Ki Tisa

The census is taken by ransom: every man twenty and up gives a half-shekel, rich no more and poor no less, for the service of the tent. Instructions continue — the bronze laver for washing, the compounded anointing oil and the incense, both holy and not to be copied — and Bezalel and Oholiab are named and filled with the spirit of God for all the craftsmanship. The Sabbath is set as a sign between God and Israel forever, and Moses receives the two tablets of the testimony, written with the finger of God.

Below, the people, despairing of Moses' return, press Aaron, who fashions their gold earrings into a molten calf — "these are your gods, O Israel." God tells Moses to go down, and speaks of destroying the people and beginning again from him; Moses pleads the exodus and the oath to the fathers, and God relents. Descending with the tablets and seeing the calf and the dancing, Moses shatters them at the foot of the mountain, burns and grinds the calf, scatters it on the water, and makes the people drink. The sons of Levi rally to him, and three thousand fall that day. Moses returns up the mountain to make atonement — "and if not, blot me out of Your book."

A plague strikes; God says an angel will go, but "I will not go up in your midst." Moses pitches the tent of meeting outside the camp, where the pillar of cloud descends and God speaks with him face to face, as one speaks with a friend. Moses presses further — "show me Your glory" — and is placed in a cleft of the rock, covered by God's hand, to see His back but not His face. He cuts two new tablets and ascends again; the LORD passes before him proclaiming His name: compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and truth. The covenant is renewed with its terms — no molten gods, the festivals, the firstborn, the Sabbath — and Moses is there another forty days. He comes down unaware that his face shines, and thereafter wears a veil, removing it whenever he goes in to speak with God.