God assured Moses by His words, now He assures him further by telling him to cut two tablets of stone like the ones he had broken and the following morning to come up the mountain alone. No other person must be seen throughout the mountain and no flocks and herds were to feed before it. (v1-4)
Moses did as God instructed him and rose up early and went up the mountain with the two tablets of stone. God promised to write on the tablets the words which were on the first tablets which Moses had smashed when he found them breaking God’s covenant in worshiping the false god, the golden calf.
The LORD descended in the cloud and met with Moses on top of the mountain (v5,6). The cloud is often referred to as the Shekinah mentioned elsewhere in the Bible. It is indicative of God’s glory. Moses had asked to see His glory (chapter 33) and God showed him here. Just God and Moses together, what a privilege! Moses heard the words of The LORD,“The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” (v6,7)
Those must have been comforting words to Moses after all that had gone before. All God’s attributes are contained here – merciful, gracious, long suffering, abounding in goodness and truth, forgiving yet just in His dealing with sin. They didn’t deserve the mercy and forgiveness of God, just as we don’t, but what a Great God we have! We have to be certain because our sin will find us out but He is faithful and upon our repentance He will forgive.
Moses had no hesitation in worshiping God. Like David in 2 Samuel 24 referred to earlier, he knew that it was better to fall into the hands of the living God than to fall into the hands of man. “Then he said, “If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance.” (v8,9)
There is something wrong with our Christian life if we don’t have a longing to worship God. Moses makes no hesitation in doing so. He recognised who God is and what He had done for them and would do in the future. We must cast ourselves upon the love and mercy of God and worship Him with every part of our being. Remember worship is not just when we attend church, or sing hymns or songs in what is often wrongly called ‘a time of worship’, it is the whole of our lives, 24/7, how we live, how we think, the choices we make, the things we say and do, as well as specific times of praising God.
God made a covenant with the people that He would do amazing things, miracles which had never been seen before in all the earth. God said it was an awesome thing He was about to do. They were to observe His commands. He reminded them that He was driving out the occupants of Canaan (v10,11). That was His covenant with them before and He was not going back on what He promised before. There was no way that they could do it so it was essential that God would.
They were not to make alliances with the occupants of Canaanite. It would snare to them. They must destroy their altars, sacred pillars and cut down their wooden images. He reminded them of the commandment not to worship any other god. Compromise would only lead to sin with their gods, eating of their sacrifices and unlawful marriage relationships with their children which would only lead to their own children worshiping the false gods (v12-16).
The Canaanites were evil, and their religions were totally against God and Israel must be separate.
Moses reminded them of their golden calf by restating that. They were not to make any moulded images. (V17)
They were to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This was mentioned in Exodus 12. Leaven was a symbol of sin and bread without leaven indicated putting away of sin. The feast spoke of purity. They were to keep the Feast for seven days in the month of Abib, which was the month they came out of Egypt (v18).
Moses was also instructed on other laws which were mostly in connection with Israel’s separation from the other people and their separation unto The LORD (v19-26). God began by reminded them that the firstborn males were His and to be dedicated to Him. This included sheep and oxen. Firstborn sons were to be redeemed, and none were to appear before The LORD empty-handed.
The people were to work so that they would have something to offer to The LORD and they are to be reminded that they should work six days and rest on the seventh. They were also to observe The Feast of weeks, the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the years end. The men were to appear before The LORD three times a year and The LORD promised that He would protect their land when they leave it to appear before Him. When the men were away, their enemies could be tempted to attack and take possession of their land in their absence, but God promised protection. They were not to offer any sacrifice which contained leaven. Leaven was a picture of sin. Most of these commands were stated in chapter 23, thus it was a reminder to them that God’s laws had not changed despite their sin and Moses smashing them. In Deuteronomy 5:22 we read these assuring words, “These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He added no more. And He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.”
Moses was stating that God gave him these words when he was up the mountain and we should underline, “…. and He added no more” Indicating quite clearly that God did not change the commandments. If we might say so, reverently, He got it right first time. No need for additions, amendments, revisions, which is common in our laws today.
The LORD commanded Moses to write the words (v27,28), unlike the previous time when God wrote them. It is always useful to write things down rather than memorising them. There was a lot to remember. Moses had been with God for forty days and nights and ate and drank nothing. God miraculously sustained him.
Moses came down the mountain (v29,30) and did not realise that his face shone, so much so that Aaron and all the people were afraid to look at him. Being with God made a difference to his appearance. One would have thought that fasting for forty days would have done the opposite, but this was from being in the presence of God.
Are we different after meeting with God? Can people see that we have been with Jesus? In Acts 4:13 we read, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marvelled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.” Maybe the only time a person may see Jesus is through you and me.
Moses was not aware that his face shone. Moses was a humble man (see Numbers 12:3). There was no question of Moses displaying his superiority, he wasn’t even aware of it. The shining was not his own, it was the reflected glory of The LORD. The only other person in the Bible whose face shone was Stephen (Acts 6:15). That was when he had stood up to his killers and speaking up for his Lord. Stephen too, was a humble man.
The people were afraid to come near to Moses, so Moses called to them to come near, and He talked with them. Initially Aaron and the rulers came and then all the people, and he gave them the commandments and all the words of The LORD which he had received on the mountain (v31,32). It was vital that, as the leader, he gave them the words of God.
When Moses had finished speaking with the people, he put a veil over his face. When he went to speak with The LORD, he removed the veil but when he came out to speak to the people he put the veil over his face. (v33-35)
It seems that he had to cover his face which shone after he had been in the presence of The LORD when speaking the words of The LORD to the people. This was because the people were afraid to come before him when his face shone (v30). The words of God are holy and powerful, and we must reverence them and seek to obey them. When he went in to speak with The LORD, which was presumably in his tent which was the Tent of Meeting, he did not veil his face.
