Unknown artist

Moses receiving the law and handing it to Joshua, who hands it to the Elders, from the Regensburg Pentateuch, c.1300, Handwritten on parchment; brown ink, tempera and gold leaf; square Ashkenazic script, 245 x 185 mm, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; B05.0009 180/052, ©️ The Israel Museum Jerusalem by Ardon Bar-Hama

Faithfulness and Grace

Commentary by Alison Gray

Cite Share

This is a rare midrashic illustration from the Regensburg Pentateuch, a medieval Ashkenazi manuscript from around 1300. It is one of only five full-page illustrations in the liturgical manuscript that was gifted to Gad ben Peter Ha-Levi, the leader of the Jewish community in Regensburg, Bavaria.

A divine hand from the heavenly clouds passes the Ten Commandments to Moses, who initiates a chain of faithful transmission of the laws down the mountainside. The Hebrew manuscript at the top contains the beginning of the first five commandments (Exodus 20:3–12) along with the preface from verse 2 ‘I am the LORD’. Below that is the second half of the commandments all of which begin with the permanent prohibition in Hebrew lō’: ‘Do not ever…’ (vv.13–14). Two other figures form this chain, presumably Joshua (24:13) and Aaron (19:24; 24:1). The elders, representing the whole people of Israel, wait eagerly at the bottom of the mountain with open palms.

The mountain is curiously depicted as an upturned tub, drawing on a Talmudic midrash on Exodus 19:17: ‘God overturned the mountain above the Jews like a tub, and said to them; if you accept the Torah, excellent, and if not, there will be your burial’ (Shabbat 88a). Rabbi Aha ben Ya'akov then reflects on how Israel was coerced into accepting the Law, but later accepted it willingly in the Persian period (Esther 9.27; Sternthal 2018).

As depicted here, the Ten Commandments are usually understood to be those outlined in Exodus 20 (see also Deuteronomy 5), yet there is an entirely different set of commandments in Exodus 34. This ‘second’ set of commandments focuses on festivals, ritual, and sacrificial laws, such as the injunction against making a covenant with other nations and worshipping their gods, and instructions about offerings to God. They are in many ways more significant than the first set of laws for Israel’s identity and relationship with God.

This second set of commandments symbolizes the covenant that has survived Israel’s disobedience in worshipping the golden calf and confronts them with divine faithfulness.

 

References

Rabbi Steinsaltz, Adin Even-Israel (trans.). William Davidson Talmud, available at https://www.sefaria.org/texts/Talmud.

Sternthal, Michal. 2018. ‘The Israel Museum Regensburg Pentateuch‘, Oxford Chabad Society, University of Oxford, available at https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/video_cdo/aid/4103097/jewish/Hebrew-Illuminated-Manuscripts-The-Medieval-Regenburg-Pentateuch.htm [accessed 10 May 2024]

See full exhibition for Exodus 34:10–35

Exodus 34:10–35

Revised Standard Version

10 And he said, “Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth or in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord; for it is a terrible thing that I will do with you.

11 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perʹizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebʹusites. 12Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither you go, lest it become a snare in the midst of you. 13You shall tear down their altars, and break their pillars, and cut down their Asheʹrim 14(for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they play the harlot after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and one invites you, you eat of his sacrifice, 16and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods and make your sons play the harlot after their gods.

17 “Your shall make for yourself no molten gods.

18 “The feast of unleavened bread you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib; for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. 19All that opens the womb is mine, all your male cattle, the firstlings of cow and sheep. 20The firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the first-born of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.

21 “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. 22And you shall observe the feast of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end. 23Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. 24For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; neither shall any man desire your land, when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.

25 “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left until the morning. 26The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”

27 And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. 30And when Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. 31But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. 32And afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. 33And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; 34but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, 35the people of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone; and Moses would put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

More Exhibitions