, after his vehemence of intercession, his sublimity of self-negation, and his knowledge of the greater name of God, received new lustre from the unchangeable Fountain of light, so does all true service and earnest aspiration, while it approaches God, elevate and glorify humanity.
We learn also something of the exaltation of which matter is capable. We who have seen coarse bulb and soil and rain transmuted by the sunshine into radiance of bloom and subtlety of perfume, who have seen plain faces illuminated from within until they were almost angelic,–may we not hope for something great and rare for ourselves, and the beloved who are gone, as we muse upon the profound word, “It is raised a spiritual body”?
And again we learn that the best religious attainment is the least self-conscious: Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone.