Comments on Exodus 34 v1-3 Following Moses' appeal in the preceding chapter, the Lord relents and decides to go ahead with the Sinaitic covenant. But the Lord excludes Israel in general from His presence and only allows Moses, the interceding prophet, into His presence. v4-7 Moses does as he is instructed and prepares a second set of tablets, and then goes into the presence of the Lord. The Lord announces His name and emphasizes His merciful nature, but makes it very clear His mercy is not permissive. v8-9 Moses responds to the Lord's announcement of His mercy and appeals to Him to be merciful with Israel, forgive them their folly over the idol, and take Israel as His people as He said He would in 19:5-6. v10-17 The Lord acquiesces to Moses' request to forgive Israel and taken them as His people and go ahead with the Sinaitic Covenant (v. 10-11). However, He vehemently emphasizes the absolute necessity of utterly stamping out all idolatry from the land of Canaan, every last vestige (v. 12-14). And he demands that they not intermingle with the current inhabitants by covenant (i.e., legal contracts) or by marriage, as that would result in Israel being led astray to worship false gods (v. 15- 16). The Lord then ends the admonition in v. 17 with a final command directly reactionary to the events of the preceding chapter, "Thou shalt make thee no molten gods". v18-26 The Lord then reaffirms the Passover Festival (a.k.a. Pesach) and institutes the Feast of Weeks (a.k.a. Shavuot, Pentecost) and the Feast of Tabernacles (a.k.a Sukkot). These three feasts are known as the Regalim, or ingatherings, which name is derived from the Hebrew regel or "feet" because the people are to gather in to the Tabernacle to observe the Feasts. The Lord emphasizes the weekly Sabbath, even during the harvest, as all three of the Regalim are additional Sabbaths as well (v. 21). And He prohibits the mixing of local idolatrous fertility rituals with the divinely instituted Feasts (the v. 26 statement about not boiling a kid in it's mother's milk). v27-28 The Lord commands Moses to write down the commands associated with the Sinaitic Covenant. After 40 days, which parallel the previous 40 days he spent upon Sinai, of fasting Moses returns out of the mountain, and writes down all of the instructions of the Law. v28 "he did neither eat bread, nor drink water", the fasting without food or water for 40 days is clearly intended to tell us that Moses was miraculously sustained while in the presence of the Lord. The connection is akin to that of Deut. 8:3, and emphasizes that the Divine Bread (i.e., the Torah) is more valuable and more sustaining than any earthly material bread. v29-35 Moses acts as intercessor again in imparting the Law to Israel after departing from the presence of the Lord. The matter of Moses' face shining would indicate that the Lord is sanctified, and those who enter His presence must be sanctified by Him in order to abide with Him. Thus, Moses was sanctified by the Lord and this sanctification persisted even outside the Lord's presence. The mortal takes on the element of the divine, by virtue of the divine and not the mortal. This occurs whenever Moses goes into the Lord's presence. The people fear this manifestation, so Moses veils his face from them, just as the Lord veils His face from Israel. But lest we forget Moses' humanity we are reminded of it in passages such as 16:6-8, 18:17. Copyright © 2002 by S. Kurt Neumiller . All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form or by any means for commercial gain without the express written consent of the author. Digital or printed copies may be freely made and distributed for personal and public non-commercial use.