Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 34:33-35

33 And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.

34 But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out. And he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded.

35 And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone: and Moses put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

This chapter finishes by returning to the matter of Moses’s shining face. Because of the discomfort that his radiance caused the people, Moses wore a veil covering his face while in their presence. When he would go in to the Lord, he took the veil off, but when he came back out to the people, he covered its brightness.

I do not think we have enough of a description to understand why a shining face would have been distressing and not attractive to the people. Apparently, the effect went beyond an amusing novelty to something challenging to behold.

This is an excellent demonstration of why we live today at a distance from God. If Moses’s shining face was already too much for the people, how much more the full glory of the Almighty? It is for our own benefit that He has veiled Himself from us, speaking through indirect means, to try and prepare us for His coming. When He returns again in His majesty, He will have a purifying aura before Him, so powerful that the unworthy will not survive it. We should be careful about seeking glory that we are not ready for, and ought to be grateful for the time we have to prepare.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 34:31-32

31 And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them.

32 And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in mount Sinai.

Just as God had given the commandments anew to Moses, Moses gave them anew to all of Israel. And, to their credit, this time the Israelites had not become restless and gone astray. The previous time Moses had been gone for forty days and nights, that was long enough for them to be unsure of his fate, and to demand that they be led by someone (or something) new.

It occurs to me that maybe the reason that Israel went astray was not so much that they thirsted for sin as that they could not tolerate the silence. As the Preacher observed in Proverbs 29:18, “where there is no vision, the people perish.” So long as Moses and the word of God was present, the people knew what they were following and what they were about. But when there was no voice for a time, no vision before them, then perhaps the Israelites were anxious to be led by something, even if it wasn’t the right thing.

We do the same thing today. Yes, we have the word of God with us, but many of us crave direct communion. We miss our savior, and we want him to return to dwell with us personally. But first we have a long time down here on our own, and many of us crave direction so much that we are tempted by the voices of society’s whims, just for the comfort of following something close and near. A great test for the Israelites, and for all of us, is whether we will hold the first instruction through the long dark while we wait for the next. Yes, we can follow, but can we also wait?

Israel had not been able to the first time around, and as part of their reunification with God they were given this chance to try again. Being able to succeed where they had before failed was the true measure of their growth and change.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 34:29-30

29 And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.

30 And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, it seems that Moses must have been somewhat transfigured to survive 40 days and nights in the top of the mountain without even water. And so, it is understandable that when he descended back down to the people his face was shining, such that people were too afraid to even approach him. Moses may have been back among the common man, but the glory of God still burned within him.

While I certainly have never been transfigured like this, I am well aware of the glow within the soul that follows a period of deep spiritual connection. It is unquestionably the best that I have ever felt, and it can continue for days after the original experience. I’ve never had that flush last forever, but there have been personal changes made in that time which have continued with me to this day (including the writing of this blog). While we are not told whether Moses’s face ever returned to normal, my assumption would be that after some time it did.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 34:27-28

27 And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.

28 And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

We heard a few of the commandments that the Lord reinstated to Moses, but now we are told that the two remained in communion for another forty days and nights. Given that duration, it seems entirely plausible that every single commandment that the Lord had given thus far, from when the Israelites first left Egypt to the time Most first ascended Mount Sinai to the time he ascended it the second time, were all included in this restoration of God’s law. All of the commandments around the feast days, and surrounding betrothal and marriage, and the management of servants, and the ten commandments, and the structure of the tabernacle, and the process for each sacrifice, all of it. In fact, verse 28 specifically calls out the ten commandments as being one of those things that was communicated, even though we do not have the full transcription of that here, so it stands to reason that all these others might have been as well.

How Moses was sustained for forty days and nights without even water is a wonder, and I must assume that there was some sort of divine intervention there. I wonder if he was being nourished by the spirit, and whether partaking of the food and drink of our fallen world would have made him unfit to remain in the presence of the Lord. Indeed, we will see in the following verses that he really was somewhat transfigured during his time in the mountain, and that it altered his very appearance.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 34:21

21 Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.

Continuing with the trend of the past couple days, here we have God re-extending a previously heard law, this one related to the observance of a Sabbath day. Not all the wording between the original injunction and this are the same. The original commandment stressed the importance of not only abstaining from work for oneself, but also that he must not cause anyone around him to work either.

We don’t hear that same detail here, but we do receive a new emphasis with the instruction, “in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.” This makes clear that the people aren’t to go looking for temporary exceptions. One cannot be justified in excusing themselves from the commandment “just during the harvest” or anything like that. This law not only applies universally to every inhabitant, but as a constant in all times.

The phrase “earing time and in harvest” also brings to mind a passage we heard quite some time ago. Back when Joseph was a prince in Egypt, he had explained to his brethren that they needed his help to survive the famine, as it would continue for yet another “five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.” I wonder if God’s wording here deliberately reflected records that the Israelites had of that moment in their history. If so, it seems to address the main underlying fear that might tempt one to break this commandment, which would be that your crops would fail and that you would starve, just like what happened in the time of Joseph in Egypt. This reference back to Joseph might have been to remind the people that when it came to being at the mercy of weather and the seasons, there was nothing surer than a partnership with the Lord. He would see them through alright, just as He had done for Israel and his sons all those years ago.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 34:19-20, 25-26

19 All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.

20 But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.

25 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

26 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

God continues to re-establish His original commandments, now detailing the requirement that every firstborn of their flocks was to be an offering to the Most High. These instructions are all things that we have heard before.

It is interesting to note that the laws that God is re-establishing were originally given clear back at the start of Israel’s journey out of Egypt. These are not the instructions that He gave the first time Moses met with Him in Mount Sinai, which included the ten commandments, nor is it the instructions that He gave during Moses’s second visit to the mountain, which included the details for building the tabernacle.

Of course, we will see throughout the rest of the Old Testament that the Israelites observed all of the laws given at all of the prior times of instruction, even if we don’t hear them all being reimplemented here. Moses was up in the mountain this third time for another forty days and forty nights, so it is entirely possible that the Lord did, in fact, restate all of the previous commands during this visit, even if only the first portion of His words have been transcribed into our present-day Bible.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 34:18, 22-24

18 The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.

22 And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.

23 Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.

24 For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice in the year.

Israel had gone astray and broken their promise with the Lord, but God had restored it to them afresh. So, too, He also gave His people their core commandments afresh, as if for the first time ever. We have heard all of these commandments already, but now they are new again.

God reminds them of the feast of unleavened bread, which He first established with them as He brought them out of Egypt. He also reinstates the other two feasts: firstfruits and ingathering. Over the next couple days, we will continue to see God re-establishing His agreements with the Israelites, all of them made new.

It is in our human nature to have a long memory, burdening ourselves with the disappointments and failures of the past. We say that we are recommitting ourselves to prior agreements, but we also hold onto our old baggage. God does not operate the same way. As Paul taught, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). In today’s verses we see that when we repent for our sins, and God extends His partnership to us again, He really is doing so untethered by the memory of our past. Though it may go against our nature, we should strive to receive that offer with the same newness and freedom that it is being extended with, as if we are receiving it for the very first time.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 34:15-17

15 Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;

16 And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.

17 Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

What God says here about the tendency to make a covenant with idolatry has been an eternal challenge of God’s people. When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth thousands of years later, he still had to continually remind the people to not mix their faith with false gods. For convenience or politeness, the people would partake of the culture around them, even when doing so violated their exclusive commitment to the Lord.

Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled (1 Corinthians 8:7).

We must not make the mistake of dismissing these verses decrying idolatry as irrelevant to us today because we do not carve our false gods out of wood anymore. There are still many false gods and vain obsessions all around us, and many the disciple is deceived to think that they can both be a Christian and partake in the world’s folly. We commit idolatry when we show fealty to the prevailing societal trends, even though they contradict God’s laws. Many that would follow the Lord stumble to the ideals of sexual and identity perversion.

God is also very right to identify the trojan horse of family members and spouses that we become devoted to, who then seduce us into unworthy concessions. I know many the brother and sister who watched the world celebrating that which God has called sin, and they stood boldly against the perversion, but then their spouse convinced them of the need to be “tolerant” of the evil, and by-and-by they lost their way.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 34:11-14

11 Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

12 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:

13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:

14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

As part of the Lord re-extending His covenant to bring Israel into the Promised Land, He now describes all of the enemies that currently dwell in that land, whom He will drive out to make space for His chosen people. God then warns the Israelites against making any sort of liaison with those people. The Canaanites had been marked for destruction because of their perversions, and anyone that became confederate with them would be linking themselves to their doom. Instead, the Israelites were commanded to remain firmly apart, and to tear down any of the false gods that they came across.

While the Lord did not specifically bring to mind Israel’s recent offense, these instructions must have been a timely reminder for how fundamentally they had betrayed their covenant to Him with the worship of the golden calf, taking a step towards the same idolatry of the Canaanites. In that one act they had broken God’s first two commandments. Indeed, the supplanting of God with any other ideal is the first of all wickedness. If the first and great commandment is to love the Lord with all of your heart, then the first and great sin must be to replace Him with something else.

Thus, God says in verse 14 that He is a jealous God. He is necessarily an exclusive God, one that must permeate all of our lives and not be mixed with alternative beliefs. Indeed, He cannot be mixed with alternative beliefs, for once one tries to mix, they have already cast aside God.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 34:10

10 And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the Lord: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.

Notice how God makes no reference to Israel’s sin or broken promises. He is establishing His covenant as if it is totally fresh, being extended for the first time, with no baggage from previous failures.

Such is the magnanimity of the Lord’s mercy. Because of the atonement of Jesus Christ, transgressions are not merely swept under the rug, they fully die with him, and every new beginning is as pure and perfect as the first. Because Israel sought a way to make restitution, the Lord has already forgiven them, and they are being offered the exact same covenant as before.

The word that the Lord uses towards the end to describe the work that He will accomplish with Israel is translated here as “terrible.” The original word is יָרֵא, which is often used to describe fear, but more broadly can also mean to cause reverence or awe. It suggests something so great that it overpowers the beholder. In the next verses God will specifically mention the driving out of the heathen nations in Canaan, so the application of this word makes sense.