Day 28. Exodus 34-36

Exodus 34-36

Exodus 34

¹And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.

Moses had to carve out the stone tablets, but god was doing the writing.

God comes down to the mountiain, to see moses.

⁶And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

⁷Keeping 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 children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

That has got to be one of the best entrances ever! You think Shawn Michaels arrived like that? You think Triple H, arrived like that? God sounds like Bret Hart, the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be.

His entrance also makes very little sense. If he's forgiving iniquity, then why is he then visiting it upon the children? Is it just of anyone to punish children for the acts of their parents?

God then tells Moses that he's going to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan, and that they are to not make a peace treaty with them.

¹²Take 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:

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

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

Exodus 34:14 says god is jealous. This verse coupled with 1 Corinthians 13:4 and 1 John 4:8 are one of the main parts that KJV-only people will cling to. Here, we see, god is jealous; in 1 john, god is love; in corinthians, it says charity doesn't envy. (All 3 verses here, in KJV)

Let us look at those verses in the NIV (New International Version).

Exodus makes god jealous, great.
John makes god love, awesome.
Corinthians talks about love, and says that love doesn't envy. Envy is jealousy. There is a contradiction, something isn't right. Either he is or he isn't.

People will go to many lengths to not have the bible be wrong. KJV-only people will claim that the NIV is wrong due to that. You can't have god be contradicted.

Back to today's reading.

¹⁶And 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.

God wants them to not marry the inhabitants so that the people don't go following other gods. It's safer to commit genocide than to risk having the people possibly follow a different god.

¹⁷Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

Hey, this sounds familiar... This is the stuff on the tablets. What are we up to? Number 2?

1. Thou shalt not worship no other god. (verse 14)

2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods. (verse 17)

¹⁸The 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.

3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. (verse 18)
¹⁹All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.

4. All firstborn are mine. (verse 19)

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

5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest. (verse 21)

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

6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the years end. (verse 22)

²⁵Thou 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.

7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread. (verse 25)

8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning. (verse 25)
²⁶The 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.

9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God. (verse 26)

10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk. (verse 26)

²⁸And 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.

Boom, those are the ten commandments. There is no thou shalt not kill. There is nothing like that. The ten commandments that are written on stone, the tablets of testimony include "thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk", not "thou shalt not kill".

²⁹And 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.

This verse means one of a couple of things, he was either radiant. Or Moses grew horns.


During the Renaissance, Moses was often depicted with horns, the most famous is probably the third picture above, done by Michelangelo.

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

So, horny Moses wore a veil.

Exodus 35

¹And Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said unto them, These are the words which the LORD hath commanded, that ye should do them.

Oddly, he only told them about the sabbath. Oh, and the punishment is death.

Then he asked for the items to build things. So at this point, the tabernacle hasn't been built yet. Even though in Exodus 33:8, Moses went into the tabernacle.

²¹And they came, every one whose heart stirred him up, and every one whom his spirit made willing, and they brought the LORD's offering to the work of the tabernacle of the congregation, and for all his service, and for the holy garments.

Oddly, people roaming around in the wilderness had enough things that they "borrowed" from Egypt to build the tabernacle.

Then Moses calls out Bezaleel, and Aholiab to do the work.

Exodus 36

¹Then wrought Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whom the LORD put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary, according to all that the LORD had commanded.

Moses gives them the offering.

⁵And they spake unto Moses, saying, The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work, which the LORD commanded to make.

Moses then told the people to stop giving. Does this still happen. When you are given a command to build something to exact specifications, but wind up with more money than you need, do you stop asking for money, or do you try to provide something BETTER than what was asked?

The rest of the chapter is about them making the things to the same specifications as were mentioned earlier.

Points to ponder:

1. Did Moses have horns? Him not having horns is a newer concept than him having them.

2. What do you think the ten commandments held in the ark were? Was it the "Thou shalt not kill" set, or the "seethe a kid" version?

3. Does god visit iniquity on the kids, or does he let them make their own mistakes?

4. Is genocide an option?