I am making a covenant with you (Exo 34)*

Exodus 34:10-35

Key verse - 34:10

Today’s passage concludes our study of the covenant’s reinstitution. In order to understand what it took to reinstitute this agreement, it’s good to examine the original covenant. When Israel made this covenant with the Lord, they killed a bull and its blood was sprinkled on God’s altar and on the priests. In this way, the covenant’s conditions/promises were sealed with blood. If any party broke any part of the covenant, then death was the penalty. Likewise, through the original covenant, the relationship between God and Israel was solidified. This solidification was not just by words of understanding, but through a full commitment of their lives as they sprinkled blood on each party. Simply, God and His people Israel became one and inseparable!

In the previous passage, we learned that Israel made an idol, a golden calf while Moses was on top of the mountain, receiving instructions on how to build a tabernacle and its service before the Lord. Israel had to pay for any violation of the covenant by death, but Moses pleaded with God, who relented and changed His decision to destroy the nation. However, God did not let their sin go unpunished; three thousand were killed on the spot by a plague, and the rest would be punished when the right time came. In this way, the majority of Israel did not pay for this violation right away, because God deferred their punishment.

For these people whose sins were left unpunished, they experienced great stress; God refused to accompany them on their journey to the land He had promised. It was very stressful for them. Also, if God were not to go with them, then His purpose for His chosen people would be critically compromised; God’s name might be defamed by the many surrounding nations and His authority would be demeaned.

Yet there was a great danger if God were to go with them, because He said His holiness might destroy them on their way!

There were only two possible ways to resolve this issue; either Israel must pay the cost of their violation, which was impossible, or God must give them His grace by either travelling with them and putting up with their weaknesses and sins or by forgiving their sins completely. In other words, men needed to be reconciled with God in any way possible. Otherwise, a great chasm would exist between God and Israel and the covenant blessing, the land of God’s promise, would be very uncertain. There, God would be their God and Israel would be His people. This was God’s dream and ultimate hope for Israel.

At that time, neither of these choices was possible.

How could God and men become reconciled? How could their severed relationship be restored? God would not work in any other way than through the Ten Commandments. The problem was that even before they were delivered on stone tablets, Israel had violated that covenant and the relationship between God and Israel was fractured further; it looked almost impossible for them to recover.

In the midst of this situation, Moses made an extraordinary effort to earn God’s grace. He put up a tent outside of the camp and decided to seek God there. He could not go up to the top of the mountain to visit God, but he could seek Him and His mercy from just outside the camp. He frequently did this, calling it the tent of meeting. Whenever he went in, he prayed to the Lord and He came down and responded to his prayers. He also continuously poured out his heart to the Lord on two specific prayer topics:

First, he asked God to show him His ways, so that he might know His will. If he knew God’s will, then he would better be able to do what He wanted and earn His favor again. This came from Moses’ belief that, if he knew God and His will more concretely, then he could teach Israel and lead them to comply more fully with the covenant conditions and appease God His requirements.

Secondly, he requested that God go with Israel; they were His and He must accompany them on their journey to the land of His promise.

In this struggle, Moses persistently sought God’s mercy.

Finally, God showed that He was happy with Moses, saying that He knew him by name. This meant that He knew Moses, inside and out, and was happy with him and was willing to do what he asked Him to do.

“And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name." (Exodus 33:17).

This initiated the covenant’s reinstitution.

However, Moses went further by asking to see God. This was indicative of his desire to know God face to face, and have the most intimate type of relationship with Him. If he knew God and saw His full glory, then he could better teach and convince his people of the Lord’s identity, which could prevent them from making such foolish mistakes, as making a golden idol. For men, it is natural to ask to see God, because we believe what we see. In our finite nature, it is almost impossible to believe someone unless we see them face to face, particularly when we are to make such a life commitment to them! However, God accepted this request, along with a small condition.

Likewise, as Moses prayed, the made two commitments to him: 1) He would do all that Moses asked (i.e. if Moses would teach His ways to the Israelites, than He would accompany Israel), and 2) He would show Himself to him and the rest of the Israelite nation. In order to carry out these two commitments to Moses, God called him:

“The LORD said to Moses, "Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready in the morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain." (Exodus 34:1-3).

1.    I am making a covenant with you

Until this time, Moses had met with God at the tent of meeting; now after His final decision to reinstitute the covenant, God called him to come up to the top of the mountain with two stone tablets.

When he went up with the two stone tablets, God said He would do four things:

“And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” (Exodus 34:19).

Just as He had promised, God accomplished three of these things while Moses was holding the two tablets in his hands

“Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation." (Exodus 34:5-7).

Likewise, as He was passing, God showed Moses of all of His goodness, and declared His Lordship and mercy. However, if it weren’t for God’s protection, Moses would have died, because He had said:

“But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." (Exodus 34:20).

God is holy and men are not. Men are corrupted beings and cannot experience God in His holiness:

“I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” (1Corinthians 15:50 NIV).

The corruptible body cannot inherit the incorruptible. We all know that we will all die at some point in our lives, and our bodies will be buried underground and will surely decay. How could this be possible then? God promised Moses that there was a possible way for him to see Him in His glory, and yet not to perish.

God had promised Moses this in order to protect him from His glory:

“Then the LORD said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen." (Exodus 33:21-23).

The promise was written, but the actual event was not recorded. Yet it is clear that God covered Moses with His own hand; this was to protect Moses from His holiness, because he saw His glory and did not die. In addition, as we will discover later, Moses’ face was radiant from his exposure to God’s glory.

Seeing God’s glory, Moses might have been filled with joy; however, he still addressed one unresolved problem of his people:

“Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. "Lord," he said, "if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance." (Exodus 34:8-9).

Despite the fact that the Israelites were stiff-necked people, God was willing to give them another chance in order to claim them as His inheritance. This was the most important and central issue of their life. How could Israel, or how can you, solve the problem of being stiffed-necked and being God’s chosen people at the same time?

“Then the LORD said: "I am making a covenant with you.” (Exodus 34:10).

God wanted to solve this by giving them a new opportunity through the reinstitution of the covenant. As we have noted here, the covenant ceremony began when God called Moses to come up to the top of the mountain. Here, He said that He was making a covenant with Israel, implying that the entire events that occurred on the top of the mountain between Himself and Moses was the ceremony of the covenant’s reinstitution. This included the Ten Commandments written on the tablets, God’s passing by to show Moses the fullness of His glory and goodness, and His covering of Moses with His hand in order to protect him.

Again, it is important to note that God was showing Moses all of His goodness, while also protecting him with His hands! God made this possible. Something impossible was made possible, i.e. the fullness of God’s glory was passing and Moses, a sinful man, saw it and did not perish, but survived! This was all because God’s hand was protecting him. In this way, Moses was able to attain to God’s glory, while still living in a sinful and corruptible body!

This is God’s essential spirit and will, embedded in the covenant’s reinstitution. God, in His compassion and mercy, not only let the fullness of His goodness pass by Moses so that he could see His glory, but also protected him to ensure he survived!

This was God’s grace and this spirit envisioned a coming day when He would provide His protecting hand for all sinners, so that they may not perish but see His full goodness! How did He do this?

What is God’s own protecting hand? When and how did He extend His protecting hand so that men may see His glory and not perish? As we know, unless we see, we cannot believe. Moses was the man who demanded to see God; it was a must for him, as well as for Israel. The same is true for all men; we need to see God’s glory and believe! This was made possible by His grace.

God’s protecting hand was Jesus, His own Son. Jesus not only showed us God’s glory, but also protected us so that we would not perish, but rather survive! The spirit of God’s provision for Moses’ survival was fulfilled in Jesus.

2.            God’s covenant conditions

a.            What was the covenant premise?

“Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you.” (Exodus 34:10b).

The wonders that God would do in coming days would become evidence of His commitment to Israel. So the Israelites must commit to obey God through these covenant conditions, as described in the next passage.

The foundation of the first covenant was what God had done for Israel —rescuing them from Egyptian slavery, but in this reinstitution, His demand for their obedience comes from what He would do in the coming future, i.e. He would accomplish wonders among His people in order to lead them into the Promised Land. So whenever Israel saw God’s wonders, they were reminded to keep His covenants. So, in this renewed covenant, God’s past works, as well as what He would do in coming days, i.e. His concurrent works would be His conditions for His demand for obedience. What then were the Israelites to do until God’s kingdom was fully established?

b.            God’s people were to devote their lives to the Lord

The conditions of this relationship were written in v 11-26. These were focused to reemphasize the previous ones. It is good to note this emphasis.

·   In these, God focused heavily on Israel’s interaction with the Canaanites. They were not to make any treaty with them. They were to destroy their idols. They were not to give their daughters to the Canaanites in marriage, or take the Canaanites’ daughters for their own wives.

The Canaanites were the source of the ungodliness in the land, particularly idolatry. This was the first consideration when the covenant was being reinstituted. Because the Israelites had formerly followed the ways of the Egyptians, they had made a golden idol.

·   The next commandments are positive ones that Israel must obey in order to serve God.

The next one was to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This was an important reminder that they had been saved from slavery by God’s mighty hand. By His act, they had become a nation of His people.

Next, God mentioned offering Him all of their firstborns, keeping the Sabbath, observing the three festivals (the Festival of Weeks,  the Festival of Unleavened Bread, and the Festival of Ingathering).

They were to appear before the Lord three times a year!

All of these are related to serving God, specifically how God’s people could maintain their loyalty to the Lord, and how they could show their respect and honor to Him.

They were to observe the Sabbath weekly, and they were to honor God through three annual times of remembrance: the day when He rescued them from slavery, the day when He gave them their first harvest, and the day He provided the final harvest of the year, in order to honor He who had sustained their lives with His blessing.

Likewise, true fear of and respect for the Lord was built into the Israelites’ calendar and everyday lives. Also, they were to appear before the Lord three times a year. They must not forget to do this, but rather honor that God was the source of their being and lives. This was the way to maintain a true and meaningful relationship between the Lord and His chosen people.

·   At this time, God did not repeat Himself regarding matters of personal injuries, properties, and various social justice issues.  

So it is important for us to understand what Israel should not do. This is almost impossible without examining what they should do! Serving and honoring the Lord was to be built into their lives, on a weekly, seasonally, and yearly basis. It is interesting that, when God mentioned the Sabbath, He also mentioned a Sabbath year as well.

How do we keep our lives with the Lord? Life with God is not just in mind. It is what do; we do weekly, seasonally and yearly in and with the Lord in honor and respect to the Lord.

In this way, God demanded that His people must be fully devoted to Him alone..

3.            Moses, the mediator of the covenant’s reinstitution

Likewise, God gave Moses all of the covenant’s conditions. Also, He inscribed the Ten Commandments on two stone tablets. It took forty days for Moses to receive the covenant. He described his situation in Deuteronomy 9:18.

“Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the LORD's sight and so arousing his anger.” (Deuteronomy 9:18 NIV).

Imagine what Moses’ situation was like at this time! Even with the last drop of his strength, he poured out prayers to the Lord for His mercy for forty days! He came down from the mountain with the two stone tablets, on which God had inscribed the Ten Commandments. When he came down, his face was radiant. People saw this and were afraid of him, because, in his face, they saw God’s radiance reflected. However, Moses called them and told them what God had told him. In fear, they heard what he said, because of God’s radiance in his face.

When Moses came down from the mountain, the people noticed two remarkable things: in his hands, were two stone tablets on which God had inscribed the Ten Commandments, and his face was radiant with God’s glory. Moses was an unmistakable testimony of God’s glory in Israel’s presence. So the Ten Commandments he carried and his radiant face formed an exact representation of the message that God wanted to convey to His people, Israel. Moses himself became the message of God’s glory to Israel. What might be God’s will in all of this?

“I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground.” (Leviticus 11:44 NIV).

“for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." (1Peter 1:16 NIV).

This is what it meant to become God’s people or children. Moses’ life encapsulated what God hoped for His people, Israel.

As we have seen, Moses’ role, in regards to the covenant’s reinstitution on Israel’s behalf, was remarkable. Without his mediation, it looked nearly impossible that it would happen. There were four aspects to his intercession before the Lord:

First, he prayed on Israel’s behalf, that God would relent and turn from His decision to destroy them. Moses put his life on the line, in order to save Israel from being cut off from God.

Second, Moses pitched his tent outside of the camp and sought God, day in and day out, in order to earn His favor. This was not directed by God; I believe that this idea came out from Moses’ inner desire to seek God’s will. It was his belief in God’s goodness that ultimately saved his people.

Third, he asked God to teach him His ways, go with His people, and show Himself to them. He had an honest desire to follow the Lord’s ways and please Him.

Fourth, he wanted to know God in His full glory. This was a very daring request. This was also a vital element of knowing God. Israel failed to keep God’s command not only because of their desire to meet their own needs, but also because of their lack of understanding of God’s nature, the Invisible One.

What does this tell us? We are praying for many students on campuses all over the world. We invite them to join us, so that we may teach them the Bible, they may believe in Christ, they may not suffer judgment, and have eternal life in Christ. Simply, we want all of them to have a personal covenant with God, in the hope of becoming His children. What is the covenant? It is what God offered us, in and through His Son, Jesus. So we are like Moses, praying on behalf of students and pleading with God to have mercy on them. To express His pleasure with Moses, God said that He knew him by name. He said that He would do whatever His people asked. It is good for us to learn what Moses did to earn God’s grace and mercy on behalf of the nation of Israel, who had become the idolaters.

What do we know?

·         Moses dared to ask God to forgive His people’s sins. He was even willing to suffer and die if God would not forgive them.

·         Moses was determined to seek God in prayer; this determination was expressed in putting up a tent outside of the camp. He frequented this place just to seek God’s favor. God had mercy on his prayer and His glory rested on this tent in the form of a cloud. Thus, this became ‘the tent of meeting’. Do you have a place that you may call ‘a tent of meeting’? If not, go, make one, and seek Him!

·         Moses dared to ask God what His way was. Simply, he depended on God’s revelation as he looked for a solution to the problems that Israel faced. He did not act or think according to his own opinion or ideas; instead, he sought God’s will and His way. GOD, I WANT TO KNOW YOUR WAY!

·         Moses dared to know God fully in His glory! We can call this his ‘certainty of faith’. Until we reach this certainty of faith, we have not known God well enough and our faith can be shaken. It is amazing that, even after experiencing God’s awesome powers and hearing His mighty voice declaring the Ten Commandments, Israel failed to follow His commandments. Why? Because they remained in their own understanding! The author of Hebrews described this the most succinctly:

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6 NIV).

“let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” (Hebrews 10:22 NIV).

We are to seek Jesus until we fully know him, as if we have seen him face to face.

“Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9 NIV).

Amazingly, God heard his prayer; one man’s prayer made big changes in history. You too can be that one man!

In addition to this, we must not forget that, behind this, was God’s mercy that extended to thousands of generations. In His mercy, He was willing to listen and seek out those who seek Him. He was willing to show Himself, and to defer sin’s punishment as long as possible so that all sinners may have a chance to ‘hear’ of His blessing. He was willing to impart His glory, even to sinners like Moses.

Even now, God is willing; that willingness is most powerfully demonstrated by Him sending His Son, Jesus, in the flesh. In Christ Jesus, God showed that He was still willing to listen, show mercy, show Himself, and impart His glory to His followers. Seek Him and you will surely find the joy of being His children and sharing in His glory.

4.               Reinstitution of the covenant God offered is similar to the new covenant He established in Christ.

How is this reinstitution different from the first one? In many ways, what God did during this covenantal reinstitution was like what He later established in the new covenant in and through His Son, Jesus.

1.    God deferred His punishment for violating the covenant, until His perfect timing came. Likewise, though the whole world has gone astray, He is patient and did not bring His judgment right away. God’s will for all men is for them to see what He did in Moses’ life and conform to His commands, rather than suffer punishment.

2.    God offered Moses protection in order for him to be able to see the fullness of His goodness. God did this again for all sinners, through His Son, Jesus. Through him, we have seen God’s glory; because of this, we will not perish, but have eternal life.

3.    Just as God showed Moses all of His goodness and gave him His radiant glory, so also will those who receive Jesus obtain a measure of his eternal power and glory.