Exodus 34

1. And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.

The LORD now commands Moses to carve into shape two new stone tables like the first tables. This method of creation differs from the first tables. Those tables were made by God, according to Exodus 31:18. “And He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” Yet these table Moses is to make himself, and then give them to the LORD to write on them the same words as He wrote on the first tables.

We ought to remember what happened to the first tables: Moses shattered them under the mountain when he saw the Israelites shattering their covenant with the LORD by worshiping the golden calf. The LORD is not blaming Moses for having broken those tables, as if He were saying he ought not to have done that, since now they have to be replaced. No, the covenant those tables represented was shattered, and Moses was acting according to the LORD’s will when he shattered the tables that were the sign of that covenant. Now, however, God in His grace is going to set up a new agreement by which His people will enter the promised land. Part of this agreement will include a second set of tables of stone.

What exactly the symbolism is of the first tables having been given directly by God and these tables passing through Moses’ hands first, we cannot say exactly. However, we would suspect that it has to do with the fact that the first tables were the record of a free agreement between two parties, both of whom voluntarily agreed to enter into the covenant. The LORD neither asks for nor demands any agreement connected with these second tables, however. They are merely laid down as a law. As such Moses the mediator is to create the blank tables the LORD will write on, showing that these words that are being dictated to Moses are likewise being bound on the people. The last table and its words were merely a record of a free agreement that God proposed and they agreed to. The two parties entered into the agreement freely. These words, however, are now a law bound on the people. God, as the aggrieved party to the broken agreement, is dictating the terms by which this people can now come back into relationship with Him. He is setting out the rules, and they will be required to follow them or earn His wrath. The free agreement between two parties is over. Now, all that is left is law.

2. And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount.

Jehovah demands that Moses be ready to come up into Mount Sinai again in the morning, as he had done the first time. Bullinger points out that, though we have no record of it, Moses must have descended for the fifth time, for he is told to come back up a sixth time. There, Moses is to again make his stand before Jehovah at the top of the mount.

3. And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount.

Moses’ ascent this time is to be alone. The first time, in Exodus 24:9, Moses went up with the priests and seventy of Israel’s elders. Even when he went the rest of the way up, he took Joshua his minister up with him according to Exodus 24:13. Yet this time, Moses alone is to go up, without even Joshua his minister. No man is to be seen anywhere on the mount while he is up it. No flocks are to feed in front of it. It is to remain for Moses and Yahweh alone.

Though we are not told why the prohibition is tighter this time, with even Joshua, who had not anything to do with the sin of the calf, allowed on the mountain. Most likely it has to do with the superior revelation that Moses has asked for. He wants to see Yahweh’s glory, and he is going to be given a glimpse of some of it. Yet this glimpse is for him alone, and no one, not even Joshua, is to be allowed to see it with him.

4. And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.

Moses, as always, obeys what he was commanded to do. He hews the two tables, just like the first, that he was supposed to hew. These were blank tables. God was to write upon them what had been the words of the free agreement, but that now are going to be a law of demands.

Early in the morning, as he had been commanded, Moses gets up and goes up Mount Sinai, again just as he had been commanded. This ascent was his sixth and last in Exodus. He carries with him only the two tables of stone that he was commanded to bring. So it ever is when we approach God: we can only bring with us what He tells us to bring. To bring with us items of our own choosing and invention is ever inappropriate. For us today, the only thing we can bring before God when we approach Him is the sacrifice He provided, the precious blood of Christ shed for us, the sinners. We bring this by faith, as we place our confidence and trust in that sacrifice alone.

5. And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

We did not read of Yehovah ascending or leaving the mountaintop before, but apparently He had, as we are told here that He descended on the mountain again in the cloud to meet Moses. Yehovah stands there with Moses and proclaims His Own name. This does not mean He just said the name Yehovah. A name means more than just one’s cognomen, or the name people say when they want you to know they are talking to you. A name is a reputation, like when we say someone has a “name for honesty.” No one says, “Hey, Honesty, come here,” when one has a name for honesty. Rather, this means a reputation for honesty.

A true name is a true reputation based on one’s true character. So the name of Yehovah is His character. It is what He is. It is the way you would describe Him if you were to describe Him accurately. If you were asked to describe a man’s character, and you were to respond that he is a good husband, a good father, a good friend, an honest businessman, and so forth, that would be proclaiming his name, his reputation, his character. Here, no one else is proclaiming Yehovah’s name, however. Here, Yehovah is proclaiming His Own name Himself.

6. And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

This is what Moses asked the LORD to do back in Exodus 33:18 when he requested of Him, “I beseech Thee, shew me Thy glory.” The LORD agreed to grant that request in part, putting him in the clift of the rock and covering it with His hand while He passed by, and then showing Moses His back parts, but not His face. He is doing this now, and it seems that while He does it He proclaims His great character to Moses.

The LORD passes by before the face of Moses, and the word for passed by is the same used in Egypt on Passover night, when He passed through the land for the destruction of the Egyptian firstborn. Yet Moses is safe from this passing by, and no destruction takes place. As He passes by, He proclaims His great name. He names Himself twice for great emphasis as Yehovah. Then He is God, the Hebrew El, which refers to Him as the Mighty God, God in all his strength and power. Next, He proclaims Himself as merciful or compassionate. This is the first occurrence of this word, and it is always translated something having to do with either mercy or compassion. Next, He proclaims Himself to be gracious, the adjective derived from the verb meaning “to be gracious.” He is also longsuffering, which is actually two words meaning long or slow to anger. He is abundant in goodness. This is the Hebrew chesed, which is the word for lovingkindness or grace. He is also abundant in truth, and truth is also what is firm and stable, which could be translated as faithfulness.

Notice that the words the LORD uses to describe His character are not words of His power, justice, or order, but words of His love, mercy, and grace. It is very instructive that when God proclaims His character, every word He uses is a word of grace. That is just what God is doing at the present time. He has ceased all governmental activities in order to write by demonstration a perfect record of the grace that is inherent in His character. It is not that His grace began when the dispensation of grace began. He was always gracious. Yet now He is writing a record of that grace, and we benefit from that grace every day.

7. Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

The proclamation of His great character continues. Jehovah safeguards mercy for thousands. Mercy is the Hebrew chesed, the same word for lovingkindness or grace that we had in verse six. He will safeguard grace for thousands, and they will enjoy the grace that He holds out to them. In showing this grace, He will forgive and let go perverseness and rebellion and sin. Yet we should not get the idea from this that He is an over-lenient and unjust judge. He assures Moses that He will by no means acquit the guilty. This is a word repeated in Hebrew for emphasis: acquitting He will not acquit the guilty. Yet how can this be, when we just learned that He shows grace to thousands? This is a puzzling question that could not be answered if it were not for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. Romans 3:23-26 explains how this works.

23. for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24. being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25. whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26. to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

How can God be just and yet the justifier of the guilty one who believes in Jesus? The answer is that His blood cleanses the sin of the guilty. Such sinners are not guilty once acquitted. The penalty was levied against Christ on the cross, and it was paid in full. Therefore, the one who is under the blood of Jesus Christ is cleared of guilt, and yet cleared justly. Yet when one does not believe in Jesus, that is a different matter. One then leaves oneself open to condemnation. One’s guilt might then be imputed against him instead of Christ’s righteousness. Then, once guilt has been imputed and once one has been judged as guilty, then Jehovah will by no means acquit the one who is guilty. Bullinger points out that not even Christ, when our sins were imputed to Him, was cleared of them, though He was the innocent Lamb of God. No more will our sins be acquitted if once they are imputed to us rather than to Him. We all need the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, for that is our only hope.

In not acquitting the guilty, He visits the wrong and perverse deeds of the fathers on their sons and their grandsons to the third and fourth generation. Many take it for granted that this means the father sinned and then the son, who never sinned this way, is punished in the same manner because his father sinned, and that then the grandson is punished in the same way because his grandfather sinned, and then the great-grandson is punished in the same way because his great-grandfather sinned, and on for four generations. Yet this is not what Jehovah means. The idea is that each generation is wicked like the last. If the punishment came in one generation, all would be wiped out, and there would be no further generations. But, as Bullinger says in his note in the Companion Bible on this verse, Jehovah spreads the punishment over in mercy, He does not extend it in wrath. Let us not accuse God of doing things that would be inconsistent with His character. For God to punish an innocent child for a sin committed by his father would be inconsistent. It is the son who is also guilty who is punished for the sins of his father as well as his own. If any one of those generations was to turn from the wickedness of his fathers and seek Jehovah in honesty and truth, then the punishment for the sin would cease to fall and all would be forgiven.

This is not referring to the fact that there are indeed times when children suffer because of their fathers’ sins. That is something inherent in sin: it often harms the innocent, not just the sinner. But that is a natural law and simply the way sin works. That is not because of the actions of God.

8. And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.

When Moses hears this great proclamation of Yahweh’s character, he hastens to bow his head toward the ground and prostrate himself. It was not out of fear that he did this, for the proclamation was entirely one of grace. This was the response of worship. As Bullinger says in his Companion Bible notes, “this is ever the effect of the manifestation of Jehovah in grace.”

9. And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O LORD, let my LORD, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.

Having worshiped at the proclamation of grace, Moses now goes on to make a request in light of the grace that has just been revealed. He appeals to the grace he himself has found in Yehovah’s sight. Grace here is the Hebrew chen, a shorter form of the word, and meaning favor or grace.

The current Hebrew text has Moses call Him Adonai twice. Yet these are two of the one hundred and thirty-four places wherein the Sopherim, the self-appointed Jewish editors of the Old Testament, changed the primitive text, which read Yehovah, to Adonai for their own, inscrutable purposes. What Moses actually called him was Yehovah, and he called Him this twice for emphasis, just as He had done in verse six.

Yehovah has threatened not to go up to their land with them, for He fears that they will make Him angry and He will consume them by the roadside. That is indeed what happened, for after all their rebellions, He refused to allow that older generation to enter the land, but only their young offspring under twenty years old. Yet Moses pleads in light of the grace he has found in His sight that He will go up among them. He acknowledges that these people are of a stiff or stubborn neck. Yet he desires Yehovah to pardon their perversity and their sin, and to accept them as His Own inheritance.

We normally think of inheritance as something you receive when someone dies. Yet our God is never going to die in order to leave us anything. The basic meaning of inheritance is a portion. If one receives a portion of someone’s estate, that is an inheritance. Yehovah had chosen Israel to be His peculiar portion, and yet after their sin with the golden calf and their breaking of the covenant they had with Yehovah, He has threatened to give up on them for good. Yet Moses pleads with Him not to, but to still accept them as His portion. They have a long way to go. They will yet need to be humbled and brought to an understanding of their true character and of His. Yet regardless of how short they fell, Moses wants Yehovah to move with them and take them for His portion. Bullinger points out that Jehovah’s charge from Exodus 33:5, that they are a stiffnecked people whom He might destroy, Moses now turns into a plea and ground for His presence among them.

10. And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the LORD: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.

The LORD listens to Moses’ request and promises to cut a covenant in response to it. This is what He is going to do: make another covenant. The word covenant has become a word to which religious traditions are attached, but really the idea in Hebrew is just of an agreement between two parties. There are many such covenants in the Bible. In making this covenant, the LORD simply enters into a contract, into an agreement, with the people.

“Cutting” a covenant is always the Bible’s terminology, probably coming from the fact that covenants then were usually ratified by sacrificing an animal, cutting it into pieces, dividing those pieces into two parts, and then having the parties entering the covenant pass between the pieces. So the LORD promises to cut a covenant now. His agreement is that He is going to do marvelous and wonderful things before Moses’ people, or as Bullinger puts it, a covenant of wonders. These wonders will not be any that have been done in all the land before that time, nor in any other nation. All the people among whom Moses dwelt and was a leader would see the LORD’s work, and it was a terrible thing He was going to do.

We usually use terrible for something extremely substandard or bad. Yet the word really comes from the word for terror, and terrible here means fear- and terror-inspiring. He seems to suggest that maybe this will cure some of their stiff-neckedness. He did some such things for them in the past, and throughout Israel’s history. Someday, when the tribulation period comes, He will do terror-inspiring wonders before them one last time.

11. Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

Jehovah commands each individual Israelite to safeguard every command he gives them this day. He points out His blessing on them—that He is going to drive out before their faces the six nations of the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. We have discussed these nations before, that in total there were seven, but that most of the lists only include six. The Girgashite is skipped here and in most lists in Exodus, though in one place he is included and the Perizzite is excluded instead. These were probably more minor nations that could be included as combined with other nations.

Notice that the word “and” is used between every one of these nations. This is the Hebrew figure of speech Polysyndeton or “Many Ands,” which is used to emphasize every element of a list. I have used the example that if I told a story and said, “I went to the gas station, pumped gas, looked up, and saw bigfoot,” I would not mean every element of that list to be of equal importance. The facts that I went to the gas station, pumped gas, and looked up are not the important ones I want to emphasize. The important one I want to point out is that I saw bigfoot. If, on the other hand, I said, “I have in my lifetime seen bigfoot, and an alien, and the Loch Ness monster,” I would want to emphasize each one of those. In that case, I would use the figure Polysyndeton in Hebrew. (Note: I haven’t seen any of these in real life; this is just an example.) So Jehovah wants to carefully emphasize that He will drive out each one of these nations before their faces. He will not skip or miss out on any of them, as long as they are faithful to their part, as He expresses it in the next verse.

12. Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:

He now warns them to watch or guard themselves, that they not be tempted to cut a covenant with these nations who made up the inhabitants of the land. It is surely easier to come to terms of peace than it is to drive out and destroy a people. Yet they are not for a moment to consider doing this to any of the nations in the land they are entering. If they do, this people will be the bait in a trap to lead them to their own destruction. They are not to allow this, for these are a wicked and recalcitrant people. The promise of God is to drive them out, and this is their portion: not to make a covenant with them.

13. But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:

It is not just the wicked Canaanite people they are to destroy, but also their objects of foul, pagan worship. Their altars are not to remain. They are not to be repurposed for worship of the true God, but complete destroyed. Their images are their sacred pillars. The word translated groves occurs forty times in the Old Testament and is translated groves every time in the King James Version. It is the Hebrew word Asherah, a goddess worshiped by prostitution, either heterosexual or homosexual. She was apparently said to be the consort of Ba’al. Her symbol was a tree carved into a hideously elongated male sexual organ, and was a symbol of phallic worship that accompanied religious prostitution. Along with Molech, it shows us just how perverse the worship of the Canaanites had become, and justifies for us why Yahweh demanded the destruction of this corrupt, perverted people.

14. For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

He explains the need for this destruction: Israel are to bow down to the true God alone, and are never to worship any other god. Yehovah their God is named Qannaw, which translates as Jealous. This does not mean that this is to become one of the names by which God is known, but His name is His reputation based on His true character. His character that He is Jealous. He will not stand for His people sharing His worship with that of any other god, since He is a jealous God. God here is El, Mighty God. Why should the powerful, true God share His glory with the made-up god of a pagan nation?

15. Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;

The LORD’s warning is that if they try to enter into any kind of fellowship with these nations, then the time will come when they will be compromised, and they will find it difficult to get out of this compromise. If they cut a covenant with them, then they will do what they do, which is act like prostitutes in front of their gods and do sacrifice to them. If they have entered a league with them, these nations might well call one or more of them to join them in their religious festivities. In order to benefit themselves and strengthen their relationship with these allies, they will be tempted to accept this invitation and join in. Just like that, their obedience to the LORD and their relationship with Him will be compromised.

16. And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.

The next step of the alliance would be to make marriage contracts with these people. An eligible daughter of theirs might be contracted to enter an Israelite family and marry an Israelite son. Then, when that daughter of the Canaanites does what she does religiously, which is to go commit fornication with her gods, she will entice her husband to go along with her and commit fornication with her gods as well. Then their next generation will be corrupted and at enmity with Jehovah. As we know, this is exactly what happened. They failed to drive these nations out, these things happened just like Jehovah warned, and the next thing you knew the Israelites were corrupted and many of them were wicked people worthy of death, just like the Canaanites were.

17. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

None of these things are to happen. They are not to cut any covenant with the Canaanites, they are not to enter into any kind of league with them, they are not to worship their gods, and they are not to make cast metal gods for themselves. None of this is to happen. All of it is strictly forbidden. Yahweh anticipates exactly what will happen, and He forbids it from the very start, before ever they enter or even come near the land.

This covenant with Yahweh is the basis on which they are going into the land. This is not the Abrahamic covenant. It is not the covenant made back in Exodus 19, which covenant they broke in Exodus 32. That covenant is no longer valid, since it was broken. This is now the covenant on which basis they are going to enter in to the land. They are to obey His commands and His covenant and make no covenant with the peoples of the land they are entering. He warns them and tells them exactly what they must do to preserve their integrity and their separateness as a people. Alas, if only they had listened and obeyed!