CHAPTER 34 Feb.21 
Moses Again Ascends Mount Sinai
Yahweh said to Moses, Chisel two stone tablets like the first: and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to Me on the top of the mountain. 3No one shall come up with you; neither let anyone be seen throughout all the mountain; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mountain. 4He chiselled two tablets of stone like the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up to Mount Sinai, as Yahweh had commanded him, and took in his hand two stone tablets. 5Yahweh descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Yahweh. 6Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, Yahweh! Yahweh! A merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth, 7keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the children’s children, on the third and on the fourth generation. 8Moses hurried and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped. 9He said, If now I have found favour in Your sight, Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us; although this is a stiff-necked people; pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your inheritance.
The Exclusive Nature of Covenant with God
10He said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been worked in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which you are shall see the work of Yahweh; for it is an awesome thing that I do with you. 11Observe that which I command you this day. Behold, I drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 12Be careful, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare in the midst of you: 13but you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherim; 14for you shall worship no other god; for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. 15Don’t make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they play the prostitute after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one call you and you eat of his sacrifice; 16and you take of their daughters to your sons, and their daughters play the prostitute after their gods, and make your sons prostitute themselves to their gods. 17You shall make no cast idols for yourselves. 18You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib; for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. 19All that opens the womb is Mine; and all your livestock that is male, the firstborn of cow and sheep. 20The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb: and if you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. No one shall appear before Me empty. 21Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest: in ploughing time and in harvest you shall rest. 22You shall observe the feast of weeks with the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of harvest at the year’s end. 23Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel. 24For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither shall any man desire your land when you go up to appear before Yahweh your God three times in the year. 25You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left to the morning. 26You shall bring the first of the first fruits of your ground to the house of Yahweh your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. 27Yahweh said to Moses, Write you these words; for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. 28He was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread, nor drank water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
Moses Talks with the People
29It happened, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mountain, that Moses didn’t know that the skin of his face shone by reason of His speaking with him. 30When Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come near him. 31Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him; and Moses spoke to them. 32Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them all of the commandments that Yahweh had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33When Moses was done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. 34But when Moses went in before Yahweh to speak with Him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and he came out, and spoke to the children of Israel that which he was commanded. 35The children of Israel saw Moses’ face, that the skin of Moses’ face shone: and Moses put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him.

Commentary

34:6 God’s Name is essentially His characteristics and personality; this declaration of the Name is in response to the request to reveal His glory (33:18). How we pronounce or transliterate God’s Name isn’t so important; the essence of God’s Name is who He is and what He does by grace in the lives of people. Jesus alludes here when He predicted that His death would be a declaration of God’s Name; in the cross we see the quintessence of God’s mercy, grace, judgment etc. (Jn. 17:26). We are baptized into the Name, whereby all God’s perfect character is counted to us. 
34:9 Moses makes this request after the clear statement in 33:3 "I will not go up in the midst of you". So let us not be afraid to ask God to change what seems like His purpose in our lives, no matter how hard it seems, if we truly feel that another way would give Him more glory. Moses would not have tried if he did not think success in that prayer was possible. But he not only tried, he succeeded.
34:28 The Old Covenant is defined here and elsewhere as the ten commandments, which include the Sabbath. The New Testament teaches that the Old Covenant has been replaced by the New Covenant in Christ- and He never commanded us to keep the Sabbath.
34:29 We are described in 2 Cor. 3:18 as also like Moses beholding the glory of God, in terms of His moral perfection as it is in the face of Jesus (see on :6), and as the physical glory reflected off Moses’ face, so the more we are in the presence of Jesus, meditating upon His character, the more that glory in a moral sense will increasingly shine off our faces. Paul uses the metaphor of looking in a mirror, until we find that the image in the mirror is no longer our face but the face of Jesus.