Exodus 33:19

33:19 And the Lord ¹  said, “I will make all my goodness ²  pass before your face, and I will proclaim the Lord by name ³  before you; I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.” ⁴ 

Exodus 34:5-7

34:5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the Lord by name. ⁵  34:6 The Lord passed by before him and proclaimed: ⁶  “The Lord, the Lord, ⁷  the compassionate and gracious ⁸  God, slow to anger, ⁹  and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness, ¹⁰  34:7 keeping loyal love for thousands, ¹¹  forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. But he by no means leaves the guilty unpunished, responding to the transgression ¹²  of fathers by dealing with children and children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.”

Exodus 34:1

The New Tablets of the Covenant

34:1 ¹³ The Lord said to Moses, “Cut out ¹⁴  two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write ¹⁵  on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you smashed.

Exodus 16:8

16:8 Moses said, “You will know this ¹⁶  when the Lord gives you ¹⁷  meat to eat in the evening and bread in the morning to satisfy you, because the Lord has heard your murmurings that you are murmuring against him. As for us, what are we? ¹⁸  Your murmurings are not against us, ¹⁹  but against the Lord.”

Psalms 105:1

Psalm 105 ²⁰ 

105:1 Give thanks to the Lord!

Call on his name!

Make known his accomplishments among the nations!

[33:19]  ¹ tn Heb “and he said”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[33:19]  ² sn The word “goodness” refers to the divine appearance in summary fashion.

[33:19]  ³ tn The expression “make proclamation in the name of Yahweh” (here a perfect tense with vav [ו] consecutive for future) means to declare, reveal, or otherwise make proclamation of who Yahweh is. The “name of Yahweh” (rendered “the name of the Lord” throughout) refers to his divine attributes revealed to his people, either in word or deed. What will be focused on first will be his grace and compassion.

[33:19]  ⁴ sn God declares his mercy and grace in similar terms to his earlier self-revelation (“I am that I am”): “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious.” In other words, the grace and mercy of God are bound up in his own will. Obviously, in this passage the recipients of that favor are the penitent Israelites who were forgiven through Moses’ intercession. The two words are at the heart of God’s dealings with people. The first is חָנַן (khanan, “to be gracious, show favor”). It means to grant favor or grace to someone, grace meaning unmerited favor. All of God’s dealings are gracious, but especially in forgiving sins and granting salvation it is critical. Parallel to this is רָחַם (rakham), a word that means “show compassion, tender mercy.” It is a word that is related to the noun “womb,” the connection being in providing care and protection for that which is helpless and dependent – a motherly quality. In both of these constructions the verbs simply express what God will do, without explaining why. See further, J. R. Lundbom, “God’s Use of the Idem per idem to Terminate Debate,” HTR 71 (1978): 193-201; and J. Piper, “Prolegomena to Understanding Romans 9:14-15: An Interpretation of Exodus 33:19,” JETS 22 (1979): 203-16.

[34:5]  ⁵ tn Some commentaries wish to make Moses the subject of the second and the third verbs, the first because he was told to stand there and this verb suggests he did it, and the last because it sounds like he was worshiping Yahweh (cf. NASB). But it is clear from v. 6 that Yahweh was the subject of the last clause of v. 5 – v. 6 tells how he did it. So if Yahweh is the subject of the first and last clauses of v. 5, it seems simpler that he also be the subject of the second. Moses took his stand there, but God stood by him (B. Jacob, Exodus, 981; U. Cassuto, Exodus, 439). There is no reason to make Moses the subject in any of the verbs of v. 5.

[34:6]  ⁶ tn Here is one of the clearest examples of what it means “to call on the name of the Lord,” as that clause has been translated traditionally (וַיִּקְרָא בְשֵׁם יְהוָה, vayyiqra’ vÿshem yÿhvah). It seems more likely that it means “to make proclamation of Yahweh by name.” Yahweh came down and made a proclamation – and the next verses give the content of what he said. This cannot be prayer or praise; it is a proclamation of the nature or attributes of God (which is what his “name” means throughout the Bible). Attempts to make Moses the subject of the verb are awkward, for the verb is repeated in v. 6 with Yahweh clearly doing the proclaiming.

[34:6]  ⁷ sn U. Cassuto (Exodus, 439) suggests that these two names be written as a sentence: “Yahweh, He is Yahweh.” In this manner it reflects “I am that I am.” It is impossible to define his name in any other way than to make this affirmation and then show what it means.

[34:6]  ⁸ tn See Exod 33:19.

[34:6]  ⁹ sn This is literally “long of anger.” His anger prolongs itself, allowing for people to repent before punishment is inflicted.

[34:6]  ¹⁰ sn These two words (“loyal love” and “truth”) are often found together, occasionally in a hendiadys construction. If that is the interpretation here, then it means “faithful covenant love.” Even if they are left separate, they are dual elements of a single quality. The first word is God’s faithful covenant love; the second word is God’s reliability and faithfulness.

[34:7]  ¹¹ tn That is, “for thousands of generations.”

[34:7]  ¹² sn As in the ten commandments (20:5-6), this expression shows that the iniquity and its punishment will continue in the family if left unchecked. This does not go on as long as the outcomes for good (thousands versus third or fourth generations), and it is limited to those who hate God.

[34:1]  ¹³ sn The restoration of the faltering community continues in this chapter. First, Moses is instructed to make new tablets and take them to the mountain (1-4). Then, through the promised theophany God proclaims his moral character (5-8). Moses responds with the reiteration of the intercession (8), and God responds with the renewal of the covenant (10-28). To put these into expository form, as principles, the chapter would run as follows: I. God provides for spiritual renewal (1-4), II. God reminds people of his moral standard (5-9), III. God renews his covenant promises and stipulations (10-28).

[34:1]  ¹⁴ tn The imperative is followed by the preposition with a suffix expressing the ethical dative; it strengthens the instruction for Moses. Interestingly, the verb “cut out, chisel, hew,” is the same verb from which the word for a “graven image” is derived – פָּסַל (pasal).

[34:1]  ¹⁵ tn The perfect tense with vav consecutive makes the value of this verb equal to an imperfect tense, probably a simple future here.

[16:8]  ¹⁶ tn “You will know this” has been added to make the line smooth. Because of the abruptness of the lines in the verse, and the repetition with v. 7, B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 273) thinks that v. 8 is merely a repetition by scribal error – even though the versions render it as the MT has it. But B. Jacob (Exodus, 447) suggests that the contrast with vv. 6 and 7 is important for another reason – there Moses and Aaron speak, and it is smooth and effective, but here only Moses speaks, and it is labored and clumsy. “We should realize that Moses had properly claimed to be no public speaker.”

[16:8]  ¹⁷ tn Here again is an infinitive construct with the preposition forming a temporal clause.

[16:8]  ¹⁸ tn The words “as for us” attempt to convey the force of the Hebrew word order, which puts emphasis on the pronoun: “and we – what?” The implied answer to the question is that Moses and Aaron are nothing, merely the messengers.

[16:8]  ¹⁹ tn The word order is “not against us [are] your murmurings.”

[105:1]  ²⁰ sn Psalm 105. The psalmist summons Israel to praise God because he delivered his people from Egypt in fulfillment of his covenantal promises to Abraham. A parallel version of vv. 1-15 appears in 1 Chr 16:8-22.