Thank you, Lord, for this day. May it be used for your glory!
Good morning everyone and welcome back to this week’s Biblit!
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Do you know what the best part of video games is?
Redos.
If you fail or die, you can just try again.
Some games are more brutal than others and they make checkpoints sporadic so if you do die, you have to redo a lot.
But at the end of the day, you get a redo and it’s wonderful.
In the same sense, in Exodus 34, we see the Israelites are going to get a redo too!
Let’s jump in!
Context
The narrative here gets a little confusing timeline-wise. I’m pretty sure it happens right after Exodus 33, but it happens differently than I expected.
If you recall, at the end of Exodus 33, Moses asked to see more of God’s glory, and God said He would pass in front of Moses, proclaiming His own name, and then allow Moses to see the back of Him.
I expected Exodus 34 to pick back up with that scene, but in reality, it picks back up with a chore.
God tells Moses to go get 2 new stone tablets and carry them up the mountain so God can copy and paste all the laws from the first ones (that Moses broke).
He made it very clear Moses was to do this alone. No one, not even the animals were allowed near the mountain.
So Moses accomplished the chore and then went up the mountain for another 40 days.
Once Moses was on top of the mountain, that is when the Lord fulfilled His promise from chapter 33.
He came in front of Moses and proclaimed to Moses: “The Lord,” or “Yahweh” which is His name.
Moses knew that already, but God went on to explain what His own name means with one of the most quoted verses in the Bible.
“The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth” (Exodus 34:6 CSB).
God explained that He is compassionate and gracious, that He is slow to anger, and that He is abundant in love, faithfulness, and truth.
And this was how God showed His glory to Moses, by giving him a deeper understanding of who God really is. I think that’s so beautiful!
BUT, God also declares that He is a just God, and He will not leave the guilty unpunished.
Immediately after seeing God’s glory, Moses bowed in worship and prayer.
He prays one more time for the Israelites and begs God to forgive them.
And God in His merciful and abundant love abides.
Covenant Renewed
God forgives Israel by renewing the covenant He had made with them. He declares that He will do awe-inspiring works for Israel, that He will drive out their enemies, and give them the Promised Land.
He basically says He will continue to uphold His end of the covenant because He is faithful and true.
However, He reminds Israel of their end of the covenant too.
He re-iterates a lot of things from the 10 commandments (mainly the ones they broke) and other practices we haven’t heard about since Egypt.
God commands them not to make casts of images of gods. He commands them to tear down any altars to false gods they will find in the new lands, and tells them not to make any treaties with their enemies, or else they may be tempted to bow down to false gods.
He reminds them to observe the many festivals they have including the Festival of Unleavened Bread. That was the one that leads up to the Passover, an extremely important reminder of God’s faithfulness, power, and love.
He reminds them that all of Israel’s firstborns are to be for God and the human children must be redeemed by a sacrifice.
And finally, He said that they must remember to work for 6 days and rest on the 7th no matter how busy of a season it is.
Radiant Face
And so after 40 days of fasting on the mountain, Moses heads back down.
This time, Israel did not lose their minds. They did not take matters into their own hands. This time, they obeyed and just waited.
And when Moses came back down, after being shown God’s glory, his face was literally glowing.
To the point that Israel was terrified to even be around him.
And this continued to happen every time Moses spent time with God. It got to the point that Moses would wear a veil anytime he was in front of the Israelites.
Alright! That is the end of Exodus 34.
And that is about it for the context! Tune in tomorrow and we’ll jump into the interpretation and what this passage is all about.