Records are precious.
Exodus 34:22–28 (NKJV)
“And you shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end. Three times in the year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the LORD God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times in the year.
“You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leaven, nor shall the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover be left until morning. The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
Then the LORD aid to Moses, “Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 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.
The New King James is better here because it capitalizes “He” in the last verse. This makes it clear that God wrote the Ten Commandments on the tablets (which He said He would do in 34:1). Thus, we know that the LORD wasn’t talking about the Ten Commandments when He said to Moses, “Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
Earlier (in verse 24:4) we saw Moses write down what the LORD had said up to that point. That was on his own initiative in reaction to the people saying, “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.”
Now the LORD tells him to write these words down. It appears that this took Moses forty days and forty nights, while he neither ate bread nor drank water. The expression “forty days and forty nights” makes it sound like Moses didn’t sleep either, but “forty days and forty nights” is just a common Hebrew colloquialism for a forty day span of time.
This is only the second time God has instructed Moses to write something down, and the other time was about a single incident (the defeat of Amalek).
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” — Exodus 17:14 (NKJV)
This time feels more significant. Moses is getting down to the task of writing the Bible.
Moses surely thought that leading Israel to the Promised Land was a big deal. Little did he know that his writings would be just as significant.
Do you keep a record of your walk with the Lord, particularly your prayers? I did this with my fellowship group, and it turned out to be more significant than we could have imagined.
Every time I review that journal, I am bowled over. God’s hand, and His strategic priorities, just leap off the pages.
Record your prayers. I cannot recommend this too highly.
To forward this devotional, see the link in green below.
These weekday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay. Saturdays’ by Matt Richardson. Subscribe here: https://www.ailbe.org/resources/community
The weekly study guides, which include questions for discussion or meditation, are here: https://www.ailbe.org/resources/itemlist/category/91-deep-studies
Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV stands for the English Standard Version. © Copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NIV stands for The Holy Bible, New International Version®. © Copyright 1973 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NASB stands for the New American Standard Bible. Used by permission. All rights reserved. KJV stands for the King James Version.
