Exodus 34:8-35

34:8 Moses quickly bowed ¹  to the ground and worshiped 34:9 and said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, let my Lord ²  go among us, for we ³  are a stiff-necked people; pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

34:10 He said, “See, I am going to make ⁴  a covenant before all your people. I will do wonders such as have not been done ⁵  in all the earth, nor in any nation. All the people among whom you live will see the work of the Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I am doing with you. ⁶ 

34:11 “Obey ⁷  what I am commanding you this day. I am going to drive out ⁸  before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 34:12 Be careful not to make ⁹  a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it become a snare ¹⁰  among you. 34:13 Rather you must destroy their altars, smash their images, and cut down their Asherah poles. ¹¹  34:14 For you must not worship ¹²  any other god, ¹³  for the Lord, whose name ¹⁴  is Jealous, is a jealous God. 34:15 Be careful ¹⁵  not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when ¹⁶  they prostitute themselves ¹⁷  to their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone invites you, ¹⁸  you will eat from his sacrifice; 34:16 and you then take ¹⁹  his daughters for your sons, and when his daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will make your sons prostitute themselves to their gods as well. 34:17 You must not make yourselves molten gods.

34:18 “You must keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days ²⁰  you must eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you; do this ²¹  at the appointed time of the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out of Egypt.

34:19 “Every firstborn of the womb ²²  belongs to me, even every firstborn ²³  of your cattle that is a male, ²⁴  whether ox or sheep. 34:20 Now the firstling ²⁵  of a donkey you may redeem with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, then break its neck. ²⁶  You must redeem all the firstborn of your sons.

“No one will appear before me empty-handed. ²⁷ 

34:21 “On six days ²⁸  you may labor, but on the seventh day you must rest; ²⁹  even at the time of plowing and of harvest ³⁰  you are to rest. ³¹ 

34:22 “You must observe ³²  the Feast of Weeks – the firstfruits of the harvest of wheat – and the Feast of Ingathering at the end ³³  of the year. 34:23 At three times ³⁴  in the year all your men ³⁵  must appear before the Lord God, ³⁶  the God of Israel. 34:24 For I will drive out ³⁷  the nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one will covet ³⁸  your land when you go up ³⁹  to appear before the Lord your God three times ⁴⁰  in the year.

34:25 “You must not offer the blood of my sacrifice with yeast; the sacrifice from the feast of Passover must not remain until the following morning. ⁴¹ 

34:26 “The first of the firstfruits of your soil you must bring to the house of the Lord your God.

You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.” ⁴² 

34:27 The Lord said to Moses, “Write down ⁴³  these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 34:28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; ⁴⁴  he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. ⁴⁵ 

The Radiant Face of Moses

34:29 ⁴⁶ Now when Moses came down ⁴⁷  from Mount Sinai with ⁴⁸  the two tablets of the testimony in his hand ⁴⁹  – when he came down ⁵⁰  from the mountain, Moses ⁵¹  did not know that the skin of his face shone ⁵²  while he talked with him. 34:30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face shone; ⁵³  and they were afraid to approach him. 34:31 But Moses called to them, so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and Moses spoke to them. 34:32 After this all the Israelites approached, and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken to him on Mount Sinai. 34:33 When Moses finished ⁵⁴  speaking ⁵⁵  with them, he would ⁵⁶  put a veil on his face. 34:34 But when Moses went in ⁵⁷  before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. ⁵⁸  Then he would come out and tell the Israelites what he had been commanded. ⁵⁹  34:35 When the Israelites would see ⁶⁰  the face of Moses, that ⁶¹  the skin of Moses’ face shone, Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with the Lord. ⁶² 

[34:8]  ¹ tn The first two verbs form a hendiadys: “he hurried…he bowed,” meaning “he quickly bowed down.”

[34:9]  ² tn The Hebrew term translated “Lord” two times here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[34:9]  ³ tn Heb “it is.” Hebrew uses the third person masculine singular pronoun here in agreement with the noun “people.”

[34:10]  ⁴ tn Here again is a use of the futur instans participle; the deictic particle plus the pronoun precedes the participle, showing what is about to happen.

[34:10]  ⁵ tn The verb here is בָּרָא (bara’, “to create”). The choice of this verb is to stress that these wonders would be supernaturally performed, for the verb is used only with God as the subject.

[34:10]  ⁶ sn The idea is that God will be doing awesome things in dealing with them, i.e., to fulfill his program.

[34:11]  ⁷ tn The covenant duties begin with this command to “keep well” what is being commanded. The Hebrew expression is “keep for you”; the preposition and the suffix form the ethical dative, adding strength to the imperative.

[34:11]  ⁸ tn Again, this is the futur instans use of the participle.

[34:12]  ⁹ tn The exact expression is “take heed to yourself lest you make.” It is the second use of this verb in the duties, now in the Niphal stem. To take heed to yourself means to watch yourself, be sure not to do something. Here, if they failed to do this, they would end up making entangling treaties.

[34:12]  ¹⁰ sn A snare would be a trap, an allurement to ruin. See Exod 23:33.

[34:13]  ¹¹ tn Or “images of Asherah”; ASV, NASB “their Asherim”; NCV “their Asherah idols.”

[34:14]  ¹² tn Heb “bow down.”

[34:14]  ¹³ sn In Exod 20:3 it was “gods.”

[34:14]  ¹⁴ sn Here, too, the emphasis on God’s being a jealous God is repeated (see Exod 20:5). The use of “name” here is to stress that this is his nature, his character.

[34:15]  ¹⁵ tn The sentence begins simply “lest you make a covenant”; it is undoubtedly a continuation of the imperative introduced earlier, and so that is supplied here.

[34:15]  ¹⁶ tn The verb is a perfect with a vav consecutive. In the literal form of the sentence, this clause tells what might happen if the people made a covenant with the inhabitants of the land: “Take heed…lest you make a covenant…and then they prostitute themselves…and sacrifice…and invite…and you eat.” The sequence lays out an entire scenario.

[34:15]  ¹⁷ tn The verb זָנָה (zanah) means “to play the prostitute; to commit whoredom; to be a harlot” or something similar. It is used here and elsewhere in the Bible for departing from pure religion and engaging in pagan religion. The use of the word in this figurative sense is fitting, because the relationship between God and his people is pictured as a marriage, and to be unfaithful to it was a sin. This is also why God is described as a “jealous” or “impassioned” God. The figure may not be merely a metaphorical use, but perhaps a metonymy, since there actually was sexual immorality at the Canaanite altars and poles.

[34:15]  ¹⁸ tn There is no subject for the verb. It could be rendered “and one invites you,” or it could be made a passive.

[34:16]  ¹⁹ tn In the construction this verb would follow as a possible outcome of the last event, and so remain in the verbal sequence. If the people participate in the festivals of the land, then they will intermarry, and that could lead to further involvement with idolatry.

[34:18]  ²⁰ tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.

[34:18]  ²¹ tn The words “do this” have been supplied.

[34:19]  ²² tn Heb “everything that opens the womb.”

[34:19]  ²³ tn Here too: everything that “opens [the womb].”

[34:19]  ²⁴ tn The verb basically means “that drops a male.” The verb is feminine, referring to the cattle.

[34:20]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and the one that opens [the womb of] the donkey.”

[34:20]  ²⁶ sn See G. Brin, “The Firstling of Unclean Animals,” JQR 68 (1971): 1-15.

[34:20]  ²⁷ tn The form is the adverb “empty.”

[34:21]  ²⁸ tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.

[34:21]  ²⁹ tn Or “cease” (i.e., from the labors).

[34:21]  ³⁰ sn See M. Dahood, “Vocative lamed in Exodus 2,4 and Merismus in 34,21,” Bib 62 (1981): 413-15.

[34:21]  ³¹ tn The imperfect tense expresses injunction or instruction.

[34:22]  ³² tn The imperfect tense means “you will do”; it is followed by the preposition with a suffix to express the ethical dative to stress the subject.

[34:22]  ³³ tn The expression is “the turn of the year,” which is parallel to “the going out of the year,” and means the end of the agricultural season.

[34:23]  ³⁴ tn “Three times” is an adverbial accusative.

[34:23]  ³⁵ tn Heb “all your males.”

[34:23]  ³⁶ tn Here the divine name reads in Hebrew הָאָדֹן יְהוָה (ha’adon yÿhvah), which if rendered according to the traditional scheme of “Lord” for “Yahweh” would result in “Lord Lord.” A number of English versions therefore render this phrase “Lord God,” and that convention has been followed here.

[34:24]  ³⁷ tn The verb is a Hiphil imperfect of יָרַשׁ (yarash), which means “to possess.” In the causative stem it can mean “dispossess” or “drive out.”

[34:24]  ³⁸ sn The verb “covet” means more than desire; it means that some action will be taken to try to acquire the land that is being coveted. It is one thing to envy someone for their land; it is another to be consumed by the desire that stops at nothing to get it (it, not something like it).

[34:24]  ³⁹ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct with a preposition and a suffixed subject to form the temporal clause.

[34:24]  ⁴⁰ tn The expression “three times” is an adverbial accusative of time.

[34:25]  ⁴¹ sn See M. Haran, “The Passover Sacrifice,” Studies in the Religion of Ancient Israel (VTSup), 86-116.

[34:26]  ⁴² sn See the note on this same command in 23:19.

[34:27]  ⁴³ tn Once again the preposition with the suffix follows the imperative, adding some emphasis to the subject of the verb.

[34:28]  ⁴⁴ tn These too are adverbial in relation to the main clause, telling how long Moses was with Yahweh on the mountain.

[34:28]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “the ten words,” though “commandments” is traditional.

[34:29]  ⁴⁶ sn Now, at the culmination of the renewing of the covenant, comes the account of Moses’ shining face. It is important to read this in its context first, holding off on the connection to Paul’s discussion in 2 Corinthians. There is a delicate balance here in Exodus. On the one hand Moses’ shining face served to authenticate the message, but on the other hand Moses prevented the people from seeing more than they could handle. The subject matter in the OT, then, is how to authenticate the message. The section again can be subdivided into three points that develop the whole idea: I. The one who spends time with God reflects his glory (29-30). It will not always be as Moses; rather, the glory of the Lord is reflected differently today, but nonetheless reflected. II. The glory of Yahweh authenticates the message (31-32). III. The authentication of the message must be used cautiously with the weak and immature (33-35).

[34:29]  ⁴⁷ tn The temporal clause is composed of the temporal indicator (“and it happened”), followed by the temporal preposition, infinitive construct, and subjective genitive (“Moses”).

[34:29]  ⁴⁸ tn The second clause begins with “and/now”; it is a circumstantial clause explaining that the tablets were in his hand. It repeats the temporal clause at the end.

[34:29]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “in the hand of Moses.”

[34:29]  ⁵⁰ tn The temporal clause parallels the first temporal clause; it uses the same infinitive construct, but now with a suffix referring to Moses.

[34:29]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “and Moses.”

[34:29]  ⁵² tn The word קָרַן (qaran) is derived from the noun קֶרֶן (qeren) in the sense of a “ray of light” (see Hab 3:4). Something of the divine glory remained with Moses. The Greek translation of Aquila and the Latin Vulgate convey the idea that he had horns, the primary meaning of the word from which this word is derived. Some have tried to defend this, saying that the glory appeared like horns or that Moses covered his face with a mask adorned with horns. But in the text the subject of the verb is the skin of Moses’ face (see U. Cassuto, Exodus, 449).

[34:30]  ⁵³ tn This clause is introduced by the deictic particle הִנֵּה (hinneh); it has the force of pointing to something surprising or sudden.

[34:33]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “and Moses finished”; the clause is subordinated as a temporal clause to the next clause.

[34:33]  ⁵⁵ tn The Piel infinitive construct is the object of the preposition; the whole phrase serves as the direct object of the verb “finished.”

[34:33]  ⁵⁶ tn Throughout this section the actions of Moses and the people are frequentative. The text tells what happened regularly.

[34:34]  ⁵⁷ tn The construction uses a infinitive construct for the temporal clause; it is prefixed with the temporal preposition: “and in the going in of Moses.”

[34:34]  ⁵⁸ tn The temporal clause begins with the temporal preposition “until,” followed by an infinitive construct with the suffixed subjective genitive.

[34:34]  ⁵⁹ tn The form is the Pual imperfect, but since the context demands a past tense here, in fact a past perfect tense, this is probably an old preterite form without a vav consecutive.

[34:35]  ⁶⁰ tn Now the perfect tense with vav consecutive is subordinated to the next clause, “Moses returned the veil….”

[34:35]  ⁶¹ tn Verbs of seeing often take two accusatives. Here, the second is the noun clause explaining what it was about the face that they saw.

[34:35]  ⁶² tn Heb “with him”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.