CHAPTER 34

(1491 B.C.)

THE SECOND TABLES

¹And 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 you broke. (The Ten Commandments were given again, but they were to be committed to the Ark of the Covenant the symbol of Him Who said, Thy Word have I hid in My heart Williams.)

²And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to Me in the top of the Mount. (Grace is the keynote of this Chapter.)

³And no man shall come up with you, neither let any man be seen throughout all the Mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that Mount. (While the Lord told Moses to hew the tables of stone all over again, because Moses had broken the first two, there is no record that God reprimanded him. Perhaps we could say that the repetition of the giving of the Ten Commandments the second time underlines Gods Love and Patience with us. Many times He has to do the work all over again within our lives.)

⁴And 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. (The Law is written on stone, while Grace is written on the heart.)

REVELATION

⁵And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the Name of the LORD. (The Lord revealed His Character and Nature, which His Name proclaims.)

⁶And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in Goodness and Truth (all of this was epitomized in the Lord Jesus Christ).

⁷Keeping Mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty (the unrepentant cannot experience forgiveness from the Lord); visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the childrens children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. (However, once any member of a family comes to Christ, this curse is broken [II Cor. 5:17].)

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

⁹And he said, If now I have found Grace in Your Sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray You, go among us: for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your Inheritance. (The wondrous Revelation of God in this Chapter is declared in II Corinthians to have been the ministration of death; for as the people were still under Law, the more gracious God was, the more guilty they were [II Cor. 3:6-9].)

THE COVENANT

¹⁰And He (the Lord) said, Behold, I make a Covenant: before all your 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 you are shall see the Work of the LORD: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with you. (For all this, Israel still had problems believing, which cost that generation the Promised Land.)

¹¹Observe thou that which I command you this day: behold, I drive out before you the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. (The Lord driving out these enemies, at least when Israel came to the Promised Land, was contingent upon them rendering proper obedience, even as it is presently.)

¹²Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you go, lest it be for a snare in the midst of you (to make a covenant with the world is to invite disaster):

¹³But you shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves (in this Verse is found the first mention of Phallic worship in the Bible; such was the object of worship described here as a grove or Ashera; in blunt language, this is the male member [II Cor. 6:14-18; 7:1]):

¹⁴For you shall worship no other god: for the LORD, Whose Name is Jealous, is a jealous God (in this sense, the jealousy of God is of the essence of His Moral Character, a major cause for worship and confidence on the part of His People, and a ground for fear on the part of His enemies; the Lord will not share His People with Satan; as well, the jealousy evidenced by the Lord is in no way selfish, as it is with mankind):

¹⁵Lest you 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 you, and you eat of his sacrifice;

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

¹⁷You shall make yourself no molten gods. (The Word of God is emphatic, that it teaches separation from the world; however, it doesnt teach isolation. There is a great difference in the two.)

INSTRUCTIONS

¹⁸The Feast of Unleavened Bread shall you keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. (It is touching to recognize the love which repeated the Ten Commandments and the Sacrifices and Feasts connected therewith. This was not mere repetition; it was loving instruction.)

¹⁹All that open the matrix (womb) is Mine; and every firstling among your cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. (The firstborn, not only of man, but even the male animals, were to be given to the Lord. This was typical of Christ, Who was Gods Son. Regarding the Incarnation, He was the firstborn [Jn. 3:16].)

²⁰But the firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a lamb (by offering up a lamb in sacrifice, which was typical of Christ being offered up for unclean humanity, of which the ass was a type): and if you redeem him not, then shall you break his neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before Me empty. (The firstborn could not be redeemed, unless sacrifice was offered; likewise, there is no Redemption for humanity without Faith in the Sacrifice of Christ, of which all of this was a Type.)

²¹Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest: in earing time (plowing time) and in harvest you shall rest. (Christ is Gods rest [Heb., Chpt. 4]. The honor, or dishonor, done to the Sabbath was a test under Law; the honor, or dishonor, done to Christ, the test under Grace. Death was the penalty of dishonoring the Sabbath; a similar penalty attaches to dishonoring Christ [Rom. 6:23].)

²²And you shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest (the feast of Pentecost, which took place in our May or June), and the Feast of Ingathering at the years end (of Tabernacles, which took place in October).

²³Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel (April, June, and October).

²⁴For I will cast out the nations before you, and enlarge your borders: neither shall any man desire your land, when you shall go up to appear before the LORD your God thrice in the year (with all the men gathered in Jerusalem, enemies might think this would be the time to attack Israel; however, the Lord promises His Protection).

²⁵You shall not offer the Blood of My sacrifice with leaven (many, if not most, Jewish Scholars, I believe, limit this prohibition to the Passover Lamb; in fact, concerning the Feast of Pentecost, leaven is required [Lev. 23:17]); neither shall the Sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover be left unto the morning (this represents the fact that one must partake totally of Christ, and not partially).

²⁶The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring unto the House of the LORD your God (Firstfruits speak of Tithes). You shall not seethe a kid in his mothers milk (the little baby lamb was not to be boiled in his mothers milk; killing the little animal at its birth, and cooking it in this manner, showed a disrespect for the coming Redeemer, represented by the lamb).

MOSES

²⁷And the LORD said unto Moses, You write these Words: for after the tenor of these Words I have made a Covenant with you and with Israel. (The words which Moses wrote are those found in Verses 10 through 26.)

²⁸And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And He (the Lord) wrote upon the tables the Words of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments. (The latter portion of this Verse seems to imply that Moses wrote the Ten Commandments on the two Tables of stone; however, it was the Lord Who wrote these Words [34:1; Deut. 10:2].)

²⁹And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of Testimony in Moses hand, when he came down from the Mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him (with Aaron this was the Presence of God on Moses).

³⁰And when Aaron and all the Children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come near him (this shining indicated that the Glory of God on Moses face was like rays or darts of lightning shooting forth).

³¹And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them.

³²And afterward all the Children of Israel came near: and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him in Mount Sinai.

³³And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. (Paul addressed this incident in II Corinthians, Chapter 3. In a context that stresses the transforming Power of God in the life of the Believer, Paul first explores Moses motive in using the veil. It was so that the Israelites might not gaze at his face while the radiance was fading away [II Cor. 3:13].)

³⁴But when Moses went in before the LORD to speak with Him, he took the veil off, until he came out. And he came out, and spoke unto the Children of Israel that which he was commanded.

³⁵And the Children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses face shone: and Moses put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with Him (with the Lord Richards says concerning this: The veil symbolizes hiding our real selves from one another and must be removed in our relationships with other Believers; because Jesus is within Believers, effecting our inner transformation, we see His Face in one anothers lives, for we are being transformed into His likeness by the Work of the Holy Spirit; this attitude of openness is in contrast to the position Moses took, but it is necessary within the Church).