Reading #5
Torah Portion: Exodus 34:1-26
My Thoughts:
The first set of commandments - it appears that Hashem made them. But, after Moses smashed them at the incident of the golden calf, Hashem ordered Moses to chisel out the second set. It is a little controversial if Hashem wrote the words or Moses did – the point is things were “gifted” to Moses the first time and he had to work for them the second time. Kind of like in the garden of Eden. In the beginning man was given everything. But, after he disobeyed Hashem he had to go into the world and work for his food. Hashem is fair and just. When He asks us to do something I believe He will make it easy the first time. If we don’t listen, well, then it becomes a lot harder. Let’s try and get it right on the first time around. And let’s praise the Master when we do! Amen!
Exodus 34:1-26
Exodus 34:1 Hashem said to Moses, “Chisel two stone tablets like the first. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2 Be 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. 3 No one shall come up with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain. Do not let the flocks or herds graze in front of that mountain.”
4 He chiseled two tablets of stone like the first; then Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up to Mount Sinai, as Hashem had commanded him, and took in his hand two stone tablets. 5 Hashem descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed Hashem’s name. 6 Hashem passed by before him, and proclaimed, “Hashem! Hashem, a merciful and gracious Elohim, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth, 7 keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and who 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.”
8 Moses hurried and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped. 9 He said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, Hashem, please let Hashem go among us, even though this is a stiff-necked people; pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”
10 He 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 whom you are shall see the work of Hashem; for it is an awesome thing that I do with you. 11 Observe that which I command you today. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 12 Be careful, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare among you; 13 but you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherah poles; 14 for you shall worship no other god; for Hashem, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous Elohim.
15 “Don’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; 16 and you take of their daughters to your sons, and their daughters play the prostitute after their gods, and make your sons play the prostitute after their gods.
17 “You shall make no cast idols for yourselves.
18 “You 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 of Egypt.
19 “All that opens the womb is mine; and all your livestock that is male, the firstborn of cow and sheep. 20 You shall redeem the firstborn of a donkey with a lamb. If you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. You shall redeem all the firstborn of your sons. No one shall appear before me empty.
21 “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest: in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.
22 “You shall observe the feast of weeks with the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of harvest at the year’s end. 23 Three times in the year all your males shall appear before Hashem Adonai, the Elohim of Israel. 24 For 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 Hashem, your Elohim, three times in the year.
25 “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread. The sacrifice of the feast of the Pesach shall not be left to the morning.
26 “You shall bring the first of the first fruits of your ground to the house of Hashem your Elohim..
“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
