1Yahweh said to Moses, “Chisel two stone tablets like the first. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. 3No one shall come up with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain. Do not let the flocks or herds graze in front of that mountain.”
4He chiseled two tablets of stone like the first; then Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up to Mount Sinai, as Yahweh had commanded him, and took in his hand two stone tablets. 5Yahweh descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed Yahweh’s name. 6Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, “Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth, 7keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the children’s children, on the third and on the fourth generation.”
8Moses hurried and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped. 9He said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, Lord, please let the Lord go among us, even though this is a stiff-necked people; pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”
10He said, “Behold, I make a covenant: before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been worked in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of Yahweh; for it is an awesome thing that I do with you. 11Observe that which I command you today. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 12Be careful, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare among you; 13but you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherah poles; 14for you shall worship no other god; for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
15“Don’t make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they play the prostitute after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one call you and you eat of his sacrifice; 16and you take of their daughters to your sons, and their daughters play the prostitute after their gods, and make your sons play the prostitute after their gods.
17“You shall make no cast idols for yourselves.
18“You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib; for in the month Abib you came out of Egypt.
19“All that opens the womb is mine; and all your livestock that is male, the firstborn of cow and sheep. 20You shall redeem the firstborn of a donkey with a lamb. If you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. You shall redeem all the firstborn of your sons. No one shall appear before me empty.
21“Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest: in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.
22“You shall observe the feast of weeks with the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of harvest at the year’s end. 23Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel. 24For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither shall any man desire your land when you go up to appear before Yahweh, your God, three times in the year.
25“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread. The sacrifice of the feast of the Passover shall not be left to the morning.
26“You shall bring the first of the first fruits of your ground to the house of Yahweh your God.
“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
27Yahweh said to Moses, “Write these words; for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
28He was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread, nor drank water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
29When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mountain, Moses didn’t know that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him. 30When Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come near him. 31Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him; and Moses spoke to them. 32Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them all the commandments that Yahweh had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33When Moses was done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. 34But when Moses went in before Yahweh to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and he came out, and spoke to the children of Israel that which he was commanded. 35The children of Israel saw Moses’ face, that the skin of Moses’ face shone; so Moses put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
The Mosaic Covenant followed the form of the fourteenth/thirteenth century B.C. Hittite International Treaties. This is not unexpected since Moses was educated as a prince of Egypt, so he would have been taught the matters of the military, law, and international diplomacy, among other subjects. With information on the Hittite treaty form and reading Exodus 19-25, we may understand better several elements within these chapters, as well as the remainder of the books of Moses.
In the words of Professor Kenneth Kitchen, an ancient Near Eastern historian and Egyptologist:
"Sometimes some elements are omitted, but the order of them is almost invariable, whenever the original texts are sufficiently well preserved to be analyzed. This is, therefore, a stable form in the period concerned." Ancient Orient and Old Testament, p. 93.
Let us examine the breakdown of the international treaty along with the Mosaic account:
1. The Date: "third month after the children of Israel had gone out of Egypt, on that same day when they came into the wilderness of Sinai." (Exod 19:1-2)
2. Geographical Setting and Activity of the King (the Suzerain): "the wilderness of Sinai . . . before the mountain." (Exod 19:1 -2)
3. Mediator of the Covenant (title, activity, and message of the Suzerain) (Exod 19:4-25)
a. The Mediator: Moses and his activity (Exod 19:3)
b. The message of the Suzerain: Israel will be His people if they pay attention to His words, and keep His covenant (Exod 19:4-25)
(1) God's intent to make the covenant (Exod 19:4-6)
(2) Israel's response to God's words: "All that Yahweh has spoken we will do." (Exod 19:7-8)
(3) Moses repeats to the people of Israel the response of Yahweh and His instructions on how to prepare for the reception of the covenant (Exod 19:9-15)
(4) The reception of the covenant (Exod 19:16-25)
The covenant is first given in Exodus 20-31, and then broken in Exodus 32-33, but immediately renewed in Exodus 34 (compare Deuteronomy and Joshua 24).
1. The Preamble: The purpose of the Preamble is to identify the Suzerain (the great King), who is the creator of the covenant that gives it to the vassals. The focus is on the majesty and power of the king (Exod 20:1; Deut 1:1-5; Josh 24:1-2a).
2. The Historical Prologue: The Historical Prologue rehearses the past relationship between the Suzerain and the vassal, recounting the benevolent deeds the great King has already performed on the vassal’s behalf. By grounding the covenant in this history of grace, it calls the vassal to obey out of gratitude rather than mere obligation. In the Mosaic covenant this appears in the reminder, “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Exod 20:2; Deut 1:6-3:29; Josh 24:2b-13).
I have relied on the class notes of Professor Ralph Alexander, Western Seminary, 1973-1974; Kenneth A. Kitchen, Ancient Orient and Old Testament, pp. 90-102; Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King; George E. Mendenhall, "Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East," Biblical Archaeologist, 17:2-3 (1951); and Cleon L. Rogers, "The Covenant with Moses and Its Historical Setting," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 14:3 (Summer, 1971), pp. 141-155.