Message 181
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Scripture Reading: Exo. 34
Chapter thirty-four of Exodus, the record of Moses’ stay with God, covers three main subjects: feasting with the Lord and resting with Him, five conditions for enjoying the Lord, and God’s infusion of Himself into Moses. In the two foregoing messages we covered the three feasts and the Sabbath and the five conditions. In this message, after a word of introduction and review, we shall consider God’s infusion of Himself into Moses.
We have seen that Moses broke into pieces the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments. This indicates that the covenant made by God with the children of Israel was broken. A covenant was made in chapters twenty through twenty-four, and this covenant was sealed by the sprinkling of the blood of the redeeming sacrifice. We may say that the sealing of the covenant was actually the signing of the covenant by God. God signed the covenant by sprinkling it with the redeeming blood of the sacrifice. The terms of this covenant were the Ten Commandments with all the ordinances. God wanted to have His people completely and thoroughly covenanted to Him. But because of the incident of the golden calf, the covenant was broken. However, in His mercy God came in to recover this broken covenant. This was the reason God told Moses to hew out two tablets of stone and to come up to the mountaintop to meet with Him. God’s intention was to recover the covenant.
Moses no doubt expected God to repeat the giving of the Ten Commandments and the ordinances. He may have been happy as he prepared the two tablets of stone for this purpose and brought them with him to the mountaintop. But after Moses arrived there and God descended to him, God did something else instead of giving Moses the Ten Commandments. What God spoke to Moses before giving him the Ten Commandments the second time was according to the real desire of His heart. It was not God’s intention merely to have a people to keep His commandments and ordinances. God’s intention was to dispense Himself into His chosen people so that they would be fully infused with Him in order to express Him.
From the very beginning, the law did not have a standing as part of God’s original intention. In typology, the position of the law is that of a concubine, typified by Hagar. This indicates that in the sight of God and in His economy the law does not have a place of honor just as a concubine does not have a legal position. The Bible says that the law was something added. It was not a part of God’s original intention and therefore does not have a place of honor. In a sense, God was forced to decree the law.
God was not unhappy because the two tablets were broken. God was angry not because of the breaking of the tablets, but because of the idolatry of the golden calf. When He met with Moses in chapter thirty-four, He did not at first say anything about the Ten Commandments.
First God told Moses that He would do marvels in order to bring the people into the good land: “And He said, Behold, I am making a covenant: before all your people I will do marvels which have not been wrought in all the earth, nor in all the nations; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of Jehovah, for it is a fearful thing which I am doing with you. Observe what I am commanding you this day; behold, I will drive out from before you the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite” (vv. 10-11). God would do miracles for the purpose of bringing the people into the good land where they could enjoy Him.
Second, God warned the people regarding idolatry (vv. 12-17). The Lord said, “You shall not bow yourself down to another god, for Jehovah — Jealous is His name — is a jealous God” (v. 14). He also said, “You shall not make for yourself molten gods” (v. 17). God definitely warned the people to stay away from every kind of idolatry. We must not allow anything to be a substitute for God or a replacement for Him. We must take Him and Him alone as God.
Then the Lord went on to speak to Moses concerning feasting with Him and resting with Him. In verse 18 He said, “You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread: seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time of the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.” In verse 22 He continued, “You shall observe the feast of weeks, the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of the ingathering at the turn of the year.” In verse 21 the Lord spoke to Moses about keeping the Sabbath: “Six days you shall work, and on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.” We can see, therefore, that the Lord spoke to Moses about idolatry and about feasting and resting. But at this time He did not say a word concerning the Ten Commandments and the ordinances. Instead, He told Moses that the males were to feast with Him three times a year and that every seven days they were to remember Him by resting with Him.
In a previous message we pointed out that the three feasts mentioned in this chapter indicate that we need to feast with the Lord three times a day. Furthermore, we have seen that the weekly Sabbath indicates that during the day, perhaps every fifteen or twenty minutes, we should take a break to remember the Lord by resting with Him. A year is a turn of time, and a day is also such a turn. Daily we should feast with the Lord and rest with Him. Both the feasting and the resting are for the enjoyment of the Lord.
In Exodus 34 the Lord not only spoke to Moses about feasting and resting; He also charged him with five matters that are conditions to be fulfilled in order for God’s people to enjoy Him. According to our natural understanding, each of these five points is insignificant. The first of these conditions is the matter of redeeming the firstling of a donkey with a lamb (v. 20), and the last is the word about not boiling a kid in its mother’s milk (v. 26). Why did the Lord not speak to Moses about the honoring of parents or about the commandment concerning murder? Why did He speak to him about such things as redeeming the firstling of a donkey with a lamb and about not boiling a kid in its mother’s milk? The reason is that if we do not fulfill these five conditions, our enjoyment of the Lord will be broken. If we would maintain our enjoyment of the Lord by feasting and resting with Him, we must take care of these five seemingly insignificant requirements.
If we study Exodus 34 only with our mentality, we shall not be able to understand this chapter. But if we consider this chapter in the light of our spiritual experience, we shall see that the key here is the enjoyment of the Lord. This chapter reveals that we need to enjoy the Lord all day long by feasting with Him and resting with Him. Furthermore, along with this enjoyment and as a requirement for maintaining it, we need to fulfill five conditions.
It seems that in Exodus 34 Moses was concerned for the decree of the law, not for the enjoyment of the Lord or for the infusion of the Lord into him. If we are enlightened as we read this chapter, we shall realize that we should not focus our attention on the Ten Commandments and the ordinances, because God is more concerned that we take care of the feasts and the Sabbaths. We need to take care of the repeated feasting and resting with the Lord. We need to feast on Him and rest with Him for our full enjoyment of Him. Then we shall be infused with Him. As a result, we shall be filled inwardly, and we shall shine outwardly.
If we do not have the key, we shall find Exodus 34 very difficult to understand. Who can explain why in this chapter God mentions only three of the seven feasts? Why are so many important commandments and ordinances set aside, and instead there is mention of five requirements related to redeeming a donkey with a lamb, not offering the blood of the sacrifice with leavened bread, not allowing the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover to remain until the morning, bringing the firstfruits of the ground to the house of God, and not boiling a kid in its mother’s milk? If we have the key of the enjoyment of the Lord, we shall see that these five matters are not insignificant. On the contrary, concerning the enjoyment of the Lord, these matters are crucial.
We have seen that Exodus 34 is both a brief sketch and a conclusion of the preceding thirty-three chapters. Whatever is repeated here is very important. If it were not important, it would not have been repeated. Verse 27 says, “And Jehovah said to Moses, Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” The Hebrew word rendered “tenor” literally means mouth. Therefore, in verse 27 the Lord is telling Moses that according to the “mouth of these words” He made a covenant with him and with Israel. All these words were terms, conditions, of the covenant that the people were required to keep. Why does verse 27 say “according to the mouth of these words”? The Lord may have been saying to Moses, “These words were spoken already. Now I wish to speak them again. I shall mouth them again.” What we have in this chapter is the speaking, the mouthing, of a word already spoken once. This repetition gives the terms for the keeping of God’s covenant by the children of Israel.
I would emphasize the fact that here there is no mention of the commandments or the ordinances. After the warning concerning idolatry, we have the Lord’s speaking concerning the feasts, the Sabbath, and the five conditions for enjoying the Lord. Here we have three feasts for our enjoyment, the Sabbath for our rest, and the five conditions for our daily life. If we fulfill these conditions, we shall feast with God and rest with Him in full enjoyment for the fulfillment of His purpose. Further, according to the following chapters, a tabernacle, a dwelling place, will be built up for God.
Exodus 34:28 and 29 say, “And he was there with Jehovah forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water. And he wrote upon the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words. And it came about, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai — and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses’ hands when he came down from the mountain — that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone in His speaking with him.” Here we see that after God wrote the words of the covenant upon the tablets, He sent Moses down to the foot of the mountain. God’s intention was that His people would enjoy Him. However, Moses’ intention was to bring the commandments to the people. I believe that as Moses was coming down the mountain, he was very happy. He knew that this time there was not the problem of a golden calf. Verse 29 says that Moses did not know that the skin of his face was shining. God had infused Moses with Himself. But Moses did not realize that his face was shining. Perhaps his heart was filled with thoughts concerning the Ten Commandments on the two stone tablets. He may not have had any concern for God’s infusion.
We need God’s infusion. However, when we come to the Bible, we may regard it as “tablets” and take every word as a commandment for us to fulfill. Our intention may be to receive commandments, not to experience God’s infusion. For example, in morning watch we may receive a living word from the Bible, but that word may become a commandment to us. We may not realize that it is not God’s desire to give us a word of commandment; God’s desire is to infuse Himself into our being. Sometimes we may come from morning watch with a shining face because of God’s infusion. But because we care more for commandments than for infusion, we may not know that our face is shining.
Verse 30 says, “And Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come near him.” Moses did not know that his face was shining, but Aaron and the children of Israel knew it, and they were frightened by his shining face. After Moses met with them, he also realized that the skin of his face was shining. Therefore, “when Moses finished speaking with them, he put a veil upon his face” (v. 33). But when Moses returned to God, he took off the veil: “When Moses went in before Jehovah to speak with Him, he took the veil off until he came out; and when he came out, he spoke to the sons of Israel what he was commanded. And the sons of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone. And Moses put the veil on his face again until he went in to speak with Him” (vv. 34-35). This indicates that Moses had an open face to converse with God. This also reminds us of Paul’s word in 2 Corinthians 3:18 about beholding the Lord with an unveiled face and reflecting Him as we are transformed into His image. This too is a matter of shining, for the shining is the appearing of God’s image. Today we need to take off the veil to behold and reflect the Lord with an unveiled face. Then we shall be transformed into His image, and that will be our shining.
We have pointed out that when Moses went to God, he took off the veil, but when he spoke to the people, he put the veil on. The situation with many Christians today is the opposite. When they go to God, they put the veil on, but when they speak to others, they take the veil off.
In 2 Corinthians 3:13 Paul explains why Moses put a veil on his face when he spoke to the children of Israel. Paul says that Moses “put a veil on his face, that the sons of Israel should not gaze unto the end of that which was being done away.” While Moses spoke the word of God to the children of Israel, he kept his face unveiled. After speaking, he veiled his face lest they should see the end of his ministry, which was passing away. He did not want them to behold the termination of the fading glory of his ministry of the law. For the people to see the fading away of the shining would have been for them to see the termination of the law.
The shining we experience today is not in the law; it is in the enjoyment of Christ. In the New Testament, we do not have the keeping of the law — we have the enjoyment of the feast. The teaching of the New Testament is focused on enjoying Christ. The law has been replaced by feasting on Christ. Therefore, we do not need to have a veil, and we do not need to fear a termination of the glory. We can keep our face unveiled before both God and man.
We may need to be reminded that the title of this message is “Moses’ Stay with God.” It was as a result of his long stay with God that Moses’ face was shining. If we would shine with the Lord’s glory, we also need to have a lengthy stay with God. Exodus 34:28 says, “And he was there with Jehovah forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water.” We cannot explain how Moses could have been with the Lord for forty days without eating or drinking. No doubt, it was God who made this possible.
As we have already mentioned, if we would stay with God, we need to forget everything else. When the Lord told Moses to come to the top of the mountain to meet with Him, He said to him, “No man shall come up with you, neither let any man be seen on all the mountain; neither let the flocks and the herds feed before that mountain” (v. 3). This indicates that when we meet with God, we should forget our possessions, our necessities, and even our family. Furthermore, we should not care for ourselves. We should simply stay in the presence of God.
We are not told what God and Moses did together those forty days. However, we do know that during that period of time Moses was fully infused with God and saturated with Him. It seems that Moses did not do anything for those forty days except receive God’s enlightening and His infusing. This was glorious. Something wonderful was taking place during those forty days: God was infusing Himself into Moses and saturating Moses with Himself. If we see the significance of this, we shall receive much help concerning our fellowship with the Lord and our Christian life.
If we read all of chapter thirty-four, we shall see that God’s infusing into Moses was by His speaking. If God had done nothing more than speak the Ten Commandments and the ordinances, I do not believe that Moses would have received much infusion. Do you know what kind of speaking infuses you? It is the Lord’s speaking about the enjoyment of Him, His speaking about feasting and resting and the conditions for enjoying Him. This kind of speaking infuses us with God and causes us to shine.
I can testify that I did not receive much infusion from sitting in Bible study meetings many years ago. But when I listened to Brother Nee speaking on the experience of the Lord, I received an infusion from the Lord. Many of us can testify of having had this kind of experience. There began to be a shining within us because of the Lord’s speaking with us.
The last part of verse 29 should be translated “in His speaking with him,” not “in his speaking with Him.” This indicates that the shining of Moses’ face resulted not from his speaking with God, but from God’s speaking with him. The more we talk, the more we may hinder the Lord’s infusing of us. But the more He speaks to us concerning the enjoyment of Himself, the more we shall be infused. Let us all be like Moses and let the Lord do the speaking. Let us allow Him to speak to us concerning the feasts, the Sabbath, and the conditions for enjoying Him. God’s word concerning the enjoyment of Himself is always a word of infusion.
We thank the Lord for opening Exodus 34 to us. Praise Him that in this chapter we see the feasting and the resting, the five conditions for enjoying the Lord, and the infusion of God into us by His speaking concerning the enjoyment of Himself.
