Albert Barnes Commentary Exodus 34:12-27

"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.