Skeptic's Annotated Bible
34:1 And 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.
We were never told exactly what was on the first tablets, just that they were "tables of testimony." But now we're getting some new ones, and they'll be exactly the same, so that's good news.
34:2 And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount.
34:3 And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount.
Last time the punishment for others, even animals, that came too close to the mount was death, so I suppose it's the same now.
34:4 And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.
34:5 And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.
34:6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering,
What a strange way to describe God, as "long-suffering." Can a perfect being suffer?
and abundant in goodness and truth,
Ha!
34:7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty;
Okay, wait a minute. How can you both forgive iniquity and transgression, AND refuse to clear the guilty? That basically means that he will forgive only those who are innocent, which doesn't make any sense. Heads I win, tails you lose.
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children,
This is the very definition of unfair. He's going to make an innocent child suffer for the crimes of the father.
and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
For four generations he's going to commit this heinous miscarriage of justice.
34:8 And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.
34:9 And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O LORD, let my LORD, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.
God has just said that he won't clear the guilty, so Moses must be out of luck.
34:10 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.
God tells Moses that he's about to do a terrible thing. Okay, so time-out for a minute. I'm often told by religionists (mainly Christians) that God's behavior is the definition of morality. That is, if God does it, it's moral. (Reminds me of Nixon saying, "If the president does it, it's not illegal.") So, by definition, God cannot do anything immoral. So, how can it be that God can do something that's terrible? I'm not saying that everything that's terrible is also immoral, but isn't this still strange? Of course we've seen countless examples of God not being a good, positive or moral character in these stories, but it's another thing to hear him admit outright that he's going to do something bad. Kind of puts the lie to the claim that God is perfect, or omnibenevolent, or moral, doesn't it?
34:11 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.
Racism, as before.
34:12 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:
Don't even THINK about trying to get along with these people by making peace treaties.
34:13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:
Instead, you should attack them and their religious practices!
Okay, here we go:
34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:
Commandment #1: Thou shalt worship no other god.
I also am puzzled, for familiar reasons, with God describing himself as jealous. Jealousy is a sign of immaturity, low self-esteem and self-doubt; it's a vice of the weak. Not really a trait befitting a deity.
34:15 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;
34:16 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.
Don't go whoring after other gods. Nice phraseology there, God. Oh, interesting and subtle thing here (hat tip to SAB for this one): the daughters go whoring after other gods on their own, but if the sons go whoring after other gods, it's because the daughters make them do it. It's Adam & Eve all over again, where the man's sin is the woman's fault.
34:17 Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
Commandment #2: Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
34:18 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.
Commandment #3: The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep.
34:19 All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.
Commandment #4: All that openeth the matrix is mine.
This is a reference to the firstborn male of any creature.
34:20 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.
Specific instructions for what to do with the firstborn. If it's a firstborn donkey, then don't bring the donkey, God doesn't want it. Bring a lamb instead. If you don't bring him, though, you have to break his neck; you can't keep him for yourself. And bring your sons. But don't come empty-handed.
Again, I kind of view this as instructions for keeping rabbis well-fed.
34:21 Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.
Commandment #5: Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.
34:22 And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
Commandment #6: Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
34:23 Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel.
Commandment #7: Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the LORD God.
(Don't bother with the women children, God doesn't care about seeing them.)
34:24 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.
34:25 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.
Commandment #8: Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.
34:26 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God.
Commandment #9: The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God.
(By way of the rabbis.)
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.
Commandment #10: Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.
To "seethe" is to cook in a boiling liquid. So basically, don't boil meat in milk.
34:27 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.
These are the words that God is using to make a covenant with Moses and the people of Israel.
34:28 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.
Moses takes 40 days to write all these words onto the tablets. These are the ten commandments. And we're told that these are the same words that were written on the tablets back in Exodus 31.
What a strange set of rules to use as the basis of a covenant. And also, not what is popularly thought of as the Ten Commandments. This verse right here, Exodus 34:28, is the first time we hear the phrase "ten commandments," and it's in reference to the rules that God has just provided to Moses to carve onto the stone tablets. The next time some Christian tells you that they respect the ten commandments, ask them what the Feast of Weeks is (commandment #6) and when the last time was that they celebrated it.
34:29 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.
34:30 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.
34:31 And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them.
34:32 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.
34:33 And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a vail on his face.
34:34 But when Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he took the vail off, until he came out. And he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded.
34:35 And 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.
Okay, shiny face, vail, whatever.
This is really astounding. The list of the ten commandments that people have been promoting is the WRONG LIST! Starting with Exodus 20, we get 11 chapters of rules to follow (how to beat your slaves, what to do with untamable oxen, instructions to kill witches, and so on). We don't hear about the first stone tablets until the last verse of chapter 31, after all of these crazy rules have been specified. That list of rules started with the things that people today call the 10 commandments, but there's no actual reason given here to think of them that way. Rather, right here we're told specifically that these are the 10 commandments, they're what's written on the stone tablets, and they're the same as what was written on the first set of tablets before.
Here they are:
- Commandment #1: Thou shalt worship no other god.
- Commandment #2: Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
- Commandment #3: The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep.
- Commandment #4: All that openeth the matrix is mine.
- Commandment #5: Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.
- Commandment #6: Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
- Commandment #7: Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the LORD God.
- Commandment #8: Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.
- Commandment #9: The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD.
- Commandment #10: Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.
Let's see someone argue that this list should be posted in city halls and schools.
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