Exodus 34
As you work your way through the Old Testament, you will see a familiar trend evolve. The people sin against God. They endure discipline. They repent and cry out to God for rescue. God delivers them. The people rejoice. And the cycle begins again. In Exodus 34, on the heels of the Israelites mourning the news that God would not be with them as they made their way into the Promised Land (i.e., discipline for their idolatry), God graciously and mercifully restores the covenant He had made with His people by giving them another set of “tablets of the testimony” (v. 29).
Don’t gloss over what God proclaimed about Himself in today’s reading, as the implications are relevant for us today as well: “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands,forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (vv. 6-8). This is the heart of the Gospel, friends, long before Jesus’s earthly ministry began! Yes, God is just, and sinners will be met with consequences (Romans 6:23a). Yet God is also gracious, loving, and kind, willing to forgive those who come to Him in humble repentance (1 John 1:9).
As God was renewing His covenant with Israel, He reminded them that as He drove out their enemies, the people were to destroy anything that would detract them from worshipping Him alone. God also repeated His commands for the Israelites not to make for themselves any gods of cast metal (golden calf, anyone?), to keep the Sabbath, and various other feasts that were to honor Him. Of these feasts, God said, “Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year” (vv. 23-24). It was as if God was telling His people, “Honor me, and I will protect you and your land.” There is favor and blessing among those who choose God’s ways!
After forty days and forty nights with the LORD, where Moses neither ate nor drank (don’t doubt God’s ability to supernaturally sustain you), Moses “came down from the mountain, [but] did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God…Afterward, all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.” (v. 29, 32-33). Moses’s face shone because of His prolonged time in the presence of God; I wonder what our face reveals about how and with whom we spend our time? Regarding the reason for Moses putting the veil over his face, David Guzik comments:
It is easy to think that Moses wore the veil so the people would not be afraid to come near him (Exodus 34:30), or that the purpose of the veil was to protect others from the glorious radiance of Moses’ face. Yet the Apostle Paul explained the real purpose of the veil: not to hide the shining face of Moses, but so that the diminishing glory of his face would not be observed because the glory was fading…Moses, who put a veil over his face, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away (2 Corinthians 3:13). The Old Covenant had a glory, but it was a fading glory. God didn’t want people to see the fading glory of the Old Covenant and lose confidence in Moses….The Old Covenant was great and glorious — but it looks pretty pale in comparison to the New Covenant. A bright autumn moon may look beautiful and give great light, but it is nothing compared to the noonday sun.[i]
As the complete fulfillment of the New Covenant gets closer by the day, our faces ought to shine brighter and brighter in anticipation of our Savior returning to rescue us once and for all from a world full of sin, death, and decay. Come, Lord Jesus, come!
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Journal responses to the following prompts:
· How have you experienced God’s favor and blessing when doing things His way?
· Does your face grow increasingly brighter by the day as you await our Savior’s return?
[i] Study Guide for Exodus 34. (n.d.). Blue Letter Bible. Retrieved March 26, 2026, from https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/guzik_david/study-guide/exodus/exodus-34.cfm