Chapter Overview
Summary
Exodus 34 is the covenant-renewal: second tablets (vv. 1–4), the 'LORD, the LORD' divine-attributes formula (vv. 6–7) that becomes the most-echoed self-revelation of YHWH in the Hebrew Bible, covenant-stipulations (vv. 10–26), and Moses' shining face with the veil (vv. 29–35) — the narrative that 2 Corinthians 3:7–18 reads as the foundational contrast between old and new covenants. The Moses-veil passage is one of the Bible's most sustained NT-LXX dependencies for any non-quotation text.
Notable Variants
The divine-attributes formula at 34:6–7 that recurs at Num 14:18, Ps 86:15/103:8/145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, Nah 1:3, Neh 9:17, 2 Chr 30:9; the 'LORD, the LORD, compassionate and gracious' (eleēmōn kai oiktirmōn) inherited by NT mercy-language (Jas 5:11, Luke 6:36); Moses' shining face at 34:29–35 as the interpretive key of 2 Cor 3:7–18.
Structural Notes
LXX Exodus 34 preserves MT's 35-verse structure.
The LORD said to Moses, "Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered.
The cut-new-tablets command tracks MT. The first tablets were God-made (32:16); the second are Moses-cut but God-inscribed. The theology: the covenant-content is divine, but after the apostasy, the material bears more human-mediation.
Be ready by morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself to Me there on the top of the mountain.
Morning summons to Sinai tracks MT.
No one shall come up with you, and no one shall be seen anywhere on the mountain. Even the flocks and herds shall not graze before that mountain."
The no-one-else and no-livestock restrictions track MT.
So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone.
Moses' obedience and ascent track MT.
The LORD came down in the cloud, stood there with him, and proclaimed His own name — the LORD.
The LORD's descent in the cloud and proclamation of his own name tracks MT.
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed: "The LORD, the LORD, a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
Masoretic (WLC)
יְהוָה יְהוָה אֵל רַחוּם וְחַנּוּן אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם וְרַב־חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת
The LORD, the LORD, a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness
Septuagint (LXX)
κύριος ὁ θεὸς οἰκτίρμων καὶ ἐλεήμων μακρόθυμος καὶ πολυέλεος καὶ ἀληθινός
The Lord, the God compassionate and merciful, patient and full of mercy and true
THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES FORMULA. The single most echoed self-revelation of God in the Hebrew Bible. The formula recurs at Numbers 14:18, Psalm 86:15, Psalm 103:8, Psalm 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, Nahum 1:3, Nehemiah 9:17, and 2 Chronicles 30:9 — nine distinct citations, each deploying the formula for its own theological purpose.
The LXX's key vocabulary — oiktirmōn, eleēmōn, makrothymos, polyeleos, alēthinos — supplies the NT's divine-attributes word-field: James 5:11 (polysplanchnos kai oiktirmōn), Luke 6:36 (oiktirmones kathōs ho patēr), Rom 9:15 (eleēsō / oiktirēsō combining mercy verbs), 2 Cor 1:3 (patēr tōn oiktirmōn kai theos pasēs paraklēseōs).
The 'LORD, the LORD' (kyrios kyrios in LXX) is the doubled divine name — the two-word emphatic naming that Revelation 4:8's 'holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty' carries forward in triadic form.
John 1:14 ('full of grace and truth,' charitos kai alētheias) echoes 'abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness' (rav chesed ve-emet) — the LXX formula is the background text for John's Christological incarnation declaration.
keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation."
Continued divine-attributes: keeping chesed, forgiving, yet visiting iniquity. The MT's 'will not clear the guilty' has a troubling qualifier to mercy; the same ambiguity is preserved in LXX. Paul's Romans 3:25–26 ('to demonstrate his righteousness … to be just and to justify') directly engages this tension: how can God be both merciful-forgiving AND just-not-clearing-the-guilty?
Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped.
Moses' prostrate worship tracks MT.
He said, "If now I have found favor in Your eyes, O Lord, please let the Lord go in our midst. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance."
Moses' request for divine presence and forgiveness tracks MT.
He said, "I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do wonders that have not been done in all the earth or in any nation. All the people among whom you live shall see the work of the LORD, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.
The covenant-renewal and wonders-promise tracks MT.
"Observe what I command you this day. I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
The six-nation conquest-promise tracks MT.
Take care that you do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, lest it become a snare in your midst.
No-covenant-with-inhabitants warning tracks MT.
You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherah poles.
Altar-destruction and Asherah-cutting tracks MT.
You must not bow down to any other god, because the LORD, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who demands exclusive devotion.
Masoretic (WLC)
כִּי יְהוָה קַנָּא שְׁמוֹ
the LORD, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who demands exclusive devotion
Septuagint (LXX)
ὁ γὰρ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ζηλωτὸν ὄνομα θεὸς ζηλωτής ἐστιν
for the Lord the God — Jealous is his name — is a jealous God
The 'jealous name' formula (qanna shemo) is theologically remarkable: jealousy is not merely a divine attribute but the divine name itself. The LXX preserves the doubled emphasis with zēlōtos onoma … theos zēlōtēs.
Paul's 'I feel a divine jealousy for you' (2 Cor 11:2, theou zēlō) and James's 'the spirit he made to dwell in us yearns jealously' (Jas 4:5, pros phthonon epipothei) both draw on this covenantal-jealousy theology. God's zeal for exclusive covenant-devotion IS his name.
Take care that you do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods, someone invite you and you eat of his sacrifice,
Prostitute-themselves-to-gods warning tracks MT. The spiritual-adultery motif that Hosea will develop at length begins here.
and you take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters prostitute themselves to their gods and make your sons prostitute themselves to their gods.
Intermarriage-leading-to-idolatry warning tracks MT. 1 Corinthians 7:14–16 and 2 Cor 6:14–17 negotiate the NT version of this question.
You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal.
No-cast-metal-gods prohibition tracks MT — the direct response to the calf apostasy of chapter 32.
"You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in the month of Aviv you came out of Egypt.
Feast of Unleavened Bread repetition tracks MT — echoing 23:15.
Every firstborn that opens the womb is Mine, including every male firstborn among your livestock, whether ox or sheep.
Firstborn-belongs-to-YHWH principle tracks MT.
The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, and if you do not redeem it, you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. No one shall appear before Me empty-handed.
Donkey-redemption and firstborn-son-redemption track MT.
Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. Even in plowing season and in harvest you shall rest.
Six-days-work / seventh-day-rest, with the 'even in plowing season and harvest' intensification — tracks MT. The Sabbath extends even to the agricultural peak-times.
You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.
Feast of Weeks (Pentēkostē in later Greek) and Feast of Ingathering track MT. Acts 2's Pentecost event is the Feast of Weeks fulfilled Christologically.
Three times in the year every male among you shall appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel.
Three-times-yearly male pilgrimage tracks MT — echoing 23:17.
For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times in the year.
The 'no one shall covet your land' divine-protection promise tracks MT. The miraculous-protection-during-pilgrimage is a promise that the Temple-period Jews took seriously.
You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with anything leavened, nor shall the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover be left until the morning.
Passover-sacrifice no-leaven / no-overnight stipulations track MT.
The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk."
Firstfruits and kid-in-milk prohibition repeat 23:19 — the emphatic second-covenant-code version.
The LORD said to Moses, "Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."
Divine command to 'write these words' tracks MT. The writing-of-the-covenant becomes the material basis of the Torah-text.
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 Words.
Moses' forty-day-forty-night fast-and-writing tracks MT. 'The Ten Words' (hoi deka logoi) — the LXX's formulation that supplies the standard name 'Decalogue.' Matthew 4:2 (Jesus' forty-day wilderness fast) explicitly echoes this Mosaic pattern.
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai — the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses's hand as he came down from the mountain — Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been speaking with God.
Masoretic (WLC)
וּמֹשֶׁה לֹא־יָדַע כִּי קָרַן עוֹר פָּנָיו
Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone
Septuagint (LXX)
Μωυσῆς δὲ οὐκ ᾔδει ὅτι δεδόξασται ἡ ὄψις τοῦ χρώματος τοῦ προσώπου αὐτοῦ
Moses did not know that the appearance of the color of his face had been glorified
Hebrew qaran ('was radiant, shone' — from qeren 'horn, ray') is rendered dedoxastai ('had been glorified'). The LXX's verbal choice is significant: Moses' face did not simply 'shine' but had been 'glorified' — dedoxastai, from doxa.
2 Corinthians 3:7 ('the ministry of death, engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, a glory that was being set aside,' doxēs tou prosōpou autou) quotes this Mosaic-glory language directly.
Jerome's famous Vulgate mistranslation of qaran as cornuta ('horned') gave Western art its tradition of horned Moses (Michelangelo, etc.) — but the LXX's dedoxastai (glorified) is the Greek tradition's correct reading.
The doxa vocabulary threads through: Moses' glorified face — a veil covers it — John 1:14 'we beheld his glory' — 2 Cor 3:18 'we are being transformed from glory to glory.'
Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, and the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him.
The fear-to-come-near response tracks MT. The people's reaction echoes the Sinai-theophany terror of 20:18–19.
But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke to them.
Moses calling the leaders tracks MT.
Afterward all the sons of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the LORD had spoken to him on Mount Sinai.
Commanding the people tracks MT.
When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.
Masoretic (WLC)
וַיִּתֵּן עַל־פָּנָיו מַסְוֶה
he put a veil over his face
Septuagint (LXX)
ἐπέθηκεν ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ κάλυμμα
he put a covering on his face
KALYMMA. The LXX's 'covering/veil' word is the centerpiece of 2 Corinthians 3:13–16's extended argument: 'not like Moses, who put a kalymma over his face so that the sons of Israel could not look at the end of what was being abolished. But their minds were hardened; for to this day the same kalymma remains unlifted in the reading of the old covenant … but when one turns to the Lord, the kalymma is removed.'
Paul's whole old-covenant / new-covenant hermeneutic hangs on this LXX Exodus 34 text. The 'veil' becomes a figure of Israel's non-perception of Christ in the Scriptures, with the removal-of-veil marking conversion.
The 2 Corinthians 3 argument is one of the NT's most sustained reading-LXX-as-typological-source passages.
Whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with Him, he would remove the veil until he came out. When he came out and told the sons of Israel what he had been commanded,
The veil-off / veil-on pattern with the LORD tracks MT. 2 Cor 3:16 ('when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed') reads this as the conversion pattern.
the sons of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses's face was shining. Then Moses would put the veil over his face again, until he went in to speak with Him.
The ongoing pattern of veiled-among-people, unveiled-before-the-LORD tracks MT. Paul reads this cultic-practice detail as theologically weighted: the Mosaic-covenant mediator had intermittent direct access and indirect mediation; the Christian has ongoing unveiled-glory access (2 Cor 3:18).