Exodus 34 :: New King James Version (NKJV)

Moses Makes New Tablets

How the Law Was Recorded

(Deut. 10:1–5 )

Exo 34:1And the LORD said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.

Exo 34:2

Exo 34:2“So be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself to Me there on the top of the mountain.

Exo 34:3

Exo 34:3“And no man shall come up with you, and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain; let neither flocks nor herds feed before that mountain.”

Exo 34:4

Exo 34:4So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones. Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him; and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.

Exo 34:5

Exo 34:5Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

Exo 34:6

Exo 34:6And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth,

Exo 34:7

Exo 34:7“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.”

Exo 34:8

Exo 34:8So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.

Exo 34:9

Exo 34:9Then 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.”

The Covenant Renewed

(Ex. 23:14–19; Deut. 7:1–6; 16:1–17 )

Exo 34:10

Exo 34:10And He said: “Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.

Exo 34:11

Exo 34:11“Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.

Exo 34:12

Exo 34:12“Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst.

Exo 34:13

Exo 34:13“But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images

Exo 34:14

Exo 34:14“(for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),

Exo 34:15

Exo 34:15“lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and make sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invites you and you eat of his sacrifice,

Exo 34:16

Exo 34:16“and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods and make your sons play the harlot with their gods.

Exo 34:17

Exo 34:17“You shall make no molded gods for yourselves.

Exo 34:18

Exo 34:18“The Feast of Unleavened Bread you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the appointed time of the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.

Exo 34:19

Exo 34:19“All that open the womb are Mine, and every male firstborn among your livestock, whether ox or sheep.

Exo 34:20

Exo 34:20“But the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. And if you will not redeem him, then you shall break his neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before Me empty-handed.

Exo 34:21

Exo 34:21“Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.

Exo 34:22

Exo 34:22“And you shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end.

Exo 34:23

Exo 34:23“Three times in the year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the LORD God of Israel.

Exo 34:24

Exo 34:24“For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times in the year.

Exo 34:25

Exo 34:25“You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leaven, nor shall the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover be left until morning.

Exo 34:26

Exo 34:26“The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

Exo 34:27

Exo 34:27Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”

Exo 34:28

Exo 34:28So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.[fn]

The Shining Face of Moses

Exo 34:29

Exo 34:29Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him.

Exo 34:30

Exo 34:30So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.

Exo 34:31

Exo 34:31Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him; and Moses talked with them.

Exo 34:32

Exo 34:32Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them as commandments all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai.

Exo 34:33

Exo 34:33And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.

Exo 34:34

Exo 34:34But whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with Him, he would take the veil off until he came out; and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded.

Exo 34:35

Exo 34:35And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him.

See the NKJV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

NKJV Footnotes

(34:28)

Literally Ten Words

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