Exodus 4:27

4:27 The Lord said ¹  to Aaron, “Go to the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God ²  and greeted him with a kiss. ³ 

Exodus 24:18

24:18 Moses went into the cloud when he went up ⁴  the mountain, and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights. ⁵ 

Exodus 31:18

31:18 He gave Moses two tablets of testimony when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, tablets of stone written by the finger of God. ⁶ 

Exodus 34:32

34:32 After this all the Israelites approached, and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken to him on Mount Sinai.

[4:27]  ¹ tn Heb “And Yahweh said.”

[4:27]  ² tn S. R. Driver considers that this verse is a continuation of vv. 17 and 18 and that Aaron met Moses before Moses started back to Egypt (Exodus, 33). The first verb, then, might have the nuance of a past perfect: Yahweh had said.

[4:27]  ³ tn Heb “and kissed him.”

[24:18]  ⁴ tn The verb is a preterite with vav (ו) consecutive; here, the second clause, is subordinated to the first preterite, because it seems that the entering into the cloud is the dominant point in this section of the chapter.

[24:18]  ⁵ sn B. Jacob (Exodus, 750) offers this description of some of the mystery involved in Moses’ ascending into the cloud: Moses ascended into the presence of God, but remained on earth. He did not rise to heaven – the ground remained firmly under his feet. But he clearly was brought into God’s presence; he was like a heavenly servant before God’s throne, like the angels, and he consumed neither bread nor water. The purpose of his being there was to become familiar with all God’s demands and purposes. He would receive the tablets of stone and all the instructions for the tabernacle that was to be built (beginning in chap. 25). He would not descend until the sin of the golden calf.

[31:18]  ⁷ sn The expression “the finger of God” has come up before in the book, in the plagues (Exod 8:15) to express that it was a demonstration of the power and authority of God. So here too the commandments given to Moses on stone tablets came from God. It too is a bold anthropomorphism; to attribute such a material action to Yahweh would have been thought provoking to say the least. But by using “God” and by stating it in an obviously figurative way, balance is maintained. Since no one writes with one finger, the expression simply says that the Law came directly from God.