(Exodus 34:4 -34:35)
Moses cut two stone tablets just like the first pair. He rose early and went up Mount Sinai, as Jehovah had commanded him, and carried with him the tablets of stone. Jehovah descended to him in a cloud and stood near to him, uttering his own name “Jehovah.” When he passed before Moses, he proclaimed, “I am Jehovah, the god Jehovah, merciful and gracious, patient, ever compassionate and true, bestowing his never-changing love upon a thousand generations, forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin, yet by no means acquitting the guilty, but punishing the crimes of the parents through their children, their grandchildren, and their descendants to the third, even the fourth generation."
Moses quickly bowed his head and prostrated himself in worship. He prayed, "If I have found favor with you, then may Jehovah, my god, be with us. I know we are an unruly people, but please forgive our sinfulness and our transgressions and accept us as your legacy.”
Jehovah replied, "I make you a promise. I will perform for your people miracles such have not been accomplished in this world in any nation. All the peoples that you will come in contact with will witness Jehovah’s awesome power, for it will be a wondrous thing I will do with you.
“Obey the orders that I now give you and ahead of you I will expel the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hethites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. I warn you, make no treaties with the inhabitants of those lands through which you will pass, for such will only be ploys to entrap you. Smash their altars! Topple their pillars! Chop down the fertility poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah! Do not worship any other god, for Jehovah's name is jealousy and he's a jealous god. Make no treaties with the inhabitants of these countries, for when they debase themselves with their gods and make sacrifices to them, they may bid you to participate in them and partake of the sacrificial food. Moreover, do not allow your sons to marry their women, for when the wives debase themselves with their gods, they may induce their husbands to do likewise. Cast for yourselves no idols of molten metal!
"Keep the yearly Feast of Unleavened Bread as I have commanded you. Eat only unleavened bread at the appointed time, seven days during the month of Abib, for that was when I brought you out of Egypt. The first-born all belong to me, every first-born male, whether it be a calf or a lamb. The first-born of a donkey may have its place taken by a lamb, but, if not, you must kill it by snapping its neck. Your first-born male sons may be similarly exchanged. But in either case, you must not appear before me empty handed.
“Do your work in six days, but on the seventh cease from your labor, even during the season of the plowing and the season of the reaping. Keep the week-long Feast of First Fruits when you begin to pick the ripened fruit and the Harvest Feast when all is gathered in at the end of the year. Three times a year all the males should present themselves before Jehovah, the all-powerful god of Israel. And when I have expelled the peoples in your path and expanded your borders, you need not fear that anyone will occupy your land when you are absent celebrating the three yearly feasts.
“Do not mix leaven with the blood of sacrificial victims, nor should any food from the Passover feast be left uneaten by morning. The first fruits of the harvests should be brought to temple of your god Jehovah. Don't boil a kid in his mother's milk."
Jehovah instructed Moses, "Record these words for they comprise the terms of the agreement I have made with you and the people of Israel." Moses stayed with Jehovah for 40 days and 40 nights, during which time he took no food or drink. But he inscribed upon the tablets the words of the contract, the Ten Commandments.
When Moses descended from Mount Sinai carrying the two tablets of divine law inscribed in his own hand, he was unaware that, as a result of his communion with Jehovah, rays of light were emitting from his countenance. When Aaron and the rest of the Israelites saw how his face shone, they were afraid to come near Moses. Moses summoned them, Aaron and the leaders of Israel, and they returned to him so that he could converse with them. Afterwards, all the people of Israel drew near and were told that everything that Jehovah had communicated to Moses on the mountain. When Moses had finished speaking, he put a veil over his face.
(Whenever he entered the tent to speak to Jehovah Moses removed the veil and kept it off until he came out. When he did emerge and spoke to the people of Israel what he had been commanded, the Israelites would notice that Moses' face still shone, so Moses would don the veil again until such time as he would go in to speak to Jehovah.)
Notes
1. Jehovah, before Moses, praises his own mercy and forgiveness and, in the same breath, praises his punishment of not only the guilty, but the descendants of the guilty -- what modern sensibilities would regard not as merciful, but as grossly unjust and vindictive. But it must be remembered that the concept of collective and ancestral guilt was held by most ancient societies.
2. In his talk with Moses, Jehovah brags about all the wonders he will perform, including sweeping away all the native inhabitants so that the Israelites can occupy the land he has bequeathed them. In dealing with these foreign peoples does he encourage his people to be tolerant and respectful of their religious customs? Does he advise them to try to get along with their neighbors and make peace treaties with them? Does he encourage them to adapt and assimilate and intermarry? No, just the opposite. He advocates racial purity and superiority and perpetual warfare with their neighbors. And he reveals again his obsession with exclusive worship. Peoples who worship other gods can only be evil, and the Israelites must have nothing to do with them. The altars and temples of those other gods must be destroyed. This almost pathological animosity toward rival gods seems born of a vendetta. Was Jehovah personally acquainted with the foreign gods he so detests? Was he perhaps an outcast from their society? (He never claims they don't exist; he only claims primacy over them.)
3. Jehovah reiterates his insistence on the proper observance of the feasts dedicated to him. These seem to be of far more importance to him than any moral guidelines. He does not at this point exhort his people to love one another, to be honest, just, kind, or even hard-working, but only to be obedient to his commands concerning the proper observance of his festivals. Moreover, he insists upon claiming ownership rights to all the first-born males, payment for his assistance and patronage. Substitute sacrifices, though, are permitted and encouraged. The Israelites didn't have to slit the throat of their new-born baby sons: they could slaughter some poor lamb instead.
4. The first pair of tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments were written by Jehovah himself. The second set he makes Moses chisel out himself. Did Jehovah, who initially said he would make the second set himself, get writer's cramp or did he merely feel (with much justification) that if Moses was going to break the tablets he, Jehovah, had taken so much trouble inscribing, Moses could jolly well make the replacement set his own self, even if it took 40 days and 40 nights without sleep, food, or drink, to do it.
5. Moses has these additional 40 days and nights. Of what necessity was this great length of time during which it explicitly says Moses had nothing to eat or drink. Really. How did Jehovah accomplish this miracle? And why didn't he allow Moses to bring with him even a snack or a box lunch? When Moses is reported returning to his people, there is no comment on whether he was hungry or thirsty or if he had lost any weight.
6. When Moses comes down from the mountain he and his people are surprised to find that his face glows so much that beams of light are radiating from it. (Some translations mistake the description and have Moses growing horns!) Moses is so embarrassed and his people so disturbed by this phenomenon, that he veils his face in front of his people. No explanation is really given for this occurrence and no natural cause for it comes to mind. Was it due to his proximity to Jehovah or a result of the environment on the mountain or wherever else he may have been all that time. It is curious that this did not happen the first time Moses was 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain. What was so different about the second visit?
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