Exodus: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13a 13b 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30a 30b 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38a 38b 39 40
34:1 VA YOMER YHVH EL MOSHEH PESAL LECHA SHENEY LUCHOT AVANIM KA RISHONIM VE CHATAVTI AL HA LUCHOT ET HA DEVARIM ASHER HAYU AL HA LUCHOT HA RISHONIM ASHER SHIBARTA
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה פְּסָל לְךָ שְׁנֵי לֻחֹת אֲבָנִים כָּרִאשֹׁנִים וְכָתַבְתִּי עַל הַלֻּחֹת אֶת הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר הָיוּ עַל הַלֻּחֹת הָרִאשֹׁנִים אֲשֶׁר שִׁבַּרְתָּ
KJ (King James translation): And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.
BN (BibleNet translation: Then YHVH said to Mosheh: "Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones; and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, the ones you broke...
PESAL: The instructions for the building of the altar (see for example Exodus 20:20/21) specifically prohibit the use of hewn stone; but here hewn stone is required - at least, according to the translations, all of which use the same word on each occasion. But "hewn" in Exodus 20:21 is GAZIT (גָּזִית), where here PESAL is used; so actually we have two completely different constructs: here it is about cutting himself some usable stone from the rock; there it is a prohibition against smoothing and shaping that cut stone. So we cannot say "hew" here.
PESAL is an interesting word in itself. In today's world, if a Torah scroll becomes damaged in any way, including an error in the writing of it, it cannot be used in synagogue. Such a scroll is described as being PASUL.
KA RISHONIM: This refutes the earlier idea about the replacement tablets; the same words are on both; and both are written by the same hand. Though the god didn't make him cut his own tablets the first time. Is this the second, third or fourth giving of the Law? I think it may actually be the fourth.
Where is this taking place? At the beginning of the previous chapter Mosheh moved the Tent outside the camp and met with YHVH there, face-to-face; until, just before the end, YHVH had him stand behind a rock while his glory passed by, which gave us the sense that we were back on the mountain, possibly in Eli-Yahu's (Elijah's) Cave (1 Kings 19:8-13).
34:2 VE HEYEH NACHON LA BOKER VE ALIYTAH VA BOKER EL HAR SINAI VE NITSAVTA LI SHAM AL ROSH HA HAR
וֶהְיֵה נָכוֹן לַבֹּקֶר וְעָלִיתָ בַבֹּקֶר אֶל הַר סִינַי וְנִצַּבְתָּ לִי שָׁם עַל רֹאשׁ הָהָר
KJ: And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount.
BN: And be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me at the base of the mountain.
And while you are checking how many versions of the law have indeed been given, check also which were given at Chorev and which at Sinai.
Are we dealing with an oracular priest who Mosheh addresses, the oracle enmasked as a god?
ROSH HA HAR: No question on this occasion that he is being summoned to the... but no, wait, it isn't by any means as certain as it seems, and not only because there may be a volcano erupting. ROSH HA HAR. But when Mosheh goes to die at the summit of Mount Nevo, at the end of the Book of Deuteronomy (34:1), it is ROSH HA PISGAH, and the scholars have long debated whether PISGAH is the name of one of the peaks of Mount Nevo, or simply the word for "summit", Pisgah thus being the "summit of Mount Nevo". But where does that leave ROSH, in this verse or that one?
ROSH means "source", though it is also the word for "head", and the Book of Genesis - Bere'shit in Yehudit - takes its name from this root: "At the source of life itself, the gods created the heavens and the Earth" (Genesis 1:1) ROSH HA NAHAR is the source of the river, which tends to be a small spring up in the mountains somewhere, while the "head" of the river is the major confluency down in the valley. So does Mosheh go to the very summit of Mount Nevo, or to the base of one of its peaks, still massively high up, but not quite so diminished in its oxygen? And likewise here.
ROSH HA HAR: No question on this occasion that he is being summoned to the... but no, wait, it isn't by any means as certain as it seems, and not only because there may be a volcano erupting. ROSH HA HAR. But when Mosheh goes to die at the summit of Mount Nevo, at the end of the Book of Deuteronomy (34:1), it is ROSH HA PISGAH, and the scholars have long debated whether PISGAH is the name of one of the peaks of Mount Nevo, or simply the word for "summit", Pisgah thus being the "summit of Mount Nevo". But where does that leave ROSH, in this verse or that one?
ROSH means "source", though it is also the word for "head", and the Book of Genesis - Bere'shit in Yehudit - takes its name from this root: "At the source of life itself, the gods created the heavens and the Earth" (Genesis 1:1) ROSH HA NAHAR is the source of the river, which tends to be a small spring up in the mountains somewhere, while the "head" of the river is the major confluency down in the valley. So does Mosheh go to the very summit of Mount Nevo, or to the base of one of its peaks, still massively high up, but not quite so diminished in its oxygen? And likewise here.
34:3 VE ISH LO YA'ALEH IMACH VE GAM ISH AL YERA BE CHOL HA HAR GAM HA TSON VE HA BAKAR AL YIR'U EL MUL HA HAR HA HU
וְאִישׁ לֹא יַעֲלֶה עִמָּךְ וְגַם אִישׁ אַל יֵרָא בְּכָל הָהָר גַּם הַצֹּאן וְהַבָּקָר אַל יִרְעוּ אֶל מוּל הָהָר הַהוּא
KJ: And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount.
BN: And no one shall come up with you, and make sure that no one is seen anywhere on the mountain; do not even let the flocks and herds be seen on the mountain-slopes facing."
It sounds like another volcanic eruption is on the way - which triggers again the thought that a volcanic eruption and a tantrum by the volcano-god are actually, if metaphorically, the same thing.
We also need to ask - scientifically rather than mystically - how he survived through these forty days and nights, if the story is as given: a man, alone, on a mountain-top, with neither food nor drink - can a man survive that long, in that desert, and in the summer too if the chronology is to be believed (third month or shortly after since the exodus in spring, so we are talking about the hottest time of the year, when temperatures can easily reach 50C. This is not a problem if we accept the alternative version, that there was a mountain shrine, inhabited all the year round by the priestess and her entourage, something in the manner of a mediaeval monastery; but the point is: he rejected their hospitality anyway.
Which leads me to ask: why do some impossible events get counted as "miracles" (the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, etc), while others just as impossible are simply mentioned, almost as matter-of-fact - click here for the biology of this. (Or perhaps the statement that he drank no water and ate no bread is just a way of getting round the fact that he lived on coffee and digestive biscuits, just like me).
KARAN OR PANAV: Whole volumes could be written about this phrase (whole volumes have been written about this phrase), and its impact on European history through the Middle Ages, when the Tanach first reached a Europe rife with anti-Semitism and literally bedevilled by concepts of the Satanic. The root word KARAN (קרן) leads to KEREN = "a horn", as in the ram's horn used for the Shofar, or the ones depicted on the sides of Satan's head: in the latter case, generally a goat; but horns are horns.
The phrase is normally translated as "beams", implying "beams of light" - but KARAN actually does mean "horns". So Mosheh has horns, just like the Devil! KARAN OR - "horns of light" - indeed (see verse 35): a glow, a radiance, an aureole, even a halo. Hor is always depicted with horns - being the bull-god, how could he not be? But anti-Semitism will have its preferred definition. In Michelangelo's version (see illustration) they protrude from his very temples, far too central to be properly bestial - or maybe a goat but not a bull - but at least they manage to convey the idea of two crescent moons, which would have offered an additional alert to the mediaeval Christian: not just Satanic horns on the patriarchal Jew, but symbols of the Infidel Musselman into the bargain! Throughout the Middle Ages Jews were depicted with these horns, usually with a forked tail added, just in case you didn't get the first message.
The verb KARAN does indeed mean "horned", but it was the crescent moons that the text was really intending, the crescent moons that illuminate the darkness with their beams of light. "Mosheh's face was radiant" is how we would express it today. And don't forget, Mosheh in his priestly role, Mosheh who grew up in the Egyptian court, would have been part of a tradition in which every priest to every god and goddess wore a horned mask as part of their ritual costume (click here, and then here - the one of Anubis half-way down the link here might have been Michelangelo's studio model)
HOWEVER - see my notes to verse 33, below; which may actually undermine entirely this now-traditional understanding (mis-understanding?) of the real meaning of the horns.
I can't say, however, that I am surprised if Mosheh's face was irridescent, whether with beams of light or otherwise; with 40º at least of Celsius, and forty days of very close proximity to an erupting volcano, and forty days of ascetic abstinence as well, what else should the skin on his face be but irridescent?
34:30 VA YAR AHARON VE CHOL BENEY YISRA-EL ET MOSHEH VE HINEH KARAN OR PANAV VA YIYR'U MI GESHET ELAV
KJ: And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.
BN: And when Aharon and all the Beney Yisra-El saw Mosheh, behold, the skin of his face radiated light; and they were afraid to come near him.
34:31 VA YIKRA ALEYHEM MOSHEH VA YASHUVU ELAV AHARON VE CHOL HA NESI'IM BA EDAH VA YEDABER MOSHEH AL'EHEM
KJ: And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them.
BN: But Mosheh summoned them; and Aharon and all the rulers of the congregation went back to him; and Mosheh spoke to them.
The word EDAH comes up again; see the earlier notes on the distinction being made between ADUT YISRA-EL and AM YISRA-EL (Exodus 16:34 and others); now we have the LUCHOT HA EDAH of v29, and here again.
On the previous occasion, when he was away for forty days and nights (Exodus 32:1), they assumed him dead and built the Golden Calf; no such concerns apparently this time.
NESI: no longer ZEKENIM but now NESI'IM = "princes"; which implies yet a third tribal structure. The root is NASA (נשא) which really means "lifted up", not in the poetic sense of "exalted", but in the more mundane sense of lifting up an object, or one's head. The idea then extends into "princedom" as an exalted office, a person who has been "lifted up" above the common people, perhaps also a person who has bowed his head to be anointed in his office, and then lifted his head up again in order to go forth and perform it. NASI is usually translated as "prince", but this is mis-leading, because the tribal structure of the Beney Yisra-El was not aristocratic versus plebian in a way that can be compared with those in which we use the word "prince" today: an appointed elder, a military officer, even a Levite, might have been a Nasi back then.
34:32 VE ACHAREY CHEN NIGSHU KOL BENEY YISRA-EL VA YETSAVEM ET KOL ASHER DIBER YHVH ITO BE HAR SINAI
KJ: And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him in mount Sinai.
BN: And afterwards all the Beney Yisra-El came near, and he gave instruct to them concerning everything that YHVH had discussed with him on Mount Sinai.
KOL BENEY YISRA-EL: Is highly improbable, given their numbers. Their NASI'IM anyway, their"princes".
YETSAVEM: Having presumably overcome the "fear" described in verse 30.
ASHER DIBER YHVH: Is my translation of "DIBER" as "discussed" a trifle generous? Discuss.
One last thought:again we are told that he has spent these forty days on Mount Sinai, where the previous account was on Mount Chorev; can we draw the conclusion that there were two versions of the same tale, differently located, and this the Ezraic attempt to merge them? It has happened so often, to so many of the tales, we have to start thinking it was the norm.
end of 6; maphtir
34:33 VA YECHAL MOSHEH MI DABER ITAM VA YITEN AL PANAV MASVEH
KJ: And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a vail on his face.
BN: And when Moshe had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.
MASVEH: why a veil? Was this also a case of sunburn? Or do we at last have an answer to an earlier question, posed when Aharon and the Kohanim were being given their formal clothing: why does Mosheh not have formal clothing of his own? And now, indeed, he does.
Or does he? Following on from my note to KARAN at verse 29, the problem here is that this is the one and only usage in the Tanach of a word that is not Yehudit - a fact we can recognise in part from the root, which is either a very unusual four-letter root ending with the feminine Hey (ה) or a three-letter ending with an even more unusual Vav (ו) rather than a Bet (ב); in part from the Samech (ס) rather than the Seen (ש) which is its middle letter: the Samech is always used for foreign words. Just to make it more complex, the only other known use of the word is in the Gemara, a very late (circa 375 CE) section of the Talmud which provides commentary on the Mishnah, that section of the Talmud which provides commentary on the Tanach itself. This does not impact on the biblical text, but is significant because it is from the Gemara that the word entered modern Ivrit (Hebrew), where a MASVEH generally means a "veil" in the sense of a "mask" or a "disguise", which leads to the question: was Mosheh in fact, like the ancient shamans and the priests of Egypt, wearing a totem-mask when he spoke on YHVH's behalf before the people? The answer is, again as per my note to KARAN: most probably, yes. And then - take a look at the illustration, which shows an Egyptian priest wearing the conventional Mask of Anubis - do you see those Michelangelan horns?
"Veil" is normally rendered in Yehudit as TSA'IF (צָעִיף), or MESUCHAH (מסוכה), which is also used for a hedge because the root conveys the idea of something being "closed about" - see my note to Exodus 32:4.
34:34 U VE VO MOSHEH LIPHNEY YHVH LEDABER ITO YASIR ET HA MASVEH AD TS'ETO VA YATSA VE DIBER EL BENEY YISRA-EL ET ASHER YETSUVEH
KJ: But when Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he took the vail off, until he came out. And he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded.
BN: But when Mosheh went in before YHVH that he might speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and he came out; and spoke to the Beney Yisra-El whatever he was instructed.
Because of course he didn't need to be masked when with YHVH.
34:35 VE RA'U VENEY YISRA-EL ET PENEY MOSHEH KI KARAN OR PENEY MOSHEH VE HESHIV MOSHEH ET HA MASVEH AL PANAV AD BO'O LEDABER ITO
KJ: And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone: and Moses put the vail upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
BN: And the Beney Yisra-El saw the face of Mosheh, that the skin of Mosheh's face sent forth beams; and Mosheh put the veil back on his face, until he went in to speak with him.
This feels like one of those Midrash the Rabbis like to make up as a way of answering a parishioner's question to which they don't really have an answer, but feel they have to have one. Perhaps, on this occasion, a need to explain away the mask and replace it with something more doctrinally acceptable. Possibly just an explanation of the impact on the skin of wearing that mask in such hot weather. But, if Mosheh was indeed taking his Egyptian people, in his priestly capacity, on pilgrimage to the holy mountain of his people, to reaffirm the Egyptian covenant with their ancient gods - then he would indeed have dressed like an Egyptian priest, including the horned mask.
end of sedra KI TISA
Exodus: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13a 13b 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30a 30b 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38a 38b 39 40
VE ISH LO: Not even Yehoshu'a on this occasion.
KJ: The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.
AL YIRU does not mean "shall not feed" but "shall not be seen"; it is impossible to know why the translators all make this error. The point is that god appearing [in the form of a volcanic eruption] is extremely dangerous! And apparently this eruption is going to reach that far (adding weight to my ctranslation of ROSH in verse 2).
The punishment for breaking this law is given at Exodus 22:19, itself an odd coincidence, given my comment on the previous verse.
MUL: "opposite", not "on".
34:4 VA YIPHSOL SHENEY LUCHOT AVANIM KA RISHONIM VA YASHKEM MOSHEH VA BOKER VA YA'AL EL HAR SINAI KA ASHER TSIVAH YHVH OTO VA YIKACH BE YADO SHENEY LUCHOT AVANIM
וַיִּפְסֹל שְׁנֵי לֻחֹת אֲבָנִים כָּרִאשֹׁנִים וַיַּשְׁכֵּם מֹשֶׁה בַבֹּקֶר וַיַּעַל אֶל הַר סִינַי כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה אֹתוֹ וַיִּקַּח בְּיָדוֹ שְׁנֵי לֻחֹת אֲבָנִים
KJ: And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.
BN: And he cut two tablets of stone as on the first occasion; and Mosheh rose up early in the morning, and went up to the summit of Mount Sinai, as YHVH had instructed him, and carried in his hand two tablets of stone.
VA YIPHSOL: See my note to verse 1.
SHENEY LUCHOT: No definite article (KJ has added one).
SHENEY LUCHOT: No definite article (KJ has added one).
34:5 VA YERED YHVH BE ANAN VA YITYATSEV IMO SHAM VA YIKRA VE SHEM YHVH
וַיֵּרֶד יְהוָה בֶּעָנָן וַיִּתְיַצֵּב עִמּוֹ שָׁם וַיִּקְרָא בְשֵׁם יְהוָה
KJ: And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and [he] proclaimed the name of the LORD.
BN: Then YHVH descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and he called out in the name of YHVH.
Most translators add "he"; King James leaves it out, allowing this to be YHVH who proclaims himself, which is why I have square-bracked it. Both are clearly wrong. The phrasing would allow it to be taken either way, if it were not for VE SHEM;and the syntax of the next verse, which also leaves out the pronoun, clearly indicates that it is Mosheh doing the proclaiming.
VE SHEM: "in the name of". Presumably Mosheh is starting his morning on the mountain with the equivalent of davening Shacharit - reciting the morning prayers, and specifically Selichot; we have to learn to read these statements from the inside of mythology and liturgy, and not pretend they are accounts of history.
34:6 VA YA'AVOR YHVH AL PANAV VA YIKRA YHVH YHVH EL RACHUM VE CHANUN ERECH APAYIM VE RAV CHESED VE EMET
וַיַּעֲבֹר יְהוָה עַל פָּנָיו וַיִּקְרָא יְהוָה יְהוָה אֵל רַחוּם וְחַנּוּן אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם וְרַב חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת
KJ: And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
BN: And YHVH passed by before him, and he cried out: "YHVH, YHVH, merciful and gracious god, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth...
And as to which piece of liturgy it is that he is davening; one of the most famous of them all!
ADONAI ADONAI: The continuing attempt to demonstrate that much or all of this might be an early form, or at least a variant of, Yom Kippur finds further evidence here, with text that remains central to both Rosh Ha Shana and Yom Kippur. The prayer, in the form still sung on those great days to this day, and one of the emotional high-points of the Conservative and Orthodox services on these occasions (sadly most Reform synagogues have reduced it to little more than a pop song), is completed in the next verse, up until VE NAKEH (וְנַקֵּה), just before the semi-colon. If you looking for the text in a modern prayer book, try under "The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy" - here, for example.
EL RACHUM: Whenever Moslems pronounce the name al-Lah, they always add a phrase that states his principal attributes. One of these is ar-Rahim, "the compassionate", the second ar-Rahman, "the most merciful"; Arabic equivalents of RACHUM in the Yehudit. Both gods however are male, and it is most curious that they should choose these words to describe them, because the root in both languages means "womb", and male gods do not generally have wombs (see verse 19).
ADONAI ADONAI: The continuing attempt to demonstrate that much or all of this might be an early form, or at least a variant of, Yom Kippur finds further evidence here, with text that remains central to both Rosh Ha Shana and Yom Kippur. The prayer, in the form still sung on those great days to this day, and one of the emotional high-points of the Conservative and Orthodox services on these occasions (sadly most Reform synagogues have reduced it to little more than a pop song), is completed in the next verse, up until VE NAKEH (וְנַקֵּה), just before the semi-colon. If you looking for the text in a modern prayer book, try under "The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy" - here, for example.
EL RACHUM: Whenever Moslems pronounce the name al-Lah, they always add a phrase that states his principal attributes. One of these is ar-Rahim, "the compassionate", the second ar-Rahman, "the most merciful"; Arabic equivalents of RACHUM in the Yehudit. Both gods however are male, and it is most curious that they should choose these words to describe them, because the root in both languages means "womb", and male gods do not generally have wombs (see verse 19).
34:7 NOTSER CHESED LA ALAPHIM NOS'E AVON VA PHESHA VE CHATA'AH VE NAKEH LO YENAKEH PO'KED AVON AVOT AL BANIM VE AL BENEY VANIM AL SHILESHIM VE AL RIBEYIM
נֹצֵר חֶסֶד לָאֲלָפִים נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן וָפֶשַׁע וְחַטָּאָה וְנַקֵּה לֹא יְנַקֶּה פֹּקֵד עֲוֹן אָבוֹת עַל בָּנִים וְעַל בְּנֵי בָנִים עַל שִׁלֵּשִׁים וְעַל רִבֵּעִים
KJ: Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
BN: Bringing mercy to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; but who will not by any means acquit the guilty; rather he will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, until the third and even the fourth generation."
PO'KED: see Exodus 20:4/5, though actually there are minor differences between the two texts - the "children's children" are added here, for example. For a student of literature, this is a minor matter of drafting and editing; for an orthodox practitioner, this is a major ambiguity of theology. If the text of the second set of laws is not the same as the first, which are we supposed to follow, which are we supposed to believe? We will encounter this problem repeatedly in the coming chapters, and throughout the remaining books of the Torah.
The wording here would have Av-Raham at Sedom shaking his head at the sheer injustice. 1000 generations if you are good, but only four for the guilty before - and yes, we prefer it that way around, but still...
The wording here would have Av-Raham at Sedom shaking his head at the sheer injustice. 1000 generations if you are good, but only four for the guilty before - and yes, we prefer it that way around, but still...
We also need to note, though it will be controversial and likely to induce charges of apostasy among the faithful, that the evidence of history does not provide much evidence to support YHVH's self-made claims in the first part of this verse, while the declared intention of the second part undermines the claim of "mercy" even further: what can possibly be merciful about punishing the great-grandchildren for the sins of their ancestors?
34:8 VA YEMAHER MOSHEH VA YIKOD ARTSAH VA YISHTACHU
וַיְמַהֵר מֹשֶׁה וַיִּקֹּד אַרְצָה וַיִּשְׁתָּחוּ
KJ: And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.
BN: And Mosheh made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.
Why the hurry? But wait a moment. The verb for "bowed" is YIKOD, and the verb for "visit" two verses ago was PO'KED; and no, they are not the same root, but there is surely yet another word-play taking place. And if so, what, and why?
The other curiosity of the verse is that exists at all, the hurrying, but even more the bowing of the head in worship. Mosheh, like the patriarchs before him, never bows his head. He prostrates himself - HISHTACHAVEH is the verb we are accustomed to, and YISHTACHU will follow here. And given that we are comparing this version of this commandment with its original, in Exodus 20:4, let us note that the commandment was given there as a consequence of... people prostrating themselves before other gods: LO TISHTACHAVEH LA HEM (לֹא תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה לָהֶם); you shall not bow down... for which see verse 14 below as well.
So we are definitely seeing a variation in the wording in this second set of tablets, but are we also perhaps witnessing a variation in the expectations too: is this a change in the mode of prayer?
To which the answer is not only yes, but quite specifically the cleansing prayers, the Selichot prayers, of "Tachanun", which is when, in modern prayer, Jews do indeed bow their heads - the official phrase is NEPHILAT APAYIM - and you can read a full account of it in "A Myrtle Among Reeds" (p 238 ff), including the details of its central prayer which, by no coincidence, is entitled "VE HU RACHUM". Oddly, though, Jewish theology reckons Nephilat Apayim is based on Mosheh and Aharon's response to the Korach rebellion (Numbers 16:22), or possibly on Yehoshu'a response to the defeat at Ai (Joshua 7:6) - in both of which they did indeed "fall on their faces", that being the literal meaning of Nephilat Apayim, though it isn't full prostration, which is YISHTACHU, nor really bowing either, which is YIKOD. In modern Tachanun only the bowing takes place, while seated, usually putting an elbow on the back of the pew-in-front, and leaning the head on it as though taking a nap. It seems then that there are three different positions, bowing, falling on the face, and full prostration, and traditional theology has confused them into only two, forgetting about this one.
The other curiosity of the verse is that exists at all, the hurrying, but even more the bowing of the head in worship. Mosheh, like the patriarchs before him, never bows his head. He prostrates himself - HISHTACHAVEH is the verb we are accustomed to, and YISHTACHU will follow here. And given that we are comparing this version of this commandment with its original, in Exodus 20:4, let us note that the commandment was given there as a consequence of... people prostrating themselves before other gods: LO TISHTACHAVEH LA HEM (לֹא תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה לָהֶם); you shall not bow down... for which see verse 14 below as well.
So we are definitely seeing a variation in the wording in this second set of tablets, but are we also perhaps witnessing a variation in the expectations too: is this a change in the mode of prayer?
To which the answer is not only yes, but quite specifically the cleansing prayers, the Selichot prayers, of "Tachanun", which is when, in modern prayer, Jews do indeed bow their heads - the official phrase is NEPHILAT APAYIM - and you can read a full account of it in "A Myrtle Among Reeds" (p 238 ff), including the details of its central prayer which, by no coincidence, is entitled "VE HU RACHUM". Oddly, though, Jewish theology reckons Nephilat Apayim is based on Mosheh and Aharon's response to the Korach rebellion (Numbers 16:22), or possibly on Yehoshu'a response to the defeat at Ai (Joshua 7:6) - in both of which they did indeed "fall on their faces", that being the literal meaning of Nephilat Apayim, though it isn't full prostration, which is YISHTACHU, nor really bowing either, which is YIKOD. In modern Tachanun only the bowing takes place, while seated, usually putting an elbow on the back of the pew-in-front, and leaning the head on it as though taking a nap. It seems then that there are three different positions, bowing, falling on the face, and full prostration, and traditional theology has confused them into only two, forgetting about this one.
34:9 VA YOMER IM NA MATSA'TI CHEN BE EYNEYCHA ADONAI YELECH NA ADONAI BE KIRBENU KI AM KESHEH OREPH HU VE SALACHTA LA AVONENU U LE CHATA'TENU U NECHALTANU
וַיֹּאמֶר אִם נָא מָצָאתִי חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ אֲדֹנָי יֵלֶךְ נָא אֲדֹנָי בְּקִרְבֵּנוּ כִּי עַם קְשֵׁה עֹרֶף הוּא וְסָלַחְתָּ לַעֲוֹנֵנוּ וּלְחַטָּאתֵנוּ וּנְחַלְתָּנוּ
KJ: And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.
BN: And he said: "If I have now found favour in your sight, my lord, let my lord, I pray you, go in the midst of us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance."
This was crucial to the last chapter, and I shall not repeat my comments here, except to note how hard Mosheh is finding it to accept the concept of an abstract deity; he speaks for his people, but the anguish is clearly his own: he wants, needs, a visible presence. So, in truth, do most Jews today, which is why YHVH Elohim has come to be translated as "God", and then, as if by osmosis, but actually by cultural laziness, the idea behind the concept of God, which is radically different from the idea behind the concept of YHVH or Elohim, has become embedded in Judaism too, and Judaism has shifted its philosophical, moral, epistemological and theological position as a consequence. Christo-Judaism, rather than Judeo-Christianity.
Yet again the language, which has the tone of liturgy, makes this clearly some form of Yom Kippur - probably just morn Selichot or Tachanun or Vidu'i, but in that broad sense of a cleansing, purgation-of-sin, act of worship; this is not the re-receiving of the 10 Commandments at all, but a religious service of an entirely different kind.
IM NA MATSATI CHEN BE EYNEYCHA: Strange how often this phrase has come up, in this chapter and the last, where we have not seen it before; yet now it is central. I have translated CHEN as "favour", because it seems to make more sense in English that way, though in fact the word means "grace" (whatever that is - not exactly Latin "gratis", though that is the etymological source), and is the root of the names Anne, Anna, Joanna, Hannah, and Jon.
KIRBENU: The root word, KARAV (קרב) means "near", whence the KERUVIM or cherubim, who are the "nearest" of the host to YHVH in the heavens, and the same word for human relatives of the familial sort. There is some debate among philologists and etymologists as to whether the word KURBAN (קרבן), which is a burnt offering, is derived from the same root; given that David Kimchi is among the scholars who reckon it is not, I will simply leave the debate on the table and go no further.
End of 5th fragment
34:10 VA YOMER HINEH ANOCHI KORET BERIT NEGED KOL AMCHA E'ESEH NIPHLA'OT ASHER LO NIVRE'U VE CHOL HA ARETS U VE CHOL HA GOYIM VE RA'AH CHOL HA AM ASHER ATAH VE KIRBO ET MA'ASEH YHVH KI NORA HU ASHER ANI OSEH IMACH
וַיֹּאמֶר הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי כֹּרֵת בְּרִית נֶגֶד כָּל עַמְּךָ אֶעֱשֶׂה נִפְלָאֹת אֲשֶׁר לֹא נִבְרְאוּ בְכָל הָאָרֶץ וּבְכָל הַגּוֹיִם וְרָאָה כָל הָעָם אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה בְקִרְבּוֹ אֶת מַעֲשֵׂה יְהוָה כִּי נוֹרָא הוּא אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי עֹשֶׂה עִמָּךְ
KJ: And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the LORD: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.
BN: And he said: Behold, I make a covenant; before all your people I will perform marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the Earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of YHVH that I am about to do with you, that it is tremendous.
But surely he has already done this, in Egypt and at the Sea of Reeds? Nevertheless, confirmation that - in one of the several versions anyway - this visit to the holy mountain has been for the purpose of a Covenant Renewal ceremony.
BERIT: this is the key to the ceremony; the covenant; and by re-issuing them now, because they were broken, it is most definitely a ceremony of Covenant Renewal. The statement in this verse is simply the royal flourish in the style of the Egyptian Pharaohs - indeed, Ra-Mousa II (Rameses II), the Pharaoh who most scholars identify with the period of Egyptian slavery, was known by his people as "Userma'atre'setepenre, which means "Keeper of Harmony and Balance, Strong in Right, Elect of Ra", a fine equivalent of "Adonai, Adonai El Rachum ve Chanun" (verse 6), or the "OSEH NIPHLA'OT" that we have here.
34:11 SHEMAR LECHA ET ASHER ANOCHI METSAVCHA HA YOM HINENI GORESH MI PANEYCHA ET HA EMORI VE HA KENA'ANI VE HA CHITI VE HA PERIZI VE HA CHIVI VE HA YEVUSI
שְׁמָר לְךָ אֵת אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם הִנְנִי גֹרֵשׁ מִפָּנֶיךָ אֶת הָאֱמֹרִי וְהַכְּנַעֲנִי וְהַחִתִּי וְהַפְּרִזִּי וְהַחִוִּי וְהַיְבוּסִי
KJ: Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
BN: Observe the instructions that I am giving you today; behold, I am driving out before you the Emori, and the Kena'ani, and the Chiti, and the Perizi, and the Chivi, and the Yevusi.
This is all very well, but the spies will bring back evidence that it has not happened yet, and then we will learn that the Beney Yisra-El are very scared of those people, too scared to fight them, even with their absolute faith in the power of YHVH, and therefore they will not enter the land for another 38 years - so either YHVH did not keep his promise, or perhaps he only meant it in the traditional politician's manner, of "Yes we can" before the vote, but "No we won't" afterwards. And even after Yehoshu'a took them in, it took centuries to "drive them out"; not that they ever did drive them out, but assimilated etc. It was David who defeated the Yevusim, for example.
34:12 HISHAMER LECHA PEN TICHROT BERIT LE YOSHEV HA ARETS ASHER ATAH BA ALEYHA PEN YIHEYEH LE MOKESH BE KIRBECHA
הִשָּׁמֶר לְךָ פֶּן תִּכְרֹת בְּרִית לְיוֹשֵׁב הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה בָּא עָלֶיהָ פֶּן יִהְיֶה לְמוֹקֵשׁ בְּקִרְבֶּךָ
KJ: Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:
BN: Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, lest they prove to be a snare in your midst.
In what way a snare? Always the fear - still in place to this day - of assimilation, of abandoning the ways of the tribe and the cult and following the practices of the other tribes and cults.
BERIT: The same word for a covenant with the deity and for a treaty with a neighbouring people. Surprising.
BERIT: The same word for a covenant with the deity and for a treaty with a neighbouring people. Surprising.
34:13 KI ET MIZBECHOTAM TITOTSUN VE ET MATSEVOTAM TESHABERUN VE ET ASHERAV TICHROTUN
כִּי אֶת מִזְבְּחֹתָם תִּתֹּצוּן וְאֶת מַצֵּבֹתָם תְּשַׁבֵּרוּן וְאֶת אֲשֵׁרָיו תִּכְרֹתוּן
KJ: But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:
BN: But you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherim.
This verse is interesting both for the confirmation of my explanation of why a snare, but also for the description of the items inferred by the manner of their destruction. Asherim particularly - to cut them down they must be either trees or totem poles. Will the tribe of Asher and those who still respect the matriarch Sarah (Asherah) be upset by this - see my note to Exodus 30:15
Note the grammar. Note also, as always, the deep inner conflict of this verse, in contrast with verses 6 and 7 - where, pray, is the mercy and the compassion towards these people, "the stranger within your gates", who Mosheh was told unequivocally, in Exodus 22:20: "And you shall not wrong a stranger, nor oppress him; for you were strangers in the land of Mitsrayim." How do you draw consistent theology out of contradictions of this kind? (Thank all the gods that I am an atheist, and don't have to deal with that problem).
34:14 KI LO TISHTACHAVEH LE EL ACHER KI YHVH KANAH SHEMO EL KANAH HU
34:14 KI LO TISHTACHAVEH LE EL ACHER KI YHVH KANAH SHEMO EL KANAH HU
כִּי לֹא תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה לְאֵל אַחֵר כִּי יְהוָה קַנָּא שְׁמוֹ אֵל קַנָּא הוּא
KJ: For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:
BN: For you shall not prostrate yourself before any other god; for YHVH, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous god...
YHVH is jealous. And yet jealousy is precisely one of the Ten Prohibitions! see my note to Exodus 20:4, and note how the language there has been repeating itself in this chapter.
The punishment for breaking this law is given at Exodus 22:19, itself an odd coincidence, given my comment on the previous verse.
At least we have confirmation that the Beney Yisra-El were never monotheistic, despite what later Judaism insists. Even YHVH is accepting here the existence of other gods. He is not saying they are false, nor fictitious, nor that they lack power. He is simply saying: Me. Worship me. Me and no other. The others are proscribed, not denied. The Yisra-Eli world is polytheistic, but worship is precisely limited. YHVH is not yet One, he is still only Only.
34:15 PEN TICHROT BERIT LE YOSHEV HA ARETS VE ZANU ACHAREY ELOHEYHEM VE ZAVCHU LE ELOHEYHEM VE KARA LECHA VA ACHALTA MIZBECHO
פֶּן תִּכְרֹת בְּרִית לְיוֹשֵׁב הָאָרֶץ וְזָנוּ אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהֵיהֶם וְזָבְחוּ לֵאלֹהֵיהֶם וְקָרָא לְךָ וְאָכַלְתָּ מִזִּבְחוֹ
KJ: Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;
BN: Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go astray after their gods, and make sacrifice to their gods, and they call you, and you eat of their sacrifice.
An even stronger confirmation of that last comment.
The word ZANU (זָנוּ) is interesting in this context, with its ritual implications. The root gives ZONAH (זנה), which generally means "whore", in the sense of prostitution, but distinct from KADESHAH (קדשה), who was a hierodule, a ritual "prostitute" within the cult of Asherah (see the note below). As a general rule, the sacred priestesses of the other cults of the Biblical epoch are always described as ZONOT in the Bible, as a way of derogating them. In the same way, a government that we support is an "administration", but a government that we oppose is a "regime".
ZAVCHU: In the eating of sacrifices there is also a taboo, but not yet on grounds of Kashrut, of which we do not actually hear in Exodus at all.
34:16 VE LAKACHTA MI BENOTAV LE VANEYCHA VE ZANU VENOTAV ACHAREY ELOHEYHEN VE HIZNU ET BANEYCHA ACHAREY ELOHEYHEN
וְלָקַחְתָּ מִבְּנֹתָיו לְבָנֶיךָ וְזָנוּ בְנֹתָיו אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהֵיהֶן וְהִזְנוּ אֶת בָּנֶיךָ אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהֵיהֶן
KJ: And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.
BN: And you take from their daughters for your sons, and their daughters go astray after their gods, and make your sons go astray after their gods.
ZONAH: Whoring after their gods is intended here both literally and figuratively; the former because the rites of Asherah and Set and others were orgiastic. Not whoring in the sense of prostitution, but as in the tale of Yehudah and Tamar in Genesis 38, the roles of hierodule and hierophant in the sacred ceremonies of the fertility. Cf Song of Songs as the perfect example.
What we learn from this is the logical reason for endogamy. Marrying out opens the risk of leaving the religion behind.
The placing of this here is also important to Ezra (see 9:1 for example, where the same tribes are listed; but especially 10:10) and Nechem-Yah (Nehemiah 13:23 in particular), as we will see when the latter, in his final chapters, launches a tirade against the Yehudim returning from exile with foreign wives, or those already returned who have married out, and he and Ezra will require every one of them to be divorced (Nehemiah 12:23 ff). Indeed, we can probably state without fear of contraversy, that these Exodus verses were introduced by Ezra precisely for the needs of his day, in order to provide retroactive validation for the measures he and Nechem-Yah were introducing - one of the ways we know that is that the Habiru receiving these laws in the desert, after multiple generations of slavery in Egypt, would have known absolutely nothing of the peoples of Kena'an, their names, tribes, gods and goddesses, practices or anything else, so the commandment would have been quite meaningless to them, except as a distant abstraction.
34:17 ELOHEY MASECHAH LO TA'ASEH LACH
אֱלֹהֵי מַסֵּכָה לֹא תַעֲשֶׂה לָּךְ
KJ: Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
BN: You shall not make for yourselves molten gods.
All of a sudden, as if in media res, we have legal injunctions again, presumably as part of the re-writing of the laws. Again we need to ask - and then go back and check - whether the second set are actually different from the first version, even despite it being said earlier that they would be. This verse specifies molten gods (Elohey masechah), which is likely a reference back to the Golden Calf; but very different from the first version, which prohibited the worship of other gods and the making of graven images (PESEL - for which see verse 1!), but did not specifiy "molten". And is Betsal-El not waiting even now to make molten images of Keruvim, and the Nechushtan? This is not the original constitution; this is a later amendment.
34:18 ET CHAG HA MATSOT TISHMOR SHIVAT YAMIM TOCHAL MATSOT ASHER TSIVIT'CHA LE MO'ED CHODESH HA AVIV KI BE CHODESH HA AVIV YATSATA MI MITSRAYIM
אֶת חַג הַמַּצּוֹת תִּשְׁמֹר שִׁבְעַת יָמִים תֹּאכַל מַצּוֹת אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִךָ לְמוֹעֵד חֹדֶשׁ הָאָבִיב כִּי בְּחֹדֶשׁ הָאָבִיב יָצָאתָ מִמִּצְרָיִם
BN: You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I have instructed you, at the time appointed in the month of Aviv, for in the month of Aviv you came out from Mitsrayim.
vv 18-29 are a repeat of Exodus 13:1-16, though the formulation is quite different - click the link to check which verses there parallel or conflict with those here.
34:19 KOL PETER RECHEM LI VE CHOL MIKNECHA TIZACHAR PETER SHOR VA SEH
כָּל פֶּטֶר רֶחֶם לִי וְכָל מִקְנְךָ תִּזָּכָר פֶּטֶר שׁוֹר וָשֶׂה
KJ: All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.
BN: Everything that opens the womb belongs to me; you shall sanctify the firstling males of all your livestock, the oxen and the sheep.
TIZACHAR: The text does not actually state "sanctify", but this is how the word needs to be understood; TIZACHAR comes from the same root as ZECHER = "memorial", so the act of sacrifice also acquires this additional raison d'être while re-affirming the original reason: "everything that opens the womb belongs to me.... and so you need my approval to kill it for food: kill it according to my instructions and my approval is implicit".
RECHEM: See my note to verse 6, and the connection between RECHEM (רחם) = "womb" and RACHUM (רחום) = "compassion" or "mercy", a construction that surely reflects Yah rather more than it does YHVH. It may also be worth noting that the sacred number of YHVH is seven, which is writen in Yehudit with the letter Zayin (ז), and the Zayin is also the male sexual organ
Compare the version of this instruction given in Exodus 20:20.
34:20 U PETER CHAMOR TIPHDEH VE SEH VE IM LO TIPHDEH VA ARAPHTO KOL BECHOR BANEYCHA TIPHDEY VE LO YERA'U PHANAI REYKAM
וּפֶטֶר חֲמוֹר תִּפְדֶּה בְשֶׂה וְאִם לֹא תִפְדֶּה וַעֲרַפְתּוֹ כֹּל בְּכוֹר בָּנֶיךָ תִּפְדֶּה וְלֹא יֵרָאוּ פָנַי רֵיקָם
KJ: But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.
BN: And the firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a lamb; and if you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. All the first-born of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.
At first this seems like a strange exception: why, if "everything that opens the womb belongs to me", make an exception for the ass? To which the very simple answer is: have you ever tried to eat ass? Don't - it's tough, stringy... redeem it with a lamb, and then enjoy a first-rate kleftiko, a shish, a schwarma...
But that is simply a facetious answer; the real one lies in Egyptian mythology, and has already been traced through the Egyptian Passover in the opening chapters of this book. The ass, or donkey (they are actually the same animal) is the totem-beast of Set, who rules the Earth through the winter months, but spends the spring, summer and autumn in the underworld, while Osher rules the Earth; in the autumn Set kills Osher (disguised as a boar, which is why the pig is also taboo), who now goes down into the Underworld for several months, leaving Set to rule. The feast of Passover was the celebration of the rebirth of Osher, so the lamb of redemption here is precisely the Paschal Lamb.
But that is simply a facetious answer; the real one lies in Egyptian mythology, and has already been traced through the Egyptian Passover in the opening chapters of this book. The ass, or donkey (they are actually the same animal) is the totem-beast of Set, who rules the Earth through the winter months, but spends the spring, summer and autumn in the underworld, while Osher rules the Earth; in the autumn Set kills Osher (disguised as a boar, which is why the pig is also taboo), who now goes down into the Underworld for several months, leaving Set to rule. The feast of Passover was the celebration of the rebirth of Osher, so the lamb of redemption here is precisely the Paschal Lamb.
But that is the Egyptian, and though it clearly lingered on into the post-slavery traditions of the Habiru, and was one of the many religions of Kena'an for many centuries to follow (King Sha'ul, for example, was a Set worshipper; cf 1 Samuel 9), it became necessary to eliminate it. In part this was achieved by pseudo-historicising Set as the third son of Adam and Chavah (Genesis 4:25); in part it was unachievable anyway, because the mythological tale of Sha'ul and David is essentially a Yisra-Eli version of the tale of Set and Osher, as is that of Eurystheus and Herakles in the Greek, and that of Mordred and Arthur in the Celtic. One other version too, amongst the Phoenician tribes as well as the Kena'ani, that of Adonis - and no coincidence that he too finds a way of being "assimilated" in this text - see verse 23.
Why does the pidyon ha ben suddenly appear now? If this is a Yom Kippur equivalent, can we identify it with the one key aspect of that festival as yet unmentioned: the Azaz-El. Was the Azaz-El originally a first-born son, in which case what happened at Mosheh's birth and immediately before the exodus connects? Are we in fact witnessing here the introduction of the animal surrogate, and this is why the pidyon has to happen, the same redemption by means of a ram-substitute that took place with Yitschak at the Akeda (Genesis 22)? Or is it, at another level, the whole of Yisra-El as YHVH's first-born that is being redeemed? (That latter is for the theologians).
Why does the pidyon ha ben suddenly appear now? If this is a Yom Kippur equivalent, can we identify it with the one key aspect of that festival as yet unmentioned: the Azaz-El. Was the Azaz-El originally a first-born son, in which case what happened at Mosheh's birth and immediately before the exodus connects? Are we in fact witnessing here the introduction of the animal surrogate, and this is why the pidyon has to happen, the same redemption by means of a ram-substitute that took place with Yitschak at the Akeda (Genesis 22)? Or is it, at another level, the whole of Yisra-El as YHVH's first-born that is being redeemed? (That latter is for the theologians).
34:21 SHESHET YAMIM TA'AVOD U VA YOM HA SHEVIY'I TISHBOT BE CHARISH U VA KATSIR TISHBOT
שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תַּעֲבֹד וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי תִּשְׁבֹּת בֶּחָרִישׁ וּבַקָּצִיר תִּשְׁבֹּת
KJ: Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.
BN: For six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.
See my note at Exodus 20:8. The text there spoke of MELA'CHAH (מלאכה), where this uses AVODAH (עבודה), the same word that gives "slavery" throughout this book, and which has caused the Rabbis two millennia of hair-splitting! But this verse confirms my note at 20:8 - the Sabbath was originally intended as a day-off for the workers.
34:22 VE CHAG SHAVU'OT TA'ASEH LECHA BIKUREY KETSIR CHITIM VE CHAG HA ASIPH TEKUPHAT HA SHANAH
וְחַג שָׁבֻעֹת תַּעֲשֶׂה לְךָ בִּכּוּרֵי קְצִיר חִטִּים וְחַג הָאָסִיף תְּקוּפַת הַשָּׁנָה
KJ: And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
BN: And you shall observe the feast of weeks, including the first-fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of in-gathering at the turn of the year.
SHAVU'OT: See the link.
TEKUPHAT HA SHANAH is important for us scholars, because the previous instruction about Passover made clear that it was the beginning of the year; but if it were, then harvest-time is mid-way through the year, and not at its "turn" (תְּקוּפַת הַשָּׁנָה); not even in the Gregorian calendar can it be reckoned as the turning of the year. Therefore this text can only have been written after the new year was moved from Passover in the spring to Rosh Ha Shanah in the autumn, which was at the time of the return from exile in Babylon, around 450 BCE; Sukot, as the Feast of In-Gathering is now known, takes place at the full moon of Tishrey, the month that begins with Rosh Ha Shanah, the revised New Year.
TEKUPHAT HA SHANAH is important for us scholars, because the previous instruction about Passover made clear that it was the beginning of the year; but if it were, then harvest-time is mid-way through the year, and not at its "turn" (תְּקוּפַת הַשָּׁנָה); not even in the Gregorian calendar can it be reckoned as the turning of the year. Therefore this text can only have been written after the new year was moved from Passover in the spring to Rosh Ha Shanah in the autumn, which was at the time of the return from exile in Babylon, around 450 BCE; Sukot, as the Feast of In-Gathering is now known, takes place at the full moon of Tishrey, the month that begins with Rosh Ha Shanah, the revised New Year.
34:23 SHALOSH PE'AMIM BA SHANAH YERA'EH KOL ZECHURCHA ET PENEY HA ADON YHVH ELOHEY YISRA-EL
שָׁלֹשׁ פְּעָמִים בַּשָּׁנָה יֵרָאֶה כָּל זְכוּרְךָ אֶת פְּנֵי הָאָדֹן יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
KJ: Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel.
BN: Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord YHVH, the god of Yisra-El.
But they are living in the wilderness, in the permanent presence of the Mishkan, so this instruction would have been meaningless if it had been given at the time.
This repeats the instruction given in Exodus 23:14 ff, but the appellation ADON YHVH ELOHEY YISRAEL is new. Perhaps more significantly, it is not stated where this appearance should take place: are they expected to come back to Chorev (Horeb), or is it Sinai: are they expected to go to wherever the Mishkan happens to be at that time? Neither here nor anywhere else in the Torah is Yeru-Shala'im specified as the location for a future Temple, nor indeed any other location for such a structure; and yet the description here clearly infers a specific place, and is understood by the later Rabbis to refer to the Temple, all of which confirms that it is therefore a late addition.
This repeats the instruction given in Exodus 23:14 ff, but the appellation ADON YHVH ELOHEY YISRAEL is new. Perhaps more significantly, it is not stated where this appearance should take place: are they expected to come back to Chorev (Horeb), or is it Sinai: are they expected to go to wherever the Mishkan happens to be at that time? Neither here nor anywhere else in the Torah is Yeru-Shala'im specified as the location for a future Temple, nor indeed any other location for such a structure; and yet the description here clearly infers a specific place, and is understood by the later Rabbis to refer to the Temple, all of which confirms that it is therefore a late addition.
ADON: where the word ADON a few verses earlier appeared innocuous enough, simply meaning "lord", now we cannot help but reference the Risen Lord, Adon or Adonis, who is the corn-god, and therefore linked to these three festivals, all of which are agricultural, one a preparation of the fields by removing the stubble of the previous year, the other two harvests. It is reasonable to deduce that later on the cult of the Beney Yisra-El absorbed the cult of the Risen Lord into itself, as it did all cults that it could not entirely expunge; though clearly it was unsuccessful, as the cult re-emerged almost immediately after the fall of the Temple and of Judea in 70 CE, now known as Christianity.
34:24 KI ORISH GOYIM MIPANEYCHA VE HIRCHAVTI ET GEVULECHA VE LO YACHMOD ISH ET ARTSECHA BA ALOT'CHA LERA'OT ET PENEY YHVH ELOHEYCHA SHALOSH PE'AMIM BA SHANAH
כִּי אוֹרִישׁ גּוֹיִם מִפָּנֶיךָ וְהִרְחַבְתִּי אֶת גְּבֻלֶךָ וְלֹא יַחְמֹד אִישׁ אֶת אַרְצְךָ בַּעֲלֹתְךָ לֵרָאוֹת אֶת פְּנֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ שָׁלֹשׁ פְּעָמִים בַּשָּׁנָה
KJ: For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year.
BN: For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; nor shall any man covet your land, when you go up to appear before YHVH your god three times in the year.
LO YACHMOD: needs explaining. Translating it as "covet" causes a problem, because it implies an allusion to several commandments against that; but the verb here is different. In Exodus 20:4 YHVH describes himself as "a jealous god - אֵל קַנָּא - EL KANA", and, as per my note there, this is an accurate translation: we are jealous of what we ourselves have, not wanting to lose it to others; others are envious of what we have, wanting it for themselves. So YHVH has the status of Number One deity, and wants to keep it. And the root-word for envy is? You probably guessed it already. CHAMAD (חמד), the root used here: something that we desire, something that we hold dear - whence the English word "dearling", which evolved to become "darling".
All of which allows us to conclude that "covet" is in fact a perfect choice of vocabulary by the translator; though still problematic, for the reason given.
BA ALOT'CHA: What connection can there possibly be between the previous verse and this one? In one, the celebration of the Sheloshat Regalim, the three Pilgrim Festivals; in the other, a statement of empire. The intention of this would become rather prescient in October 1973 - no one will try to conquer your land while you are in shul celebrating Yom Kippur, rather than at your military base.
34:25 LO TISHCHAT AL CHAMETS DA ZIVCHI VE LO YALIN LA BOKER ZEVACH CHAG HA PESACH
לֹא תִשְׁחַט עַל חָמֵץ דַּם זִבְחִי וְלֹא יָלִין לַבֹּקֶר זֶבַח חַג הַפָּסַח
KJ: Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.
BN: You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of Pesach be left until the morning.
Really this belongs with the Passover ordinances in verse 18. But note that there it was called CHAG HA MATSOT, and here CHAG HA PESACH. Were the two once different festivals? And if so, which came first? And which fell when? Was it called PESACH on the previous occasion it was introduced?
Injunctions against doing something do not happen in a vacuum; but only because the practice exists, and there is a decision to disallow it. What then was this particular practice? Offering the blood of sacrifice with leavened bread is easy - we are dealing with the eucharist, the communion wine and bread of every Mass and Kiddush. But this business of leaving overnight. It was specifically mentioned in the flight from Egypt as well. It isn't as if the matzah will go mouldy overnight, so there has to be a better explanation.
34:26 RESHIT BIKUREY ADMAT'CHA TAVI BEIT YHVH ELOHEYCHA LO TEVASHEL GEDI BA CHALAV IMO
רֵאשִׁית בִּכּוּרֵי אַדְמָתְךָ תָּבִיא בֵּית יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לֹא תְבַשֵּׁל גְּדִי בַּחֲלֵב אִמּוֹ
KJ: The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.
BN: You shall bring the choicest first-fruits of your land to the house of YHVH your god. You shall not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.
Two commandments are given here in the same verse, and in the Yehudit, of course, with no punctuation.
a) RESHIT: as so often, we can read settled farming in this; therefore later text. The same for Beit YHVH - the Mishkan is not a Beit YHVH; only a wayside shrine, or the Temple itself, could claim that description.
b) in mid-sentence this switches to another practice being outlawed - or actually a repetition of one already given; see Exodus 23:19 - and then go through that chapter as a whole, and compare it with this one; once again we need to check: how far is this a re-issuing of the same laws, but on a replacement set of tablets, and how far are these an amended set of laws?
As noted then, for those Jews today who do not mix milk with meat: this is the law, that you may not cook the infant in its mother's milk; it does not proscribe mixing milk with meat.
Many of the laws though are proscriptive, and we can learn much contemporary sociology and so forth from them.
pey break; end of fragment 6
34:27 VA YOMER YHVH EL MOSHEH KETAV LECHA ET HA DEVARIM HA ELEH KI AL PI HA DEVARIM HA ELEH KARATI IT'CHA BERIT VE ET YISRA-EL
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה כְּתָב לְךָ אֶת הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה כִּי עַל פִּי הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה כָּרַתִּי אִתְּךָ בְּרִית וְאֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל
KJ: And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.
BN: Then YHVH said to Mosheh: "Write down these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Yisra-El."
Yet we were told earlier (Exodus 31:18) that the previous set of laws were written by the finger of Elohim, not of Mosheh. Does this version therefore carry less weight? Can we assume that this was the original, and the entire "finger of Elohim" version a later addition? And anyway, if all that was needed was a replica copy, couldn't YHVH just miraculously gather up the pieces and reconstitute them?
AL PI HA DEVARIM: Hitting the nail of this translation dead on its head is somewhat important, but also extremely difficult. "From the mouth of the word" would be literal, but obviously an idiom, and idioms are never terribly precise, and often not terribly helpful, as my opening statement here illustrates. Does "tenor" capture it. I think not, but I can't figure a way that gets closer, so I'm going with King James on this one. What it wants to say is: take my instructions literally. Which is all very well, and Rabbi Akiva in his contributions to Mishnah always tried to employ that principle; but it was generally beyond him, because idioms may be imprecise, but individual words are always ambivalent, if not tribivalent or even quadribivalent; Rabbi Joshua's responses invariably took the most liberal line, not so much to annoy or provoke Rabbi Akiva as to provide a Mitnaged to his Chasid, a Shammai to his Hillel, a Reform response to his Orthodox one. So it always is in Judaism, at least, al pi ha devarim, according to the tenor of the words.
34:28 VA YEHI SHAM IM YHVH ARBA'IM YOM VE ARBA'IM LAILAH LECHEM LO ACHAL U MAYIM LO SHATAH VA YICHTOV AL HA LUCHOT ET DIVREY HA BRIT ASERET HA DEVARIM
וַיְהִי שָׁם עִם יְהוָה אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם וְאַרְבָּעִים לַיְלָה לֶחֶם לֹא אָכַל וּמַיִם לֹא שָׁתָה וַיִּכְתֹּב עַל הַלֻּחֹת אֵת דִּבְרֵי הַבְּרִית עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים
KJ: And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
BN: And he was there with YHVH forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread, nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
The length of a Nazirite period, or a Khalwa in the Sufi faith, which is an interesting coincidence in the circumstance; see my note to Exodus 33:7, with which this Khalwa should not be mistaken. The Khalwa in the Sufi faith is a forty-day period of fasting and meditation, also known as a Chilla (I wonder if that is where the slang expression "to chill out" has its roots?) We are left to puzzle over how it could have taken forty days to write the Ten Commandments, especially as they had already been given once. I have, during my years in education, had primary school kids write them out, best handwriting and be creative, then colour them in, illustrate the page, and still finish in well under an hour.
The remainder of the 613 Mitzvot, it should not be forgotten, were passed on as oral law, or arrived at by deducation, around a thousand years later.
The remainder of the 613 Mitzvot, it should not be forgotten, were passed on as oral law, or arrived at by deducation, around a thousand years later.
We also need to ask - scientifically rather than mystically - how he survived through these forty days and nights, if the story is as given: a man, alone, on a mountain-top, with neither food nor drink - can a man survive that long, in that desert, and in the summer too if the chronology is to be believed (third month or shortly after since the exodus in spring, so we are talking about the hottest time of the year, when temperatures can easily reach 50C. This is not a problem if we accept the alternative version, that there was a mountain shrine, inhabited all the year round by the priestess and her entourage, something in the manner of a mediaeval monastery; but the point is: he rejected their hospitality anyway.
Which leads me to ask: why do some impossible events get counted as "miracles" (the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, etc), while others just as impossible are simply mentioned, almost as matter-of-fact - click here for the biology of this. (Or perhaps the statement that he drank no water and ate no bread is just a way of getting round the fact that he lived on coffee and digestive biscuits, just like me).
In the first version, YHVH needed forty days to write not just the Ten Commandments, but seven chapters of Mishkan description as well, down to the design of the handles and the belt of the priestly garments: a contemporary design committee could never have done that any quicker. But if Mosheh only wrote the Ten Commandments, and those Mishkan instructions were on the tablets that he threw down, did he never deliver any of those seven chapters, since they are not in this version, and we have not heard him communicate them orally? In which case: do they not apply, because YHVH withdrew them? And if either YHVH or Mosheh did write all the commandments down, it would have taken a lot more than just these tablets. And did Mosheh, like Elohim, write on both sides, or just the face (last time it was both sides - Exodus 32:15)? The story simply does not work - again!
Note the word DEVARIM for the commandments. If we take it literally, it should mean he wrote only ten words. If we translate it exactly, we would have "The Ten Things", which doesn't quite have the same resonance as "The Ten Commandments" but is still significant- go back and look at the multitude of notes on DAVAR and DEVER and DEVORAH and VA YEDABER in both Genesis and Exodus.
34:29 VA YEHI BE REDET MOSHEH ME HAR SINAI U SHENEY LUCHOT HA EDUT BE YAD MOSHEH BE RIDETO MIN HA HAR U MOSHEH LO YADA KI KARAN OR PANAV BE DABRO ITO
וַיְהִי בְּרֶדֶת מֹשֶׁה מֵהַר סִינַי וּשְׁנֵי לֻחֹת הָעֵדֻת בְּיַד מֹשֶׁה בְּרִדְתּוֹ מִן הָהָר וּמֹשֶׁה לֹא יָדַע כִּי קָרַן עוֹר פָּנָיו בְּדַבְּרוֹ אִתּוֹ
KJ: And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.
BN: And it came to pass, when Mosheh came down from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Mosheh's hands, when he came down from the mountain, that Mosheh did not know that the flesh on his face was radiating beams of light from talking with him.
The translation here is literal and accurate. The apparent oddities, especially the repetitions of Mosheh's name, are in the original Yehudit; and perhaps the repetitions are intended to show the swelling of Mosheh's ego with pride: poetical light added to the horns?
KARAN OR PANAV: Whole volumes could be written about this phrase (whole volumes have been written about this phrase), and its impact on European history through the Middle Ages, when the Tanach first reached a Europe rife with anti-Semitism and literally bedevilled by concepts of the Satanic. The root word KARAN (קרן) leads to KEREN = "a horn", as in the ram's horn used for the Shofar, or the ones depicted on the sides of Satan's head: in the latter case, generally a goat; but horns are horns.The phrase is normally translated as "beams", implying "beams of light" - but KARAN actually does mean "horns". So Mosheh has horns, just like the Devil! KARAN OR - "horns of light" - indeed (see verse 35): a glow, a radiance, an aureole, even a halo. Hor is always depicted with horns - being the bull-god, how could he not be? But anti-Semitism will have its preferred definition. In Michelangelo's version (see illustration) they protrude from his very temples, far too central to be properly bestial - or maybe a goat but not a bull - but at least they manage to convey the idea of two crescent moons, which would have offered an additional alert to the mediaeval Christian: not just Satanic horns on the patriarchal Jew, but symbols of the Infidel Musselman into the bargain! Throughout the Middle Ages Jews were depicted with these horns, usually with a forked tail added, just in case you didn't get the first message.
The verb KARAN does indeed mean "horned", but it was the crescent moons that the text was really intending, the crescent moons that illuminate the darkness with their beams of light. "Mosheh's face was radiant" is how we would express it today. And don't forget, Mosheh in his priestly role, Mosheh who grew up in the Egyptian court, would have been part of a tradition in which every priest to every god and goddess wore a horned mask as part of their ritual costume (click here, and then here - the one of Anubis half-way down the link here might have been Michelangelo's studio model)
HOWEVER - see my notes to verse 33, below; which may actually undermine entirely this now-traditional understanding (mis-understanding?) of the real meaning of the horns.
I can't say, however, that I am surprised if Mosheh's face was irridescent, whether with beams of light or otherwise; with 40º at least of Celsius, and forty days of very close proximity to an erupting volcano, and forty days of ascetic abstinence as well, what else should the skin on his face be but irridescent?
34:30 VA YAR AHARON VE CHOL BENEY YISRA-EL ET MOSHEH VE HINEH KARAN OR PANAV VA YIYR'U MI GESHET ELAV
וַיַּרְא אַהֲרֹן וְכָל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת מֹשֶׁה וְהִנֵּה קָרַן עוֹר פָּנָיו וַיִּירְאוּ מִגֶּשֶׁת אֵלָיו
KJ: And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.
BN: And when Aharon and all the Beney Yisra-El saw Mosheh, behold, the skin of his face radiated light; and they were afraid to come near him.
34:31 VA YIKRA ALEYHEM MOSHEH VA YASHUVU ELAV AHARON VE CHOL HA NESI'IM BA EDAH VA YEDABER MOSHEH AL'EHEM
וַיִּקְרָא אֲלֵהֶם מֹשֶׁה וַיָּשֻׁבוּ אֵלָיו אַהֲרֹן וְכָל הַנְּשִׂאִים בָּעֵדָה וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה אֲלֵהֶם
KJ: And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them.
BN: But Mosheh summoned them; and Aharon and all the rulers of the congregation went back to him; and Mosheh spoke to them.
The word EDAH comes up again; see the earlier notes on the distinction being made between ADUT YISRA-EL and AM YISRA-EL (Exodus 16:34 and others); now we have the LUCHOT HA EDAH of v29, and here again.
On the previous occasion, when he was away for forty days and nights (Exodus 32:1), they assumed him dead and built the Golden Calf; no such concerns apparently this time.
NESI: no longer ZEKENIM but now NESI'IM = "princes"; which implies yet a third tribal structure. The root is NASA (נשא) which really means "lifted up", not in the poetic sense of "exalted", but in the more mundane sense of lifting up an object, or one's head. The idea then extends into "princedom" as an exalted office, a person who has been "lifted up" above the common people, perhaps also a person who has bowed his head to be anointed in his office, and then lifted his head up again in order to go forth and perform it. NASI is usually translated as "prince", but this is mis-leading, because the tribal structure of the Beney Yisra-El was not aristocratic versus plebian in a way that can be compared with those in which we use the word "prince" today: an appointed elder, a military officer, even a Levite, might have been a Nasi back then.
34:32 VE ACHAREY CHEN NIGSHU KOL BENEY YISRA-EL VA YETSAVEM ET KOL ASHER DIBER YHVH ITO BE HAR SINAI
וְאַחֲרֵי כֵן נִגְּשׁוּ כָּל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיְצַוֵּם אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה אִתּוֹ בְּהַר סִינָי
KJ: And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him in mount Sinai.
BN: And afterwards all the Beney Yisra-El came near, and he gave instruct to them concerning everything that YHVH had discussed with him on Mount Sinai.
KOL BENEY YISRA-EL: Is highly improbable, given their numbers. Their NASI'IM anyway, their"princes".
YETSAVEM: Having presumably overcome the "fear" described in verse 30.
ASHER DIBER YHVH: Is my translation of "DIBER" as "discussed" a trifle generous? Discuss.
One last thought:again we are told that he has spent these forty days on Mount Sinai, where the previous account was on Mount Chorev; can we draw the conclusion that there were two versions of the same tale, differently located, and this the Ezraic attempt to merge them? It has happened so often, to so many of the tales, we have to start thinking it was the norm.
end of 6; maphtir
34:33 VA YECHAL MOSHEH MI DABER ITAM VA YITEN AL PANAV MASVEH
וַיְכַל מֹשֶׁה מִדַּבֵּר אִתָּם וַיִּתֵּן עַל פָּנָיו מַסְוֶה
KJ: And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a vail on his face.
BN: And when Moshe had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.
MASVEH: why a veil? Was this also a case of sunburn? Or do we at last have an answer to an earlier question, posed when Aharon and the Kohanim were being given their formal clothing: why does Mosheh not have formal clothing of his own? And now, indeed, he does.
Or does he? Following on from my note to KARAN at verse 29, the problem here is that this is the one and only usage in the Tanach of a word that is not Yehudit - a fact we can recognise in part from the root, which is either a very unusual four-letter root ending with the feminine Hey (ה) or a three-letter ending with an even more unusual Vav (ו) rather than a Bet (ב); in part from the Samech (ס) rather than the Seen (ש) which is its middle letter: the Samech is always used for foreign words. Just to make it more complex, the only other known use of the word is in the Gemara, a very late (circa 375 CE) section of the Talmud which provides commentary on the Mishnah, that section of the Talmud which provides commentary on the Tanach itself. This does not impact on the biblical text, but is significant because it is from the Gemara that the word entered modern Ivrit (Hebrew), where a MASVEH generally means a "veil" in the sense of a "mask" or a "disguise", which leads to the question: was Mosheh in fact, like the ancient shamans and the priests of Egypt, wearing a totem-mask when he spoke on YHVH's behalf before the people? The answer is, again as per my note to KARAN: most probably, yes. And then - take a look at the illustration, which shows an Egyptian priest wearing the conventional Mask of Anubis - do you see those Michelangelan horns?"Veil" is normally rendered in Yehudit as TSA'IF (צָעִיף), or MESUCHAH (מסוכה), which is also used for a hedge because the root conveys the idea of something being "closed about" - see my note to Exodus 32:4.
34:34 U VE VO MOSHEH LIPHNEY YHVH LEDABER ITO YASIR ET HA MASVEH AD TS'ETO VA YATSA VE DIBER EL BENEY YISRA-EL ET ASHER YETSUVEH
וּבְבֹא מֹשֶׁה לִפְנֵי יְהוָה לְדַבֵּר אִתּוֹ יָסִיר אֶת הַמַּסְוֶה עַד צֵאתוֹ וְיָצָא וְדִבֶּר אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֵת אֲשֶׁר יְצֻוֶּה
KJ: But when Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he took the vail off, until he came out. And he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded.
BN: But when Mosheh went in before YHVH that he might speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and he came out; and spoke to the Beney Yisra-El whatever he was instructed.
Because of course he didn't need to be masked when with YHVH.
34:35 VE RA'U VENEY YISRA-EL ET PENEY MOSHEH KI KARAN OR PENEY MOSHEH VE HESHIV MOSHEH ET HA MASVEH AL PANAV AD BO'O LEDABER ITO
וְרָאוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת פְּנֵי מֹשֶׁה כִּי קָרַן עוֹר פְּנֵי מֹשֶׁה וְהֵשִׁיב מֹשֶׁה אֶת הַמַּסְוֶה עַל פָּנָיו עַד בֹּאוֹ לְדַבֵּר אִתּוֹ
KJ: And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone: and Moses put the vail upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
BN: And the Beney Yisra-El saw the face of Mosheh, that the skin of Mosheh's face sent forth beams; and Mosheh put the veil back on his face, until he went in to speak with him.
This feels like one of those Midrash the Rabbis like to make up as a way of answering a parishioner's question to which they don't really have an answer, but feel they have to have one. Perhaps, on this occasion, a need to explain away the mask and replace it with something more doctrinally acceptable. Possibly just an explanation of the impact on the skin of wearing that mask in such hot weather. But, if Mosheh was indeed taking his Egyptian people, in his priestly capacity, on pilgrimage to the holy mountain of his people, to reaffirm the Egyptian covenant with their ancient gods - then he would indeed have dressed like an Egyptian priest, including the horned mask.
end of sedra KI TISA
Exodus: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13a 13b 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30a 30b 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38a 38b 39 40
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