Exodus 34:18 - Meaning and Application

This is a repeat of several commands given earlier, especially the ones about their sacred feasts. When they made the calf, they even declared a feast in its honor. Now, so they would never do that again, God commands them to keep the feasts he had appointed. People do not need to be pulled away from religion by the lure of pleasure, because we serve a Master who has richly provided for the joy of his servants. True godliness is a continual feast, and joy in God is always available.

Once a week they were to rest (Exodus 34:21), even during plowing time and harvest, the busiest seasons of the year. All ordinary work had to give way to that holy rest. Harvest work would actually go better when they honored the Sabbath in harvest time. In this way, they were to show that they valued their communion with God and their duty to him above both the work and the joy of the harvest.

Three times a year they were to celebrate feasts (Exodus 34:23). At those times they were to appear before the Lord, the God of Israel. In all our worship, we should see God as the Lord God, infinitely blessed, great, and glorious, so we worship him with reverence and holy fear. We should also see him as the God of Israel, a God bound to us in covenant, so we are encouraged to trust him and serve him gladly. We are always in God’s presence, but in holy duties we present ourselves before him as servants ready to receive orders, and as petitioners asking for mercy. We have good reason to do both with joy.

Someone might object that if all the men from every part of the land went up to worship where God chose, the country would be left open to attack. What would happen to the women, children, and the weak, who stayed at home? God says they should trust him with them (Exodus 34:24): “No one will desire your land.” That means not only that no one will invade it, but that no one will even want to invade it. All hearts are in God’s hand, under his control. He can restrain not only what people do, but even what they want to do. Canaan was a desirable land, and the nations around them were greedy enough, yet God says, “They will not desire it.” We should also resist sinful desires in our own hearts against God and his glory, and then trust him to restrain sinful desires in others against us and what belongs to us.

The way of duty is the way of safety. If we serve God, he will preserve us, and those who risk themselves for him will never lose by him. While we are busy in God’s work and attending on him, we come under his special protection.

The three feasts are listed here with related laws. First is the Passover, with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, in memory of their deliverance from Egypt. Attached to this is the law about redeeming the firstborn, from Exodus 34:18-20. This feast was first given in Exodus 12:13 and repeated in Exodus 23:15. Second is the Feast of Weeks, that is, Pentecost, seven weeks after the Passover. To this is attached the law of the firstfruits. Third is the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end, which was the Feast of Tabernacles (Exodus 34:22). This had also been mentioned before, in Exodus 23:16.

As for the laws repeated here (Exodus 34:25, Exodus 34:26), the rule against leaven belongs to the Passover, and the rule about the firstfruits belongs to Pentecost. The command not to boil a young goat in its mother’s milk most likely belongs to the Feast of Ingathering. God did not want them to use a superstitious practice they probably had seen among the Egyptians, or among some of the neighboring nations, to bless their harvests.

With these laws repeated here, it is likely that everything God had said to Moses before on the mountain was repeated as well, and that the pattern of the tabernacle was shown to him again. This may have been because the shock and trouble caused by the golden calf might have shaken his memory of what he had seen and heard. It was also a sign of full reconciliation, and a reminder that not one part of the law would fail, but all of it would be carefully preserved by the great Mediator, Jesus Christ, who came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17, Matthew 5:18).

At the end, Moses is told to write these words (Exodus 34:27), so the people could know them better by reading them often, and so they could be passed on to future generations. We can never be thankful enough to God for his written word. He is also told that God would make a covenant with Moses and Israel according to these words, not with Israel directly, but with them in Moses, their mediator, a go-between who represented them. In the same way, the covenant of grace is made with believers through Christ, who is given as a covenant for the people (Isaiah 49:8). And just as the covenant here was made according to the command, so it is still. Through baptism we are brought into covenant so that we may be taught to obey everything Christ has commanded us (Matthew 28:19, Matthew 28:20).