16. the Ten Commandments, 2nd Edition

ExodusLesson #16

“The Ten Commandments, 2nd Edition”(Exodus 34: 1–35)

Review

In Lesson #15 Moses has been on Mt. Sinai with God for forty days and forty nights, during which time no one has heard from either Moses or God. The Israelites conclude that Moses is dead and that God has abandoned them, perhaps recalling how God lured the Egyptians into the Red Sea, only to kill them all. Could God possibly have done the same thing to the Israelites, luring them into the wilderness, only to kill them?

Desperate, the Israelites turn to a powerful and compassionate god they know, Hathor, the nurturing mother-goddess of Egypt, whose center of worship is—not coincidently—at Serabit el-Kahdim, not far from Mt. Sinai. There Aaron sculpts a golden calf, the icon of the goddess Hathor.

Atop Mt. Sinai God tells Moses what is going on down below, and he vows to slay all the Israelites for their disobedience. Moses, in a brilliant and subtle rhetorical ploy, talks God out of it. Descending Mt. Sinai to the Israelite camp, Moses, in hot anger, smashes the tablets of the Ten Commandments and then “disciplines” the Israelites, slaughtering 3,000 of their leaders.

PreviewIn Lesson #16, after settling the score with the leaders of the “golden calf rebellion,” Moses ascends Mt. Sinai once again to confer with God, who says to him: “Cut two stone tablets like the former, that I may write on them the words which were on the former tablets that you broke” (Exodus 34: 1).

Moses then recommits himself and the Israelites to God’s covenant, spending an additional forty days and forty nights on Mt. Sinai in an extraordinarily intimate relationship with God. When Moses descends the mountain his “face had become radiant” (Exodus 34: 29).

“The Lord said to Moses: ‘Cut two stone tablets like the former, that I may write on them the words which were on the former tablets that you broke’” (34: 1).

As the great medieval French rabbi Rashi (A.D. 1040-1105) said in his commentary on the Tanakh: “You smashed the first ones, you carve the others.”

The Holy Bible with Illustrations by

Gustave Doré. London: Cassel, Petter, and Galpin, 1866.

“Get ready for tomorrow morning, when you are to go up Mount Sinai and there present yourself to me on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you, and let no one even be seen on any part of the mountain; even the sheep and the cattle are not to graze in front of this mountain” (34: 2-3).

This commandment repeats the injunction in chapter 19 to separate the people from Mt. Sinai when God gives the Law, but this time—in light of the golden calf incident— the separation is total, with no attendants present on the mountain as before.

“Moses then cut two stone tablets like the former, and early the next morning he went up Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him, taking in his hand the two stone tablets” (34: 4).

This is HEAVY!

“So the Lord passed before him and proclaimed: ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love and fidelity, continuing his love for a thousand generations, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin; yet not declaring the guilty guiltless [“yet he does not wholly acquit . . .”], but bringing punishment for their parents’ wickedness on children and children’s children to the third and fourth generation!” (34: 6-7).

As in the 1st commandment (20: 5-6), God’s mercy and love extends to the thousandth generation, but his punishment to the 3rd and 4th generation. Here, the implication is that in cases where offenders willfully persist in their wickedness, rebellion and sin they cannot expect to be found guiltless, for all of God’s compassion: God is a God of love, but he is also a God of justice.

Moses, in a skillful rhetorical move, carefully acknowledges God’s justice and the Israelites’ stiff-necked wickedness and sin, while pleading for God’s mercy.

Yes, Lord, we are stiff-necked, but . . .

Small Book of the Covenant

Prologue (34: 10-11)

1. No covenants in Canaan (12-16)2. No idols (17)3. Keep Passover (18)4. Consecrate 1st born (19-20a)5. Bring gifts (20b)6. Keep the Sabbath (21)7. Keep Feast of Weeks [Pentecost] (22-24)8. No leaven (25)9. Keep Feast of Ingathering [Tabernacles] (26a)10. No boiling young goat in mother’s milk (26b)

Epilogue (34: 27-28)



“The Lord said: ‘Here is the covenant I will make. Before all your people I will perform marvels never before done in any nation anywhere on earth, so that all the people among whom you live may see the work of the Lord. Awe-inspiring are the deeds I will perform with you! As for you, observe what I am commanding you today.’”

Often referred to as the “Small Book of the Covenant,” the material that follows the Prologue replicates material from the Book of the Covenant (21-23), as well as from the Ten Commandments (20). This is not a variant of the Decalogue, as many of the commands are quite secondary: e.g., no leaven in sacrifices (v. 25); no boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk (v. 26b). Rather, the “Small Book of the Covenant” recalls the fuller extent of God’s comprehensive teaching first introduced in the Ten Commandments and their applications, and later developed throughout the Torah.

The “Small Book of the Covenant” functions much like repeating the key structural notes of a musical motif in later movements of a 4-movement symphony, creating both cohesion and forward movement.



1. No covenants in Canaan (12-16)

“Take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land that you are to enter; lest they become a snare among you. Tear down their altars; smash their sacred stones, and cut down their asherahs. You shall not bow down to any other god, for the Lord—‘Jealous’ his name—is a jealous God . . .”

In light of the golden calf episode, God issues a stern warning against any involvement with other cultures and their gods, commanding that the Israelites destroy their places of worship, and implicitly forbidding the Israelites from having any personal relationships with the indigenous people of Canaan. Twice referring to such people “prostituting” themselves to their gods [literally, “whoring with”], the command includes raw sexual imagery, portraying God as Israel’s jealous “husband” or “lover,” imagery that both Hosea and Jeremiah vividly develop later in Scripture.



1. No covenants in Canaan (12-16)2. No idols (17)

“You shall not make for yourselves molten gods.”

The prohibition against molten gods resonates deeply, given the recent golden calf incident.



1. No covenants in Canaan (12-16)2. No idols (17)3. Keep Passover (18)

“You shall keep the festival of Unleavened Bread. For seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib you are to eat no leavened bread, as I commanded you; for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt.”

Passover is the great archetypical act of redemption, the pivotal event in Jewish history, and as Exodus 12: 14 states, it is to be celebrated in perpetuity. Through a Christian interpretive lens, Passover foreshadows the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the redemption of all humanity.



1. No covenants in Canaan (12-16)2. No idols (17)3. Keep Passover (18)4. Consecrate 1st born (19-20a)

“To me belongs every male that opens the womb among all your livestock, whether in the herd or in the flock. The firstling of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb; if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck. The firstborn among your sons you shall redeem.”

As we have learned, the Egyptians practiced consecration of the firstborn to their gods, and by God killing all the firstborn among the Egyptians in the 10th plague, he deprives the Egyptian gods of what is rightfully theirs, utterly defeating and plundering them. In Exodus 13: 1-16 God institutes the practice for the Israelites.



1. No covenants in Canaan (12-16)2. No idols (17)3. Keep Passover (18)4. Consecrate 1st born (19-20a)5. Bring gifts (20b)

“No one shall appear before me empty-handed.”

First commanded in Exodus 23: 15, the injunction reflects standard sovereign/vassal protocol: when a lesser person appears before a greater person, the lesser person brings a gift. Recall Abraham appearing before Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High. Melchizedek blesses Abraham, and Abraham in return gives Melchizedek a tenth of the plunder he took from the northern kings who attacked Sodom (Genesis 14: 18-20).


Prologue (34: 10-11). . . 6. Keep the Sabbath (21)

“Six days you may labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the seasons of plowing and harvesting you must rest.”

The Sabbath is first set aside as a day of rest in Genesis 2: 2-3; it is included as commandment #4 in the Ten Commandments; and it is reiterated throughout Scripture. Here, the clause “even during the seasons of plowing and harvesting” provides a special emphasis for those living in an agrarian society, since a farmer may be sorely tempted to break the Sabbath during the urgency of plowing and harvesting in the agrarian cycle.


Prologue (34: 10-11). . . 6. Keep the Sabbath (21)7. Keep Feast of Weeks [Pentecost] (22-24)

“You shall keep the feast of Weeks [Pentecost] with the first fruits of the wheat harvest, likewise the feast of Ingathering [“Booths” or Tabernacles] at the close of the year. Three times a year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the Lord God of Israel. Since I will drive out the nations before you and enlarge your territory, no one will covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the Lord your God.”

The Feast of Unleavened Bread [Passover], the Feast of Weeks [Pentecost], and the Feast of Ingathering [Tabernacles] are pilgrimage festivals, agricultural celebrations with deep religious significance: Passover remembers the Exodus; Pentecost remembers the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai; and Tabernacles remembers the forty years in the wilderness.


Prologue (34: 10-11). . . 6. Keep the Sabbath (21)7. Keep Feast of Weeks [Pentecost] (22-24)8. No leaven (25)

“You shall not offer me the blood of sacrifice with anything leavened, nor shall the sacrifice of the Passover feast be kept overnight for the next day.”

Leaven, a symbol or emblem of sin, is strictly forbidden in any sacrifice to God, and the Passover lamb must be consumed on the evening of Passover—anything left over must be burned up, as commanded in Exodus 12: 10, reflecting the urgency of leaving Egypt the same night.


Prologue (34: 10-11). . . 6. Keep the Sabbath (21)7. Keep Feast of Weeks [Pentecost] (22-24)8. No leaven (25)9. Keep Feast of Ingathering [Tabernacles] (26a)

“The choicest first fruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of the Lord, your God.”

As no person shall appear empty-handed before the Lord, so shall each person bring the “choicest first fruits” of the soil. God demands our best, not our leftovers (see Malachi 1: 6-8).


Prologue (34: 10-11). . . 6. Keep the Sabbath (21)7. Keep Feast of Weeks [Pentecost] (22-24)8. No leaven (25)9. Keep Feast of Ingathering [Tabernacles] (26a)10. No boiling young goat in mother’s milk (26b)

“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

As commanded in the Book of the Covenant (23: 19b), boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk is fundamentally cruel, transforming a mother’s nurturing milk into a baby animal’s instrument of death. The command is also the origin of separating meat and dairy in the kosher food laws of later Judaism.


Prologue (34: 10-11). . . Epilogue (34: 27-28)

“Then the Lord said to Moses: ‘Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. So Moses was there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights, without eating any food or drinking any water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words.”

What Moses inscribes on the tablets is called “words” or “commandments” [Hebrew, devarim] for the first time. Significantly, when God spoke to Moses from the burning bush commanding him to return to Egypt, Moses objected saying, “I am slow of speech and tongue,” literally: “I am a man without words [devarim].” Here Moses is a man with words [devarim] in the highest possible sense.

Imbedding within this discourse on “words” Moses not eating or drinking for a formulaic “forty days and forty nights” highlights Moses heroic, superhuman efforts on behalf of the Israelites.

Moses, horned

“As Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant in his hands, he did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while he spoke with the Lord” (34: 29).

The Hebrew word qaran, translated above as “radiant,” has the sense of Moses’ face being luminous, metaphorically emitting rays of light. In the Latin Vulgate, St. Jerome famously translated qaran as “cornuta” (“horned”), emphasizing the metaphorical sense. Many readers however, including Michelangelo, read “cornuta” literally, resulting in Moses sporting a set of horns.

This divine fire or luminosity in one’s face after being in the presence of God is captured stylistically in other works as a halo.

Michelangelo. Moses (marble), c. 1515. St. Peter in Chains, Rome.

Questions for discussion and thought

1. Chapter 34 opens with a comic touch. Why? 2. After the golden calf incident God distances himself from his

people. How does our narrative accomplish this?3. God is frighteningly serious in his response to the golden calf

incident, emphasizing that although a God of mercy and abounding in love, he will not forgive those who willfully and persistently sin. How does Moses use God’s very clear statement in convincing God to pardon the Israelites, exactly what he said he won’t do?

4. How does the “Small Book of the Covenant” function in this section of Scripture? Why does it occupy so much of chapter 34?

5. Why does Moses veil himself when he finishes speaking to the Israelites?

Copyright © 2014 by William C. Creasy All rights reserved. No part of this course—audio, video, photography, maps, timelines or other media—may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval devices without permission in writing or a licensing agreement from the copyright holder.

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16. the Ten Commandments, 2nd Edition