Sunday Sermonette: Which Ten Commandments?

What happens in Exodus 34 is very strange indeed. You may remember that Moses broke the tablets with the Ten Commandments because he was pissed off about the golden calf and all that. So God calls him back up the mountain to get a new set. Only -- they're completely different.

34 The Lord said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you broke. ² Be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me, on the top of the mountain. ³ No one shall come up with you, and do not let anyone be seen throughout all the mountain; and do not let flocks or herds graze in front of that mountain.” ⁴ So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the former ones; and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone. ⁵ The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name, “The Lord.”^{[a] 6} The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed,

“The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
⁷ keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,^[b]
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.”

This is, obviously, moral idiocy. But we already know that God is one nasty SOB.

⁸ And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped. ⁹ He said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

¹⁰ He said: I hereby make a covenant. Before all your people I will perform marvels, such as have not been performed in all the earth or in any nation; and all the people among whom you live shall see the work of the Lord; for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.

I will now enumerate the Ten Commandments. My emendation is in  Bold.

¹¹ Observe what I command you today. See, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ¹² 

1 Take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, or it will become a snare among you. ¹³ You shall tear down their altars, break their pillars, and cut down their sacred poles^{[c] 14} (for you shall worship no other god, because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God). ¹⁵ You shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods, someone among them will invite you, and you will eat of the sacrifice. ¹⁶ And you will take wives from among their daughters for your sons, and their daughters who prostitute themselves to their gods will make your sons also prostitute themselves to their gods.
¹⁷ 2You shall not make cast idols.
¹⁸  3You shall keep the festival of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.
¹⁹  4All that first opens the womb is mine, all your male^[d] livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. ²⁰ The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem.
No one shall appear before me empty-handed.
²¹ 5Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in plowing time and in harvest time you shall rest. ²² You shall observe the festival of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the festival of ingathering at the turn of the year. ²³ 6Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. ²⁴ For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
²⁵ 7You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, 8and the sacrifice of the festival of the passover shall not be left until the morning.
²⁶ 9The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.
10You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
²⁷ The Lord said to Moses: Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. ²⁸ He was there with the Lord 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.^[e]

It's actually fine with me if Roy Moore wants to display these in the courthouse.

²⁹ Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant^[f] in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. ³⁰ When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. ³¹ But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. ³² Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. ³³ When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; ³⁴ but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, ³⁵ the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

Footnotes:

1. Exodus 34:5 Heb YHWH; see note at 3.15
2. Exodus 34:7 Or for thousands
3. Exodus 34:13 Heb Asherim
4. Exodus 34:19 Gk Theodotion Vg Tg: Meaning of Heb uncertain
5. Exodus 34:28 Heb words
6. Exodus 34:29 Or treaty, or testimony; Heb eduth