Exodus 34: The second tablets, the name of Yahweh, and Moses' face and the veil

In plain English: Yahweh said to Moses, "Chisel two stone tablets like the first. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

In plain English: Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain.

In plain English: No one is to come up with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain. Do not let the flocks or herds graze in front of that mountain."

In plain English: He chiseled two stone tablets like the first. Then Moses got up early in the morning and went up to Mount Sinai, as Yahweh had commanded him, and took two stone tablets in his hand.

In plain English: Yahweh came down in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed Yahweh's name (or: and Moses called on the name of Yahweh).

The Hebrew word: "Proclaimed" is qara. The dictionary gives it as "to call out to (i.e. properly, address by name, but used in a wide variety of applications)".

Good to know: The Hebrew says only "he proclaimed" and does not say who. This Bible reads it as Yahweh. In Exodus 33:19 Yahweh says he "will proclaim Yahweh's name before you". But the same Hebrew words, "called on Yahweh's name", are used of people calling on him, for example Abraham in Genesis 12:8 and Isaac in Genesis 26:25.

What changes: Read as Moses calling on the name, the words in verse 6, "Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God", are Moses' call, and Yahweh is the one who passes by. Read as Yahweh proclaiming, they are Yahweh's own words, and they are shown as his.

In plain English: Yahweh passed by in front of him and proclaimed (or: and Moses proclaimed), "Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth,

The Hebrew words: "Merciful" is rachum, which the dictionary gives as "compassionate", and "gracious" is channun. Both come from the two verbs of Exodus 33:19. "Slow to anger" is, word for word, "long of anger": erek, which the dictionary gives as "long", and aph, the word for anger in Exodus 32:10.

How it is translated: This Bible says "merciful" for rachum in all 13 verses that use it, and "gracious" for channun in all 13 of its verses. The two words are in the same verse in 11 verses of the Bible, and this is the first. Later verses repeat them, such as Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 103:8, Joel 2:13 and Jonah 4:2.

In plain English: keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity, disobedience, and sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the children's children, on the third and on the fourth generation."

The Hebrew word: "Clear" is naqah, which the dictionary gives as "to be (or make) clean (literally or figuratively)". The Hebrew repeats the verb, which makes the statement strong.

Good to know: "Visiting" is the verb explained at Exodus 20:5, which has a very similar sentence about the fathers' wrongdoing and the children. Numbers 14:18 repeats most of this verse, beginning with "slow to anger" from verse 6.

In plain English: Moses hurried and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.

In plain English: He said, "If now I have found favor in your sight, Lord, please let the Lord go among us, even though (or: for) this is a stiff-necked (stubborn) people. Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance."

The Hebrew word: "Even though" is the small Hebrew word ki. The same four Hebrew words, ki am qasheh oref, are in Exodus 33:3, where this Bible says "for you are a stiff-necked people".

How it is translated: The word ki is in 178 verses of Exodus. The English of 110 of them (about 3 in 5) has "for" or "because". "Although" is in one, 13:17, and "even though" is in one: this verse.

What changes: Read as "for" or "because", Moses gives the people's stiff neck as a reason for Yahweh to go among them. Read as "even though", he asks in spite of it.

In plain English: He said, "Look, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been worked (literally: created) in all the earth or in any nation. All the people among whom you are will see the work of Yahweh, for it is an awesome thing that I do with you.

The Hebrew word: "Worked" is the verb bara. The dictionary gives it as "(absolutely) to create; (qualified) to cut down (a wood), select, feed (as formative processes)". It is the verb of Genesis 1:1, "God created the heavens and the earth". It is in only this verse of Exodus.

In plain English: Observe what I command you today. Look, I will drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

In plain English: Be careful not to make a covenant with the people who live in the land where you are going, or it will be a snare (trap) among you,

In plain English: but you are to break down their altars, smash their pillars, and cut down their Asherah poles,

The Hebrew words: "Asherah" is asherah, which the dictionary gives as "Asherah (or Astarte) a Phoenician goddess; also an image of the same". No other verse in Exodus has this word. "Pillars" is matsevah, explained at Exodus 24:4.

In plain English: for you are to worship no other god, for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God,

The Hebrew word: "Jealous" is qanna. Here the text says it is Yahweh's name: "whose name is Jealous". No other verse in this Bible has those words.

How it is translated: The word is in 5 verses of the Bible, all of them about God, and this Bible says "jealous" in all 5. In Exodus it is in 2: Exodus 20:5, "I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God", and this verse, which has it twice.

In plain English: "Do not make a covenant with the people who live in the land, or they will play the prostitute after their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone will invite you and you will eat of his sacrifice,

The Hebrew word: "Play the prostitute" is the verb zanah. The dictionary says it can be used figuratively, "to commit idolatry". It comes again in verse 16, and this Bible says "play the prostitute" in both verses.

In plain English: and you take some of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters play the prostitute after their gods and make your sons play the prostitute after their gods.

In plain English: "You are to make no cast idols for yourselves.

The Hebrew word: "Cast idols" is, word for word, "gods of molten metal". The word for "cast" is massekah, the same word that this Bible translates "molded" in Exodus 32:4 and 32:8, "a molded calf". It is in only these 3 verses of Exodus.

In plain English: "You are to keep the feast of unleavened bread (bread made without yeast). For seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out of Egypt.

In plain English: "All that opens the womb is mine, and all your livestock that is male (or: that will be remembered), the firstborn of cow and sheep.

The Hebrew word: "That is male" is the verb zakar. The dictionary gives its meanings as "to remember", "to mention" and "to be male". Word for word, the second half of this verse reads "all your livestock will be remembered, the firstborn of ox and sheep".

How it is translated: The verb is in 223 verses of the Bible, and this Bible says "that is male" for it only here. In the other 7 verses of Exodus it says a form of "remember" in 5, and "record" and "invoke" in 20:24 and 23:13.

What changes: Read as "will be remembered", the verse does not say that the livestock are male. Exodus 13:12 says, "The males shall be Yahweh's."

In plain English: You are to redeem the firstborn of a donkey with a lamb. If you will not redeem it, you are to break its neck. You are to redeem all the firstborn of your sons. No one is to appear before me empty.

In plain English: "Six days you are to work, but on the seventh day you are to rest. In plowing time and in harvest you are to rest.

In plain English: "You are to observe the feast of weeks with the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of harvest (literally: ingathering) at the year's end.

In plain English: Three times in the year all your males are to appear before the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel.

In plain English: For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no one will desire your land when you go up to appear before Yahweh your God three times in the year.

In plain English: "You are not to offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread (bread made with yeast). The sacrifice of the feast of the Passover is not to be left until the morning.

In plain English: "You are to bring the first of the first fruits of your ground to the house of Yahweh your God. "You are not to boil a young goat in its mother's milk."

Church tradition: The same sentence is in Exodus 23:19 and Deuteronomy 14:21. Jewish tradition reads the command, which the Bible gives three times, as the basis for keeping meat and milk apart: they are not cooked or eaten together. The text itself says only that a young goat is not to be boiled in its mother's milk, and it gives no reason.

In plain English: Yahweh said to Moses, "Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."

In plain English: He was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights. He did not eat bread or drink water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments (the Hebrew says: ten words).

The Hebrew words: "Ten commandments" is, word for word, "the ten words": eser, ten, and dabar, word, explained at Exodus 20:1. This Bible says "ten commandments" only in the 3 verses where the Hebrew has "ten words": here, Deuteronomy 4:13 and 10:4. It never says "ten words".

Good to know: The verse says only "He wrote". It could be Moses, to whom Yahweh says in verse 27, "Write these words". It could be Yahweh, who says in verse 1, "I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets", a promise that Deuteronomy 10:2 repeats.

In plain English: When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant (literally: the testimony) in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone (the Hebrew verb is related to the word for horn, and can mean sent out rays or horns) because he had spoken with him.

The Hebrew words: "Shone" is the verb qaran. The dictionary gives it as "to shoot out horns; figuratively, rays". It is related to the noun qeren, which the dictionary gives as "a horn (as projecting)" and, among its other senses, "a ray (of light)".

How it is translated: The verb is in 4 verses of the Bible: this verse, verse 30, verse 35 and Psalm 69:31, where it is used of a bull that "has horns". This Bible says "shone" in all 3 verses of Exodus. The noun qeren is in 69 verses of the Bible, and this Bible says a form of "horn" in 67 of them, among them all 8 verses of Exodus that have it, which are about the horns of the altar. In Habakkuk 3:4 it says "rays": "Rays shine from his hand".

Good to know: The old Latin Bible, the Vulgate, translated this verb as "horned" in these verses, and that reading is often given as the reason for the horns that Moses has in some works of art. The Hebrew text does not say what the shining looked like.

In plain English: When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, they saw that the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.

In plain English: Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke to them.

In plain English: Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them all the commandments that Yahweh had spoken with him on Mount Sinai.

In plain English: When Moses was done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.

Good to know: The word for "veil", masveh, is only in these three verses of the Bible, verses 33 to 35. Exodus does not say why Moses put the veil on. 2 Corinthians 3:13 says Moses "put a veil on his face so that the children of Israel wouldn't look steadfastly on the end of that which was passing away".

In plain English: But when Moses went in before Yahweh to speak with him, he took the veil off until he came out. Then he came out and spoke to the Israelites what he had been commanded.

In plain English: The Israelites saw Moses' face, that the skin of Moses' face shone. So Moses put the veil on his face again until he went in to speak with him.