Exodus 34:2

34:2 Be prepared ¹  in the morning, and go up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and station yourself ²  for me there on the top of the mountain.

Exodus 34:4

34:4 So Moses ³  cut out two tablets of stone like the first; ⁴  early in the morning he went up ⁵  to Mount Sinai, just as the Lord had commanded him, and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.

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¹ tn The form is a Niphal participle that means “be prepared, be ready.” This probably means that Moses was to do in preparation what the congregation had to do back in Exod 19:11-15.

² sn The same word is used in Exod 33:21. It is as if Moses was to be at his post when Yahweh wanted to communicate to him.

³ tn Heb “he”; the referent has been specified here and the name “Moses,” which occurs later in this verse, has been replaced with the pronoun (“he”), both for stylistic reasons.

⁴ sn Deuteronomy says that Moses was also to make an ark of acacia wood before the tablets, apparently to put the tablets in until the sanctuary was built. But this ark may not have been the ark built later; or, it might be the wood box, but Bezalel still had to do all the golden work with it.

⁵ tn The line reads “and Moses got up early in the morning and went up.” These verbs likely form a verbal hendiadys, the first one with its prepositional phrase serving in an adverbial sense.