The Bible

The Bible › Exodus

Exodus 34

1Yahweh said to Moses, “Cut yourself two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered. 2Be ready by morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai. Stand there for me on the top of the mountain. 3No one is to come up with you, and no one is to be seen anywhere on the mountain. Even the flocks and herds must not graze in front of that mountain.” 4He cut two stone tablets like the first ones. Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as Yahweh had commanded him, and took the two stone tablets in his hand.

5Yahweh descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and he proclaimed the name Yahweh. 6Yahweh passed before his face and proclaimed, “Yahweh, Yahweh, a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abundant in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of fathers upon sons and upon sons' sons, to the third and fourth generation.” 8Moses hurried to bow his head to the ground and bowed down. 9He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, Lord, please let the Lord go in our midst, for this is a stiff-necked people. Forgive our iniquity and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.”

10He said, “Look, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do wonders such as have not been created in all the earth or among all the nations. All the people among whom you live will see Yahweh's work, for what I am doing with you is fearsome. 11Keep what I am commanding you today. Look, I am driving out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 12Watch yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land you are entering, lest it become a snare in your midst. 13Rather, tear down their altars, shatter their pillars, and cut down their Asherah poles. 14For you must not bow down to another god, because Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. 15Do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they prostitute themselves after their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invite you and you eat of his sacrifice, 16and you take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters prostitute themselves after their gods and cause your sons to prostitute themselves after their gods. 17You must not make yourself cast-metal gods.

18“Keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt. 19Everything that opens the womb is mine, every male firstborn of your livestock, whether cattle or animals from the flock. 20Redeem the firstborn of a donkey with an animal from the flock; if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn of your sons. No one is to appear before my face empty-handed. 21Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. Even at plowing time and harvest you shall rest. 22Keep the Festival of Weeks, the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering at the turn of the year. 23Three times a year all your males shall appear before the face of the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel. 24For I will dispossess nations before you and enlarge your border. No one will covet your land when you go up to appear before the face of Yahweh your God three times a year.

25“You must not shed the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, and the sacrifice of the Passover festival must not remain overnight until morning. 26Bring the first of the firstfruits of your ground to the house of Yahweh your God. You must not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.”

27Yahweh said to Moses, “Write these words for yourself, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28He was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights. He ate no bread and drank no water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words.

29When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in Moses' hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face was radiant because he had spoken with him. 30Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, and look, the skin of his face was radiant, and they were afraid to approach him. 31Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke to them. 32Afterward all the sons of Israel approached, and he commanded them everything that Yahweh had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33When Moses finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. 34Whenever Moses went in before Yahweh to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. Then he would come out and tell the sons of Israel what he had been commanded. 35The sons of Israel would see Moses' face, that the skin of Moses' face was radiant, and Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with him.

Translation notes 9

34:5–6 — Proclaiming the name. The draft understands Yahweh as the one proclaiming, in keeping with the promise of 33:19 and the following verse. Taking Moses as the subject and rendering the phrase “called upon the name of Yahweh” is an alternative interpretation of verse 5, not a different consonantal text.

34:6 — Slow to anger; steadfast love and faithfulness. “Slow to anger” is literally “long of nostrils,” a conventional bodily expression for patience before anger. “Steadfast love” includes loyal kindness; “faithfulness” expresses reliability or truth. The two words are retained rather than reduced to a single technical formula.

34:7 — Thousands; clearing; fathers and sons. “Thousands” has no express noun “generations,” though generations may be intended. “The guilty” supplies the understood object of “clearing.” The text states an intergenerational reckoning with iniquity; it does not add here a condition that descendants must repeat the offense. “Sons” and “sons' sons” retain the family language, with descendants in view.

34:9 — For a stiff-necked people. “For” follows the ordinary causal sense, making the people's condition part of the plea for God's presence and forgiveness. “Although this is a stiff-necked people” is a significant alternative. “Lord” here renders a title, not the name Yahweh.

34:10, 12–17 — Covenant and rival worship. Making a covenant is literally “cutting a covenant.” The snare image warns of being caught. The pillars and Asherah poles are objects associated with worship. “Prostitute themselves” preserves sexual-infidelity imagery for following other gods without asserting that a particular sexual ritual is described. The adjective “jealous” is repeated and is presented as a name characterizing Yahweh's refusal of rivals.

34:19–20 — Firstborn and redemption. The Hebrew describes the one opening the womb. The livestock clause is compressed and difficult; the draft understands the males among the firstborn as specified here. The animals from the flock include sheep and goats. “An animal from the flock” can be a sheep or goat. The donkey's neck-breaking and the redemption of human sons remain distinct instructions.

34:20–26 — Before the face; festivals and offerings. Appearing before God's face is the image for coming into his presence. Abib is the spring month associated with ripening grain. The Festival of Weeks marks the wheat firstfruits; Ingathering marks the year's agricultural turn. The prohibition about blood and leaven is expressed in a compressed slaughtering construction; the ban on boiling a young goat is retained without adding a proposed ritual explanation.

34:27–28 — Writing and the ten words. Moses is explicitly commanded to write in verse 27. The subject of “he wrote” in verse 28 is not named; the immediate sequence suggests Moses, while verse 1 promises Yahweh's writing of the tablets. The draft retains the pronoun. “The ten words” is the designation commonly rendered “the Ten Commandments.”

34:29–35 — Radiant skin and the veil. The Hebrew repeats the condition of the skin of Moses' face three times. Its verb is related to horn vocabulary and can be understood in terms of rays; a horn interpretation also has an ancient history. The draft prefers radiance without calling the alternative a mere mistake. The ending of verse 29 has two masculine pronouns, “his speaking with him”; Yahweh is understood as Moses' conversation partner, and “when he spoke” is a temporal alternative to “because he had spoken.” The face-covering word differs from the word for the sanctuary's inner curtain. Exodus places the veil on Moses after he speaks to the people and describes its repeated removal before Yahweh; it does not expressly state that the radiance faded. Paul's use of the scene in 2 Corinthians 3 develops its own argument.