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LXX Exodus

Septuagint

About this book
Chapter 34

1 And the Lord said to Moses, Hew for yourself two tables of stone, as also the first were, and come up to me to the mountain; and I will write upon the tables the words, which were on the first tables, which you broke. 2 And be ready by the morning, and you shall go up to the mount Sinai, and shall stand there for me on the top of the mountain. 3 And let no one go up with you, nor be seen in all the mountain; and let not the sheep and oxen feed near that mountain. 4 And Moses hewed two tables of stone, as also the first were; and Moses having arisen early, went up to the mount Sinai, as the Lord appointed him; and Moses took the two tables of stone. 5 And the Lord descended in a cloud, and stood near him there, and called by the name of the Lord. 6 And the Lord passed by before his face, and proclaimed, The Lord God, full of pity and merciful, longsuffering and very compassionate, and true, 7 and keeping justice and mercy for thousands, taking away iniquity, and unrighteousness, and sins; and he will not clear the guilty; bringing the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and to the children's children, to the third and fourth generation. 8 And Moses made haste, and bowed to the earth and worshiped; 9 and said, If I have found grace before you, let my Lord go with us; for the people are stiff-necked: and you shall take away our sins and our iniquities, and we will be yours. 10 And the Lord said to Moses, Look, I establish a covenant for you in the presence of all your people; I will do glorious things, which have not been done in all the earth, or in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the works of the Lord, that they are wonderful, which I will do for you. 11 Take heed to all things whatever I command you: look, I cast out before your face the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and Hivite, and Girgashite and Jebusite: 12 take heed to yourself, for fear that at any time you make a covenant with the dwellers on the land, into which you are entering, for fear that it might be to you a stumbling block among you. 13 You shall destroy their altars, and break in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their groves, and the carved images of their gods you shall burn with fire. 14 For you shall not worship another god, for the Lord God, a jealous name, is a jealous God; 15 for fear that at any time you make a covenant with the dwellers among the foreigners on the land, and they prostitute themselves by pursuing their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and they call you, and you should eat of their feasts, 16 and you should take of their daughters to your sons, and you should give of your daughters to their sons; and your daughters should prostitute themselves by pursuing their gods, and cause your sons to prostitute themselves by pursuing their gods. 17 And you shall not make to yourself molten gods. 18 And you shall keep the feast of unleavened bread: seven days you will eat unleavened bread, as I have charged you, at the season in the month of new grain; for in the month of new grain you came out from Egypt. 19 The males are mine, everything that opens the womb; every firstborn of oxen, and every firstborn of sheep. 20 And the firstborn of an donkey you shall redeem with a sheep, and if you will not redeem it you shall pay a price: every firstborn of your sons you will redeem: you shall not appear before me empty. 21 Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest: there shall be rest in seed time and harvest. 22 And you shall keep to me the feast of weeks, the beginning of wheat harvest; and the feast of ingathering in the middle of the year. 23 Three times in the year shall every male of yours appear before the Lord the God of Israel. 24 For when I shall have cast out the nations before your face, and shall have enlarged your borders, no one shall desire your land, whenever you may go up to appear before the Lord your God, three times in the year. 25 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifices with leaven, neither shall the sacrifices of the feast of the passover remain till the morning. 26 The first fruits of your land you will put into the house of the Lord your God: you shall not offer a lamb in his mother's milk. 27 And the Lord said to Moses, Write these words for yourself, for on these words I have established a covenant with you and with Israel. 28 And Moses was there before the Lord forty days, and forty nights; he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water; and he wrote upon the tables these words of the covenant, the ten sayings. 29 And when Moses went down from the mountain, there were the two tables in the hands of Moses; and as he went down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the appearance of the skin of his face was glorified,⁠ when God spoke to him. 30 And Aaron and all the elders of Israel saw Moses, and the appearance of the skin of his face was made glorious, and they feared to approach him. 31 And Moses called them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the synagogue turned toward him, and Moses spoke to them. 32 And afterwards all the children of Israel came to him, and he commanded them all things, whatever the Lord had spoken to him in the mount of Sinai. 33 And when he ceased speaking to them, he put a veil on his face. 34 And whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak to him, he took off the veil till he went out, and he went forth and spoke to all the children of Israel whatever the Lord commanded him. 35 And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that it was glorified; and Moses put the veil over his face, till he went in to speak with him.

Texts in conversation

Compare Exodus 34:29 and LXX Exodus 34:29

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

Exodus 34 uses the Hebrew word "qaran," which could mean "shine" or "was horned," to describe Moses' face after meeting God. The Greek Septuagint translates this as "was glorified," connecting Moses' appearance to the divine glory.

Passages

Exodus 34:29

Hebrew Bible
29 Now when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand—when he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. 30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to approach him.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

LXX Exodus 34:29

Septuagint
29 And when Moses went down from the mountain, there were the two tables in the hands of Moses; and as he went down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the appearance of the skin of his face was glorified, when God spoke to him. 30 And Aaron and all the elders of Israel saw Moses, and the appearance of the skin of his face was made glorious, and they feared to approach him.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Exodus

References

"... The LXX has δεδόξασται ἡ τοῦ χρώματος τοῦ προσώπου αὐτοῦ ("the appearance of the color of his face was glorified"), with the choice of δοξάζω as a reference to the "glory" (δόξα) that Moses requested from Yhwh in 33:18 and which passed before Moses in 34:6. The idea is clearly radiant glory. ..."
Joshua Matthew Philpot, “The Shining Face of Moses: The Interpretation of Exodus 34:29–35 and Its Use in the Old and New Testaments” (diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2013), 86.
"... In all three cases, δοξάζω renders a perfect form of the denominative verb קרן, which has the idea of sending out rays (i.e., hornlike extensions). These are the only occurrences of this form of קרן in the Old Testament and so the translator has to consider contextually how best to render this verb. He has no precedents to work from. ... In chs. 15 and 34, the translator has used the verb δοξάζω to render four different Hebrew verbs and through this means communicates a consistent emphasis in the narrative on the special impact that Yahweh's actions and presence have on humanity. ..."
Larry J. Perkins, “‘Glory’ in Greek Exodus,” in "Translation Is Required": The Septuagint in Retrospect and Prospect, ed. Robert J. V. Hiebert, SCS 56 (Atlanta: SBL, 2010), 97–98.
"... The translator also resolves contradictions in the Hebrew of Exodus 33 regarding what Moses was to see: God's way, his face, his glory or his goodness. The LXX explains in vv.13-14 that Moses wishes to see God himself and his glory in vv. 18-19 (Sommer, "Translation as Commentary"). ..."
Alison Salvesen, “Exodus,” in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint, ed. James K. Aitken, Bloomsbury Companions (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 32–33.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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