Facts

People: Moses, God

Place: Mount Sinai

When: After Moses breaks the tablets, during the day

What: God is telling Moses to make new tablets

Ideas

“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,keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, 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’ “.

Author: Wanted to show God’s mercy? Show how God is a God of love? Make an attempt to paint a picture of God?

Ideas: God knows what it is to feel as a human does. God feels love and anger and forgiveness.

Wording: “Steadfast Love” appears a few times, maybe it was meant to show God’s patience and determination? The word “abounding” gives an image of exploding with love.  The use of steadfast and abounding seems to create a kind of dichotomy between themselves.

Symbols: Tablets, like a solidified word of God, literally set in stone.