(from One New Man Bible translated by William Morford)
Chol HaMo-eid Sukkot
Moses Blesses Children of Israel
33:12. And Moses said to the LORD*, “See, You say to me, Bring up this people and You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, I know you by name and you have also found favor in My sight. 13. Now therefore, I plead with You, if I have found favor in Your sight, show me Your Way now, so I shall know You and I will find favor in Your sight and will see to it that this nation is Your people.”
33:14. And He said, “My Presence will go with you and I shall give you rest.” 15. And he said to Him, “If Your presence does not go with me, do not take us up from here! 16. How will it be known here that I and Your people have found favor in Your sight? Is it not because You go with us? So we will be separated, I and Your people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth?”
Moses Sees God’s Glory
33:17. And the LORD* said to Moses, “I shall do this thing also that you have spoken for you have found favor in My sight and I do know you by name.” 18. And he said, “I beseech You, show me Your glory.” 19. And He said, “I shall make all My goodness pass before you and I shall proclaim the name of the LORD* before you and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” (Rom. 9:15) 20. Then He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man will see Me and live.” 21. And the LORD* said, “Behold, there is a place by Me and you will stand upon a rock, 22. and it will happen, while My glory passes by, that I shall put you in a cleft of the rock and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. 23. Then I shall take away My hand and you will see My back parts but My face will not be seen.”
This Time Moses Cuts Two Tablets
34.1. And the LORD* said to Moses, “Hew two tablets of stone like the first and I shall write upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2. And be ready in the morning and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to Me on the top of the mountain. 3. And no man is to come up with you, neither let any man be seen throughout the whole mountain. Neither let the flocks or herds feed before that mountain.” 4. And he hewed two tablets of stone like the first and Moses rose up early in the morning and went up to Mount Sinai, as the LORD* had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone.
34:5. 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, patient, and abundant in loving kindness and truth, 7. keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and Who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children’s children, to the third and to the fourth generations.
34:8. And Moses hurried and bowed his head to the earth, and worshipped. 9. And he said, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray You, go among us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity, intentional sin, and our sin, unintentional sin, and take us for Your inheritance.”
Second Giving of Statements
34:10. And He said, “Behold, I AM cutting a covenant: before all your people. I shall do amazing things, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among whom you are will see the work of the LORD*, for it is an awe-inspiring thing that I shall do with you. 11. Mark well what I AM commanding you this day! See for yourself! I am expelling before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 12. Take heed for yourself, that you do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare among of you, 13. but you will destroy their altars, break their images and cut down their groves, 14. for you will worship no other god: for the LORD*, Whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. 15. Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they go astray after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and invite you and you eat of his sacrifice. 16. And you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters go astray after their gods and make your sons go astray after their gods. 17. You will make no molten gods for yourselves.”
34:18. “You will keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. You will eat unleavened bread seven days as I commanded you, in the time of the month Aviv, for in the month Aviv you came out from Egypt.”
34:19. “All that opens the womb is Mine and every firstling among your livestock that is male, whether ox or sheep. 20. But the firstling of a donkey you will redeem with a lamb, and if you do not redeem it, then you will break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you will redeem. And no one will appear before Me empty.
34:21. “You will work six days, but on the seventh day you will rest: in plowing time and in harvest you will rest.
34:22. “And you will observe the Feast of Weeks of the First Fruits of wheat harvest (Shavuot), and the Feast of Ingathering (Sukkot) at the year’s end.
34:23. “Three times a year all your males will appear before the LORD* God, the God of Israel. 24. For I shall cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders. Neither will any man desire your land, when you go up to appear before the LORD* your God three times a year.
34:25. “You will not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leaven. Neither will the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover be left to the morning.
34:26. “The first of the First Fruits of your land you will bring to the House of the LORD* your God. You will not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
Next week’s Torah readings: B’reshite