Introduction
3. The renewal of the covenant ch. 34
Moses had obtained God’s promise to renew the covenant bond with Israel (Exodus 33:14). Now God directed him to restore the covenant revelation by recopying the Ten Commandments on two new stone tablets. God both provided and wrote on the first tablets, but Moses provided and God wrote on the second set of tablets.
"As Moses had restored the covenant through his energetic intercession, he should also provide the materials for the renewal of the covenant record, and bring them to God, for Him to complete and confirm the record by writing the covenant words upon the tables." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, 2:240.]
Again Moses stayed 40 days and nights in the mountain (Exodus 34:28), but this time Joshua did not accompany him.
"Israel’s initial relationship with God at Sinai, characterized by the patriarchal simplicity of the Covenant Code [Exodus 20:22 to Exodus 23:33], is now represented by the complex and restrictive laws of the Code of the Priests [Exodus 35 -Leviticus 16]." [Note: Sailhamer, The Pentateuch . . ., p. 48.]
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