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February 6,2021 |
| Did God Replace the Ten Commandments? | ||
After Moses breaks the tablets with the Ten Commandments, God tells him to cut out stones like the one’s God gave him and come up to the mountain again.
While on the mountain, God has Moses write some words on those stones. No mention is made of God writing on the stones. To some people, the words sound like a replacement for the Ten Commandments. It seems sensible to them that this time the tablets would be created by man (instead of God) and written on by man (instead of the finger of God).
What exactly was going on in Exodus 34?
Before Moses came down from the mountain, the Israelites had broken the covenant they had agreed to before Moses went up the mountain. As he comes down he destroys the tablets of the covenant, the covenant agreement documentation.
We often talk about the Old Covenant and the New Covenant and so does the Bible. In reality, though, there were two Old Covenants. The first died before it really got started.
In Exodus 34 we see God starting a new covenant to replace it. Because of the sin of the Golden Calf, this covenant is going to be a little different in its purpose.
The problem God faces is that the people agreed to the first covenant, all the sacrifices were made for it and the blood from those was sprinkled on the people.
The question of whether there are new commandments to replace the Ten Commandments is actually easy to answer.
At the start of that chapter (Exodus 34) God says:
1 Now the Lord said to Moses, "Cut out for yourself two stone tablets like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you smashed."
So God has said that he will be writing on the tablets. Therefore we accept that he did, even if the text doesn’t say that he did.
Also, 40 years later, when Moses recites the events that led up to the Israelites being ready to enter the promised land, he presents the Ten Commandments. It seems clear that he believes they still apply.
Also, later authors refer to the Ten Commandments again as being written on the tablets.
After God speaks the Ten Commandments to the people, before Moses gets the first set of tablets, in Exodus 20. Immediately after that in Exodus 20 and continuing on for the next 3 chapters, there are a large number of application examples - how the Ten Commandments would be applied in various situations.
This is going to be a new covenant with a change in purpose. God says:
10 Then God said, "Behold, I am going to make a covenant. Before all your people I will perform miracles which have not been produced in all the earth nor among any of the nations; and all the people among whom you live will see the working of the Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I am going to perform with you.
In this covenant God will be glorified through the things that he does. There will be great miracles, like water coming from stone. There will also be great miracles like fearful plagues that kill thousands of people and like the ground opening up and swallowing people. Ultimately he will destroy Jerusalem and send them into slavery.
Moses seems to be inviting this new relationship in the previous verse when he says:
Then [Moses] said, "If in any way I have found favor in Your sight, Lord, please may the Lord go along in our midst, even though the people are so obstinate, and pardon our wrongdoing and our sin, and take us as Your own possession."
But the people haven’t agreed to this covenant. So, it looks like God does something that men also do in similar circumstances. We call it "reading in" or "inclusion by reference." We refer to the previous document to make it the foundation of the new document. Then we specify the differences from the old document, which is also what God has done with the new purpose.
This way the agreement of the people to the covenant is carried forward. Moses accepts this on their behalf. As said, he even seems to invite this.
So the text that some people see as replacement commandments should be references from the previous covenant and that is what we find. Almost all of it comes from Exodus 23, the last chapter of the legal examples mentioned earlier.
| Exodus 34 Text | Exodus Reference |
Exodus 23 Text |
|---|---|---|
| 11 […] behold, I am going to drive out the Amorite from you, and the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 12 Be careful that you do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst. 13 But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their memorial stones, and cut down their Asherim | 23:23 | 23 For My angel will go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them. |
| 23:32 | 32 You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. 33 They shall not live in your land, otherwise they will make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it is certain to be a snare to you." | |
| 23:24 | 24 You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their memorial stones in pieces. | |
| 14 - for you shall not worship any other god, because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God - | Inset Ex. 20:3-5 | - |
| 15 otherwise you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they would prostitute themselves with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone might invite you to eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you might take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters might prostitute themselves with their gods and cause your sons also to prostitute themselves with their gods. | Expansion of 34:11-12 | - |
| 17 You shall not make for yourself any gods cast in metal. | 20:23 | - |
| 18 "You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt." | 23:15 | 15 You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt. |
| 19 "The firstborn from every womb belongs to Me, and all your male livestock, the firstborn from cattle and sheep. 20 You shall redeem with a lamb the firstborn from a donkey; and if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. You shall redeem all the firstborn of your sons. | 13:1-2 | - |
| None are to appear before Me empty-handed. | 23:14b | And no one is to appear before Me empty-handed. |
| 21 "You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during plowing time and harvest you shall rest. | 23:12 | 12 "For six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave, as well as the stranger residing with you, may refresh themselves. |
| 22 And you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks, that is, the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. | 23:16 | 16 Also you shall keep the Feast of the Harvest of the first fruits of your labors from what you sow in the field; also the Feast of the Ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in the fruit of your labors from the field. |
| 23 Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. | 23:17 | 17 Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord God. |
| 23:14 | 14 "Three times a year you shall celebrate a feast to Me. | |
| 24 For I will drive out nations from you and enlarge your borders, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the Lord your God. | Like 23:27 | 27 I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. |
| 25 "You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread, nor is the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover to be left over until morning. | 23:18 | 18 "You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread; nor is the fat of My feast to remain overnight until morning. |
| 26 "You shall bring the very first of the first fruits of your soil into the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk." | 23:19 | 19 "You shall bring the choice first fruits of your soil into the house of the Lord your God. |
| 23:15b | "You are not to boil a young goat in the milk of its mother. |