Exodus 34 Summary and Study Guide

“The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.” Moses had asked to see God’s glory, and that is what he heard instead. This Exodus 34 summary and study guide follows the answer he was given on Mount Sinai, and what he carried back down to the camp.

Setting the Stage

Months after Israel came out of Egypt, God called Moses up Mount Sinai and kept him there forty days, giving him the plans for a tent He meant to live in among His people (Exodus 24:18; 25:8). While Moses was on the mountain the people gave up waiting, melted their gold jewellery into a calf, and worshipped it. Moses came down, saw it, and smashed the two stone tablets God had written on (Exodus 32:19).

God then said Israel could still have the land, but He would not go with them (Exodus 33:3). Moses spent the next chapter praying that decision back, won it, and asked for one thing more: to be shown God’s glory. God agreed, on His own terms, and Exodus 34 opens with that promise still owed. For where this sits in the wider story, see our Book of Exodus summary by chapter.

Comprehensive Exodus 34 Summary

God tells Moses to cut two stones like the first pair and promises to write on them Himself. This time Moses climbs alone. Nobody else is to be on the mountain, and no flocks or herds are to graze in front of it. Moses cuts the stones, gets up early, and carries them up.

The LORD comes down in the cloud, stands with him, and passes by proclaiming His own name: merciful, gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and by no means clearing the guilty. Moses hurries to bow down and worship. Then he asks God to travel with the nation, pardon them, and take them as His own, and the reason he gives is the very stubbornness God had named as His reason for staying away.

God answers with a covenant. He will do marvels never done anywhere on earth, drive out six nations, enlarge Israel’s borders, and keep their land safe while their men are away at the feasts. Israel’s side runs the other way: no treaty with the people of Canaan, their altars broken and their wooden images cut down, no metal gods, the feast of unleavened bread kept, the firstborn redeemed, the Sabbath kept even in ploughing and harvest, and the first of the harvest brought to God.

Moses is told to write these words down. He stays forty days and forty nights without bread or water, and the commandments are written on the stones again. He comes down carrying them and does not know his face is shining. Aaron and the people are afraid to come near him until he calls them over, gives them everything God said, and afterwards puts a veil across his face.

One Word Summary

• Renewal: God rebuilds the covenant Israel broke with the calf
• Name: God’s answer to Moses is a proclamation of who He is
• Mercy: the word the chapter’s central sentence is built from

In One Sentence

God calls Moses back up Mount Sinai with stone Moses has cut himself, proclaims His name as merciful and just, renews the covenant Israel broke, writes the commandments on the stones again, and sends Moses down after forty days with a shining face.

Theme of Exodus 34

Exodus 34 is about a covenant remade by the party who did not break it. Israel wrecked the agreement at the foot of the mountain, and God announces the repair as His own work: “Behold, I make a covenant” (Exodus 34:10). Israel is handed terms rather than asked for them.

Two ideas run alongside that one. God’s glory turns out to be His character, which is what Moses is shown and what he then prays back to God when he asks Him to travel with a stubborn nation. And nearness to God leaves a mark on a man who cannot see it himself.

Exodus 34 Outline

• Exodus 34:1-4: God tells Moses to cut two new stone tablets and come up alone, and Moses does exactly that.
• Exodus 34:5-7: The LORD comes down in the cloud, passes by Moses, and proclaims His own name and character.
• Exodus 34:8-9: Moses bows down and worships, then asks God to go with Israel, pardon them, and take them as His own.
• Exodus 34:10-11: God declares a covenant, promises marvels never seen before, and says He will drive out six nations.
• Exodus 34:12-16: Israel is forbidden to make any treaty with the people of Canaan, and is told to destroy their altars, images and wooden poles instead.
• Exodus 34:17: God forbids Israel to make gods out of poured metal.
• Exodus 34:18-20: The feast of unleavened bread in the month Abib, and the redeeming of every firstborn.
• Exodus 34:21: Six days of work and a seventh of rest, kept even through ploughing season and harvest.
• Exodus 34:22-24: The feast of weeks and the feast of ingathering, three yearly appearances before God, and a promise that no one will want Israel’s land while its men are away.
• Exodus 34:25-26: Rules for the sacrifices, the first of the harvest, and the ban on boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk.
• Exodus 34:27-28: Moses is told to write the words down, and after forty days without food or water the commandments are on the stones again.
• Exodus 34:29-32: Moses comes down with a shining face, the people are afraid, and he calls them and passes on everything God said.
• Exodus 34:33-35: Moses puts on a veil, and from then on takes it off before the LORD and while delivering God’s word.

The Covenant Renewed at Sinai

The covenant of Exodus 34:10-28 has two halves. God states what He will do, then states what Israel must do, and Moses is told to write both down.

The Terms of the Covenant

Most of these commands were already given in Exodus 23:12-19. They are repeated here because the nation that received them the first time had broken the whole agreement within weeks, and the repetition puts the same terms back in front of them. The “groves” Israel is told to cut down in verse 13 were not woodland. The Hebrew word behind the King James rendering is asherah, and it appears to have been a wooden pole or post set up beside a Canaanite altar, as Deuteronomy 16:21 and Judges 6:25 both picture it.

The same word is used for a goddess worshipped in Canaan (Judges 3:7). The one obligation Israel had most recently failed is the one stated most bluntly: “Thou shalt make thee no molten gods” (Exodus 34:17). Do not make yourselves gods out of poured metal, which is precisely what Aaron had done with the earrings (Exodus 32:4).

Observations from Exodus 34

Moses Hands God’s Own Objection Back to Him

God had given a reason for keeping His distance: “I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee in the way” (Exodus 33:3). Their stubbornness was the reason, and God said His nearness would destroy them on the road.

Moses uses the same words to ask for the opposite: “let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people” (Exodus 34:9). Come with us, he says, because they are stubborn. He does not argue that Israel has improved. He takes the plain fact of what they are and turns it into the reason they cannot be left alone.

Moses Asked to See, and God Answered by Speaking

The request in the previous chapter was visual: “shew me thy glory” (Exodus 33:18). Show me what You look like. What Moses receives is a voice listing character (Exodus 34:6-7).

God still guards the sight of Himself right to the end of the scene, and He holds nothing back in the description. Moses comes away knowing more about God than looking could have taught him.

The Stone Is Moses’ Work Now, and the Writing Is Still God’s

The first pair of tablets were God’s from end to end: “the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God” (Exodus 32:16). God had made the stone and done the writing. This time God says, “Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables” (Exodus 34:1). Cut the stone yourself, and I will write on it.

God’s forgiveness is complete, and the change in who cuts the stone stays. Moses carries up two stones he shaped with his own hands because of what he did with the first two, and the word that goes on them is still entirely God’s.

God Did Not Shorten the Second Forty Days

The first forty-day absence is what gave the people time to build the calf (Exodus 24:18; 32:1). God required the same forty days again (Exodus 34:28). He did not reduce the test that Israel had already failed once. Moses later said he spent those days on his face before God over their sin (Deuteronomy 9:18).

This time nothing is recorded against them. Moses comes down to a nation standing where he left it, and the chapter reports their fear of his shining face rather than another altar.

Moses Was the Last to Know

“Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him” (Exodus 34:29). Moses did not know his face was giving out light while he had been speaking with God. He learns it from the way Aaron and the people back away from him.

The King James uses the same phrase of Samson: “he wist not that the LORD was departed from him” (Judges 16:20). Samson did not know that God had left him. One man cannot see how much of God is on him, and the other cannot see how little.

Difficult Verses Explained

Who Actually Wrote on the Second Set of Tablets?

God did. Verse 28 reads, “And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments,” and the nearest name in the sentence is Moses, which is why some readers take it that way. But God had already said in verse 1, “I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables,” and Moses himself later reported it the same way: “he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing” (Deuteronomy 10:4).

Hebrew allows “he” in verse 28 to reach back to the LORD, and Deuteronomy settles which reading the rest of Scripture supports. Moses cut the stone and wrote out the covenant words he had been told to record in verse 27; the ten commandments on the tablets were God’s writing.

Why Does the King James Say Moses Veiled His Face “Till” He Had Finished Speaking?

Because “till” is a misleading rendering here, and the two verses after it show why. Verse 33 in the King James reads, “And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a vail on his face,” which sounds as though he wore the veil while he spoke to the people.

Verses 34 and 35 describe the opposite habit: he took the veil off to speak with God, came out and delivered the message, and then “put the vail upon his face again.” The Hebrew means when Moses had finished speaking, and the older translations read it that way. Moses spoke to Israel with his face uncovered, and covered it afterwards.

How Many Feasts Does Exodus 34:22 Name?

Two, not three. The verse reads, “And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.” The comma after “weeks” makes it look like a list of three, but the feast of weeks and the firstfruits of the wheat harvest are the same festival under two descriptions, which Leviticus 23:15-17 and Numbers 28:26 both confirm. With the feast of unleavened bread in verse 18, that gives the three yearly gatherings verse 23 requires.

Common Misunderstandings

• That Exodus 34 says the light on Moses’ face was fading. It does not. Paul is the one who says Israel could not look “to the end of that which is abolished” (2 Corinthians 3:13), and he is reading the veil as a picture of a covenant on its way out. Exodus reports the shining, the fear, and the veil, and says nothing about the light growing dim.
• That this is the chapter where God calls the Sabbath a sign. That is Exodus 31:13 and 31:17. Exodus 34:21 commands the Sabbath again and adds one thing to it, that the rest is to be kept in ploughing time and in harvest as well.
• That Exodus 34:11-26 is a second, rival set of ten commandments. Some scholars have argued this, because verse 28 calls what was written “the ten commandments” while the commands actually spoken in verses 11 to 26 are about worship and feasts. Verse 1 answers it: what goes on these tablets is “the words that were in the first tables,” and Deuteronomy 4:13 and 10:4 identify those with the ten commandments given in Exodus 20.
• That God’s jealousy is the human failing under a divine name. “The LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14) states God’s claim to be worshipped by His people alone. Human jealousy usually wants what belongs to someone else; here God is guarding what is already His.
• That the chapter tells us how many times Moses climbed Sinai. Exodus never gives a total. Exodus records several ascents, and this one is marked out by being made alone, with an empty mountain and no animals grazing at its foot (Exodus 34:3).

Christ Connection

The chapter’s central moment is God describing Himself as “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:6). John opens his Gospel with that pairing put on a person: “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

The glory Moses was told he could not look at directly walked into view in Jesus, and John says so a few lines later: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). Nobody has ever seen God, and the Son has made Him known.

The harder half of God’s own description is answered in the same place. God forgives iniquity and by no means clears the guilty (Exodus 34:7), and Paul says the cross is where those two hold together, so that God might “be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). God stays just and declares guilty people right with Him, at the same moment and by the same act.

Four further connections run from this chapter into the New Testament:

• The veil and the greater glory. Paul treats Exodus 34:29-35 directly in 2 Corinthians 3:7-18. If the ministry engraved on stones came with such glory that Israel could not look steadily at Moses, he argues, the ministry of the Spirit comes with more, and the promise is that “when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away” (2 Corinthians 3:16).
• The light moved to another face. “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). The glory that landed on Moses’ face is now found in Christ’s.
• A shining face on another mountain. At the transfiguration “his face did shine as the sun” (Matthew 17:2), and Moses was standing there (Luke 9:30). Moses reflected a light he had been given, and many Bible teachers read the transfiguration as Jesus letting His own glory show through.
• The feasts commanded in this chapter. Paul takes the passover and the unleavened bread of Exodus 34:18 and 34:25 straight to Christ: “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7). The firstfruits of Exodus 34:22 and 34:26 point the same way, since Paul calls the risen Christ “the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20).

When, Where, and Why

• When: In the first year after Israel left Egypt. Exodus 19:1 puts the nation at Sinai in the third month of that year, and this chapter follows closely on the golden calf and the intercession of Exodus 32 and 33. Exodus gives no date for these particular forty days.
• Where: The top of Mount Sinai, where God comes down in the cloud, and then the camp at its foot, where Moses delivers what he was given. The two locations carry the chapter: the covenant is made above and passed on below.
• Why: Exodus is the book of God rescuing a people so He can live among them (Exodus 25:8; 29:45-46). The calf put that in doubt. This chapter records how the arrangement was put back on its feet, which is what makes the building of the tabernacle in Exodus 35 to 40 possible.

Key Verses

“And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,”

Exodus 34:6

God passed in front of Moses and announced His own name: full of compassion, kind, slow to anger, and overflowing with goodness and faithfulness. Israel came back to this sentence for the rest of its history, praying it at Kadesh (Numbers 14:18) and after the exile (Nehemiah 9:17), singing it in the psalms (Psalm 86:15; Psalm 103:8; Psalm 145:8), and quoting it in the prophets, both as comfort (Joel 2:13; Micah 7:18) and as warning (Nahum 1:3). Jonah even gives it as his reason for running from Nineveh (Jonah 4:2).

“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:”

Exodus 34:10

God announces a covenant and promises wonders in front of the whole nation that have never been done anywhere. Moses had asked for pardon and for company on the road; what he is handed is larger than the request he made.

“For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:”

Exodus 34:14

Worship no other god, because the LORD’s own name is Jealous, and He is a jealous God. This is the reason attached to every command in verses 12 to 17, and it explains why the demolition of altars and the ban on treaties are not cruelty toward Canaan but loyalty toward God.

“Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.”

Exodus 34:21

Work six days and rest on the seventh, and keep resting through ploughing season and harvest. “Earing time” is an old English word for ploughing. Those are the two weeks of the farming year when stopping costs most, and they are the two God names.

“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.”

Exodus 34:29

Moses came down the mountain holding the two stone tablets, unaware of the light coming off his own skin after talking with God. The nation that had rejected his leadership and built a calf in his absence now watched him come back with something on his face that nobody could counterfeit. Many Bible teachers read the shining as God publicly backing His mediator in front of the people.

Key Lessons from Exodus 34

• God took the initiative in repairing a covenant that Israel, not God, had broken (Exodus 34:10).
• A request to be shown God’s splendour was answered with a description of God’s character, which is where Scripture locates that splendour (Exodus 33:18; 34:6-7).
• Mercy and justice are held together in one sentence about God, and taking either half alone misrepresents Him (Exodus 34:6-7).
• Moses argued for God’s presence on the ground of Israel’s stubbornness rather than their improvement (Exodus 34:9).
• God attached His command to rest to the two busiest weeks of the farming year, ploughing and harvest (Exodus 34:21).
• Time in God’s presence left a mark on Moses that everyone could see except Moses (Exodus 34:29-30).

To go deeper into how this chapter applies to daily life, read our full study: Lessons from Exodus 34.

Bible Study Questions

1. God tells Moses to cut the second set of stones himself, when the first pair had been entirely God’s work (Exodus 32:16; 34:1). What does that difference say about forgiveness and its consequences?
2. God answers a request for a sight of Himself by proclaiming His name (Exodus 33:18; 34:5-7). What does it change to hear that God’s splendour is His character?
3. Read Exodus 34:6-7 twice over. Which half of that sentence do you find easier to believe about God, and why?
4. In Exodus 33:3 Israel’s stubbornness is God’s reason for keeping His distance, and in Exodus 34:9 the same stubbornness is Moses’ reason for asking Him to come. What kind of praying is that?
5. Exodus 34:21 commands rest in ploughing time and harvest. What are the seasons in which you find it hardest to stop, and what would obeying this verse look like there?
6. Everyone could see the shining on Moses except Moses (Exodus 34:29-30). What does that suggest about the difference between actually being close to God and appearing to be?
7. Read 2 Corinthians 3:7-18 alongside Exodus 34:29-35. What does Paul say the veil stood for, and what does he say has changed?

Frequently Asked Questions

Exodus 34, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

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.

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.

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.

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.

5 And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

8 And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.

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.

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.

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.

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:

13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:

14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

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;

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.

17 Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

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.

19 All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.

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.

21 Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.

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.

23 Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel.

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.

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.

26 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

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.

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.

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.

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.

31 And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them.

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.

33 And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a vail on his face.

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.

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.