Why are the ten commandments in Exodus 34 different?

Upvote:4

The Exodus 34 commandments are sometimes called the Ritual Decalogue, as opposed to the Ethical Decalogue that most people are familiar with from Exodus 20. The Wikipedia page above lists the various theories of why these two sets of commandments are different.

One theory points out that this second set of commandments follows the incident of the golden calf, and so is an addition to and expansion of the first with a greater focus on worshiping God and avoiding idolatry.

Upvote:23

Those aren't the words written on the second stone tablets.

The original tablets were written by the Lord:

Exodus 24:12 (ESV)
The LORD said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction."

Compare to the passage referred to in the question. The Lord says he will write the tablets, but the commandments cited in the question are left for Moses to write:

Exodus 34:1 (ESV) [emphases mine]
The LORD said to Moses, "Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

Exodus 34:27 (ESV) [emphases mine]
And the LORD said to Moses, "Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."

After the Lord gave the original ten commandments (Exodus 20), he also gave other commandments (Exodus 20:23-23:33). A similar thing happened here: there were other things that the Lord said to Moses, besides just writing the new tablets.

The quite logical explanation is, then, that the Lord wrote the new tablets and gave them to Moses. Then the Lord spoke other words and told Moses to write them down. The content of the tablets is not recorded in Exodus for a second time, since the content was the same as originally.

More post

Search Posts

Related post