Albert Barnes Commentary Exodus 34
Albert Barnes Commentary
Exodus 34
Albert Barnes Commentary
Exodus 34
"And Jehovah said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables, which thou brakest." — Exodus 34:1 (ASV)
Hew you - The former tables are called the work of God; compare (Exodus 32:16).
The words - See (Exodus 34:28).
"And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth, keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children`s children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation." — Exodus 34:6-7 (ASV)
This was the second revelation of the name of the God of Israel to Moses. The first revelation was of Yahweh as the self-existent One, who purposed to deliver His people with a mighty hand (Exodus 3:14); this was of the same Yahweh as a loving Saviour who was now forgiving their sins. The two ideas that mark these revelations are found combined, apart from their historical development, in the second commandment, where the divine unity is shown on its practical side, in its relation to human obligations (Exodus 20:4). Both in the commandment and in this passage, the divine love is associated with the divine justice; but in the former there is a transposition to serve the proper purpose of the commandments, and the justice stands before the love.
This is strictly the legal arrangement, brought out in the completed system of the ceremonial law, in which the sin-offering, in acknowledgment of the sentence of justice against sin, was offered before the burnt-offering and the peace-offering. But in this place the truth appears in its essential order; the retributive justice of Yahweh is subordinated to, rather it is made a part of, His forgiving Love (see Exodus 32:14 note).
The visitation of God, whatever form it may wear, is in all ages the working out purposes of Love toward His children. The diverse aspects of the divine nature, to separate which is the tendency of the unregenerate mind of man and of all paganism, are united in perfect harmony in the Lord Yahweh, of whom the saying is true in all its length and breadth, God is love (1 John 4:8). It was the sense of this, in the degree to which it was now revealed to him, that caused Moses to bow his head and worship (Exodus 34:8).
But the perfect revelation of the harmony was reserved for the fulness of time when the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8) was made known to us in the flesh as both our Saviour and our Judge.
"And he said, If now I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance." — Exodus 34:9 (ASV)
This yearning struggle after assurance is like the often-repeated utterance of the heart, when it receives a blessing beyond its hopes, “Can this be real?”
"And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of Jehovah; for it is a terrible thing that I do with thee." — Exodus 34:10 (ASV)
Marvels - Explained in the following verse. Compare 2 Samuel 7:23; Psalms 77:14.
"Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: but ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and ye shall cut down their Asherim; for thou shalt worship no other god: for Jehovah, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot after their gods, and sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee and thou eat of his sacrifice; and thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods, and make thy sons play the harlot after their gods. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, at the time appointed in the month Abib; for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt. All that openeth the womb is mine; and all thy cattle that is male, the firstlings of cow and sheep. And the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break its neck. All the first-born of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in plowing time and in harvest thou shalt rest. And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, [even] of the first-fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year`s end. Three times in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord Jehovah, the God of Israel. For I will cast out nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou goest up to appear before Jehovah thy God three times in the year. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning. The first of the first-fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother`s milk. And Jehovah said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel." — Exodus 34:12-27 (ASV)
The precepts contained in these verses are, for the most part, identical in substance with some of those which follow the Ten Commandments and are recorded in “the Book of the covenant” (Exodus 20–23).
Exodus 34:13. Cut down their groves – This is the first reference to what is commonly known as grove-worship. The original word for “grove” in this connection, אשׁרה 'ăshêrāh, is different from that so rendered in Genesis 21:33. Our translators supposed that what the law commands is the destruction of groves dedicated to the worship of false deities (Judges 6:25; 2 Kings 18:4); but since the worship of asherah is found associated with that of Astarte, or Ashtoreth (Judges 2:13; Judges 10:6; 1 Samuel 7:4), it seems probable that while Astarte was the personal name of the goddess, the asherah was a symbol of her, probably in some one of her characters, made in wood in some conventional form.
Exodus 34:15–16. An expansion of Exodus 34:12. The unfaithfulness of the nation to its covenant with Yahweh is here for the first time spoken of as a breach of the marriage bond. The metaphor is, in any case, a natural one, but it seems to gain point if we suppose it to convey an allusion to the abominations connected with pagan worship, such as are spoken of in Numbers 25:1-3.
Exodus 34:21. See Exodus 20:9; Exodus 23:12. There is here added to the commandment a particular caution respecting those times of year when the land calls for most labor. The old verb “to ear” (i.e., to plow) is genuine English.
Exodus 34:24. Neither shall any man desire etc. – Intended to encourage those who might fear the consequences of obeying the divine law in attending to their religious duties. Compare Proverbs 16:7.
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