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.
Parallel translations
- WEB He 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.
- BSB So Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.
- NKJV So 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.
- NASB So he was there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
- NLT Moses remained there on the mountain with the Lord forty days and forty nights. In all that time he ate no bread and drank no water. And the Lord wrote the terms of the covenant—the Ten Commandments—on the stone tablets.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Moses spends forty days and nights with the LORD without food or water, and the Ten Commandments are written on the tablets.
Overview
Moses' second forty-day stay on Sinai, sustained miraculously, parallels the first and marks the full restoration of the covenant after the calf. The Ten Commandments are again inscribed on tablets as the covenant's foundation. The text says 'He wrote,' which most take as God Himself writing (cf. 34:1), affirming the divine origin of the Law that Christ came to fulfill (Matthew 5:17).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Exod 34:1And 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.
- Deut 9:18And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
- Deut 4:13And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.
- Deut 9:25Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
- Exod 24:18And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.
- Exod 32:16And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.
- Exod 31:18And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
- 2 Cor 3:7But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
- Deut 9:9When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:
- Deut 10:2–4And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.
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Christ at the center
The Passover lamb whose blood turns away death, the exodus through the sea, the manna, the rock, and the tabernacle where God dwells with his people all foreshadow Jesus — our Passover, our redemption, the bread from heaven, and God-with-us in the flesh.
How Exodus 34:28 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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