Ferdinand Bol

Moses descends from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, 1662, Oil on canvas, 284 x 423 cm, Royal Palace, Amsterdam; ©️ Royal Palace Amsterdam; Photo: Tom Haartsen

The Weight of the Law

Commentary by Alison Gray

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A solemn Moses, adorned in shimmering golden robes, cradles the second set of tablets as he descends from Mount Sinai. Almost hesitant, he looks down over the people of Israel, fiercely protective of the divine laws and the precious covenant they symbolize.

At the foot of the mountain in the bottom half of the painting, the artist depicts the Israelites’ response to the return of their leader and mediator. It has been forty days since their punishment for the idolatry of the golden calf. In this they were led by Aaron, who is now pictured in a penitential pose in pale blue. Some of the characters shield their eyes from the dazzling gleam that surrounds a veil-less Moses—reflecting his glory-filled encounter with God. Others lift their hands in prayer and humble adoration to receive the merciful gift of the Law.

The imposing scene was originally commissioned for the Town Hall of Amsterdam, now the Royal Palace. Moses’s theological authority, here confirming the authority of the town’s magistrates, is accentuated by the cherubs who accompany him in the heavens. Each cherub offers a reflection on the Law for the seventeenth-century viewer.

The most prominent, in a central position with bright wings, peers down at the people whilst proffering large white lilies—a symbol of innocence and purity. Next to Moses, another looks instead towards the tablets, holding an ouroboros (a serpent eating its own tail), suggestive of the eternal circle of life and death. The cherub on the far left holds its own dark rain cloud, a typical biblical symbol of divine presence, both revealed and concealed like the cherub. Finally, the topmost cherub clasps a fasces—a bundle of rods with an axe blade protruding from one end—another reference to the magistrates’ divinely ordained power.

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.

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