The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 33:5

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

― For the Lord had said unto Moses, etc. Rather, "And the Lord said unto M." (so most recent commentators, as Keil, Kalisch, etc.) The message was sent to the people after their repentance, and in reply to it.

It was not, however, as our version makes it, a threat of destruction, but only a repetition of the statement made in Exodus 33:2, that, if God went up with them, the probable result would be their destruction.

Translate—"Ye are a stiff-necked people; were I for one moment to go up in the midst of thee, I should destroy thee," Put off thy ornaments. The command seems strange, when we had just been told that "no man did put on him his ornaments" (Exodus 33:4) but the word translated put off probably means "lay aside altogether."

The intention was to make their continued disuse of the ornaments a test of their penitence.

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