Exodus 34:5

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

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 No one shall come up with you; neither let anyone be seen throughout all the mountain; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mountain."

4 He chiseled two tablets of stone like the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up to Mount Sinai, as Yahweh had commanded him, and took in his hand two stone tablets.

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

6 Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, "Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth,

7 keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the children's children, on the third and on the fourth generation."