The Tablets are Replaced
1 And the I AM said to
Moses, "Carve out two tablets of stone just like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words
that were in the first tablets, which thou broke."
Moses broke the first two
tablets God wrote on. Now they need replacing.
2 "And come up in
the morning to Mountain Sinai, and present thyself there to Me on the top of
the mountain.
3 "And no one will
come up with thee, neither let anyone be seen throughout all the mountain, neither
let the flocks nor herds feed near that mountain."
This
time Moses is to go up alone.
4 And
he carved two tablets of stone just like the first two, and Moses got up early
in the morning, and went up to Mountain Sinai, as the I AM had commanded him,
and took with him the two tablets of stone.
5 And the I AM descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the I AM.
6 And the I AM passed by before him, and proclaimed, "The I AM, The I AM God, merciful and gracious, patient, and abundant in goodness and truth,
7 "Keeping mercy
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 grandchildren, to the third and to the fourth generation."
God is listing His
virtues.
8 And Moses hurried, and
bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.
9 And he said, "If
now I have found grace in thy sight, O I AM, let my I AM, I pray thee, go
among us, because they are a stubborn people, and forgive our iniquity and our
sin, and take us for thine inheritance."
"God, please don't
abandon us, though we deserve it."
Deuteronomy 10,1-11
1 At that time the I AM
said to me, "Carve thee out two tablets of stone just like the first two,
and come up to Me on the mountain, and make thee a box of wood.
2 "And I will write
on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which thou broke, and
thou will put them in the box."
God promised to rewrite
the same words He had carved into the first set of tablets.
3 And I made a box of cedar
wood, and carved out two tablets of stone just like the first two, and went up on
the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand.
4 And He wrote on the tablets,
exactly like the first time, the ten commandments, which the I AM spoke to you
in the mountain out of the middle of the fire in the day of the assembly, and
the I AM gave them to me.
5 And I turned around
and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the box which I had
made, and there they are, just like the I AM commanded me.
...
10 And I stayed in the mountain, just like the first time, forty days and forty nights. The I AM listened to me at that time also, and the I AM would not destroy thee.
11 And the I AM said to
me, "Get up! Travel in front of the people, that they may go in and possess
the land, which I swore to their fathers to give to them."
Exodus 34,10 And he
said, "See, I will 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 around thee will see the work of the I AM, for it is a fantastic
thing that I will do with thee.
11 "Observe thou that which I command thee today. See, I will drive out before thee the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
12 "Be careful that
you don’t make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going,
or it will be a snare in the middle of thee,
13 "But you will
destroy their altars, break their idols, and cut down their groves.
Groves were places full of idols where pagan
worship took place.
14 "For thou will
worship no other God, because the I AM, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
15 "Don’t make a
covenant with the inhabitants of the land because you will go a whoring after
their gods, and do sacrifice to their gods, and one will invite thee, and thou will
eat of his sacrifice."
God uses the terminology
of marriage to explain the level of commitment He expects from Israel.
16 "And thou marry
their daughters to thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods,
and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.
17 "Thou will make
thee no molten gods."
Now God is giving general instruction about the feasts He wants them to keep.
18 “You will keep The Feast of Unyeasted Bread. For seven days thou will eat unyeasted bread, just like I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib, because in the month Abib thou came up out of Egypt.
19 "All that is first born is mine, and every first born among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is a male.
God is
claiming the firstborn of every species as His own because of the last plaque
which killed all the firstborn of the Egyptians.
20 "But the first born of a donkey thou will ransom with a lamb, and if thou don’t ransom him, then thou will break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou will ransom. And none will appear before Me empty handed.
God did
not approve of human sacrifice, so He provided a substitute for the firstborn
child. a lamb.
In the
same way, God provided a substitute for us. Though we all deserve to go to
hell, we don't have to because God provided His Lamb- Jesus- to die
instead.
21 Six days thou will work, but on the seventh day thou will rest. In planting time and in harvest thou will rest.
Change of subject, No
matter what time of year or how much work you have to do, take one day a week
off to rest. Someone who does not take time to rest and be with their family
and friends is a slave to their work. God did not want the Israelites to be in
slavery (thus the whole plague thing on Egypt in the first place.) So He told
them to take time off to live and enjoy.
Also, the human body and
mind need this time to rest. Any other rhythm that has been tried (i.e. the
Soviet Union's 10-day-week) has failed.
Keeping a day of rest
also forces us to take time to build family relationships, as well as
friendships with our neighbors. It creates stronger communities.
Note that this was not a
command to take a day to worship, but to rest.
Now, we are no longer
bound by the Law. We will not go to hell for working on Saturday.
And Jesus is now our
"Sabbath," our rest.
But we are wise to look
at the reason God gave the commands He did and incorporate the spirit into our
lives. Taking sufficient time to rest and be with our families is vitally
important, whether we do it on Saturday or Tuesday. And taking time to just be
with God's people is important, too, even if worship wasn't really part of this
command. We need each other.
All in all, this
commandment is about setting our priorities in life and realizing what is
really important. Yes, we need to be responsible and work to make money and
support ourselves and our families. But it is important to realize what we are
working for. that ultimately, our families and friends are what is important,
not money. We are not allowed to be workaholics.
22 And
thou will observe The Feast of Weeks, of The Beginning of Wheat Harvest, and
The Feast of Harvest Time at the year's end.
23 Three times a year will all your men children appear before the I AM GOD, the God of Israel.
They were to travel to
Jerusalem three times a year to celebrate and worship God. This was three
vacations God made them take. He is serious about not being a slave to work.
24 For I will cast out
the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders, neither will any man desire
thy land, when thou will go up to appear before the I AM thy God three times a
year.
God promises He will
protect their property while they are away worshiping Him.
25 Thou will not offer the blood of My sacrifice with yeast. Neither will the sacrifice of The Feast of the Passover be left until the morning.
It's a general rule
throughout the Law that only yeast free bread (i.e. tortillas) is allowed with
a sacrifice.
26 The first things to ripen of thy land thou will bring to the house of the I AM thy God. Thou will not boil a kid in his mother's milk.
This second part,
"Thou will not seethe a kid in his mother's milk." seems to come out
of nowhere. It doesn't appear to us to belong here with the laws about
sacrifices. As a result, many move it to the dietary law part of the Mosaic Law
and claim we are not to eat cheeseburgers, or anything else that combines dairy
with meat. Some Orthodox Jews go so far as to have two kitchens in their houses;
one for dairy and one for meat.
In trying to keep the
letter, we have missed the whole point of the spirit of the Law.
Pagans in ancient times
would boil a newborn kid in his mother's milk and scatter that on their fields
as part of a fertility ritual, begging "the gods" for a good harvest.
This command has nothing
to do with dietary law, but with the prohibition of paganism. Israel was not to preform fertility rituals to beg the favor of
"the gods" for the production of their fields.
27 Then
the I AM said to Moses, "Write down all these instructions, for they
represent the terms of the covenant I am making with you and with Israel."
28 And he was there with the I AM forty days and forty nights. He did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
Moses
again fasted for forty days.
The Radiant Face of Moses
29 And it happened, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets
of Testimony in his hand, when he came down from the mountain, that Moses
didn't know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him.
30 And when Aaron and
all the children of Israel saw Moses, they saw that the skin of his face shone,
and they were afraid to come near him.
31 And Moses called to
them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him, and
Moses talked with them.
32 And afterward all the
children of Israel came near, and he gave them in laws all that the I AM had
spoken with him in Mount Sinai.
33 And until Moses had finished
speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.
(2
Corinthians 3,7-18
7 But
if the administering of death, written and engraved in stones, was
glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look on the face
of Moses for the glory of his countenance. which glory was to be done
away,
8 How
will not the administration of the Spirit be more glorious?
9 For
if the administration of condemnation be glory, so much more does the
administration of righteousness exceed in glory.
10 For
even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory
that excels it.
11 For
if that which is done away was glorious, that which remains is so much
more glorious.)
Moses face glowed so
bright people couldn't look at him after he had talked face-to-face with God.
Now, if the giving of The Law that condemns men to death because they simply
are not capable of keeping it will make a human's face glow, how much more
glorious is the grace that Jesus gives us?
Exodus 34,34 But when Moses went in before the I AM to speak with Him, he took the veil off, until he came out. And he came out, and spoke to the children of Israel everything 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 on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him.
Moses didn't let
anything come between him and God. When he talked with the Almighty, he removed
the veil from his face so he could see God clearly, not hide anything from God,
and be as close to His glory as possible.
In the same way, we need
to remove the veils from our hearts when we speak with our God.