Exodus 34:5

5 And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

Exodus 34:5 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 34:5

And the Lord descended in the cloud
The same with the cloudy pillar, which was now gone up from the door of the tabernacle, and was on high in the air over the mount, and on which the Lord now descended in it, as he had before, ( Exodus 19:9 Exodus 19:16 Exodus 19:18 ) :

and stood with him there;
not Moses stood with the Lord, as the Vulgate Latin version; but the Lord, or the cloud in which the Lord was, stood near to Moses:

and proclaimed the name of the Lord:
Jehovah declared with a loud voice out of the cloud, that the Lord was there; the Targum of Jonathan is,

``and Moses called on or in the name of the Word of the Lord;''

and so the Vulgate Latin version refers it to Moses, and renders the words, "calling on the name of the Lord"; but the following verse clearly shows that it must be understood of the Lord, and not of Moses.

Exodus 34:5 In-Context

3 And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount: neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount.

4 And he hewed two tables of stone, like the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up to mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.

5 And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.

7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear [the guilty]; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, to the third and to the fourth [generation].