No Neutral Ground: The Jealousy of a Covenant-Making God Text: Exodus 34:10-28
Introduction: The Adultery and the Vow Renewal
We come to this text at a moment of high drama. This is not the beginning of the story. This is a vow renewal ceremony after a terrible act of adultery. Israel has just committed spiritual treason at the foot of the mountain with the golden calf. They have broken the covenant before the ink was dry, so to speak. Moses has come down, smashed the tablets, ground the idol to dust, and purged the camp. The relationship is shattered. And in the midst of this wreckage, what does God do? He does not abandon His people. He calls Moses back up the mountain to cut the covenant again.
This is crucial. We must understand that God's covenant is not a fragile, 50/50 contract between two equal parties. It is not a business deal. It is a bond in blood, initiated by the sovereign, and sustained by His faithfulness, even in the face of our treachery. This chapter is a stunning display of God's stubborn grace. But it is not a cheap grace. It is not a sentimental, "boys will be boys" kind of grace. It is a holy grace that reestablishes the terms of the relationship with breathtaking clarity. And the central term, the non-negotiable heartbeat of the covenant, is absolute, exclusive loyalty.
Our modern world despises this kind of exclusivity. We are taught that tolerance is the supreme virtue. The idea of a "jealous God" is offensive to our pluralistic sensibilities. We want a God who is more like a friendly, affirming grandfather, not a zealous husband. But the Bible will not give us such a god, because such a god does not exist. The God who is love is also a consuming fire. This passage forces us to confront the fundamental antithesis of reality: you are either in covenant with Yahweh, or you are in league with the world and its gods. There is no middle ground, no neutral territory, and no possibility of a dual citizenship.
The Text
Then God said, "Behold, I am going to cut a covenant. Before all your people I will do wondrous deeds which have not been created in all the earth nor among any of the nations; and all the people among whom you live will see the working of Yahweh, for it is a fearful thing that I am going to do with you. Be sure to keep what I am commanding you this day: behold, I am going to drive out the Amorite before you, and the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Beware lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, lest it become a snare in your midst. But rather, you are to tear down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim for you shall not worship any other god, for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invite you to eat of his sacrifice, and you take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods and cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods. You shall make for yourself no molten gods. You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread... You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest... Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel. For I will dispossess nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no man shall covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before Yahweh your God. You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread... You shall bring the very first of the first fruits of your ground into the house of Yahweh your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk." Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have cut a covenant with you and with Israel." So he was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
(Exodus 34:10-28 LSB)
God's Initiative and Awesome Power (v. 10-11)
The covenant renewal begins, as it must, with God's sovereign initiative.
"Behold, I am going to cut a covenant. Before all your people I will do wondrous deeds... for it is a fearful thing that I am going to do with you." (Exodus 34:10)
Notice who is the active party here. "I am going to cut... I will do... I am going to do." This is a unilateral declaration of grace. Israel is in no position to bargain. They have just proven themselves to be utterly faithless. Yet God binds Himself to them. And for what purpose? So that "all the people among whom you live will see the working of Yahweh." The covenant with Israel is not for Israel's sake alone. It is a public demonstration of God's character to a watching world. God is putting His own reputation on the line.
And this work will be "fearful." This is not a word we like. We want God to be manageable, safe, and nice. But the God of the Bible is awesome, terrifying in His holiness and power. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom because it is the beginning of seeing things as they actually are. To see God rightly is to be filled with awe. This is the proper foundation for worship. It is not sentimentality; it is reverence before the majesty of the Creator.
God then promises to act on their behalf: "behold, I am going to drive out the Amorite before you..." God makes the promise, and then He gives the command: "Be sure to keep what I am commanding you." His grace is the foundation for our obedience, not the other way around. We do not obey in order to get His grace; we obey because we have received His grace.
The Great Antithesis (v. 12-17)
Here we find the sharp, non-negotiable line of separation that defines the people of God. This is the principle of antithesis.
"Beware lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land... But rather, you are to tear down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim" (Exodus 34:12-13 LSB)
The central command is negative: do not enter into a covenant with the Canaanites. A covenant is a formal, binding relationship. God is telling His people that they cannot have two masters. They cannot be bound to Him and to the world. And this is not a passive separation. It is an active, aggressive, iconoclastic separation. They are not simply to ignore the pagan altars; they are to tear them down. They are to shatter the pillars. They are to cut down the groves dedicated to the fertility goddess Asherah.
This is spiritual warfare. It is a declaration that there is only one true God, and all other forms of worship are fraudulent and must be demolished. This is the logic of the first commandment applied to public life. We are called to do the same, not with physical axes against our neighbors' property, but with the Word of God against the false ideologies and idols of our age. We must tear down the intellectual strongholds of secularism, relativism, and materialism, beginning in our own hearts and families.
And why this radical separation? The reason is given in the next verse, and it is the theological center of the entire passage.
"for you shall not worship any other god, for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God" (Exodus 34:14 LSB)
God's very name is Jealous. This is not the petty, insecure, sinful jealousy we experience. This is the righteous, holy, protective zeal of a husband for his bride. It is the fierce commitment of a creator to receive the glory that is rightfully His. If a husband is not jealous when another man tries to seduce his wife, it does not mean he is enlightened; it means he does not love her. God's jealousy is our greatest protection. It means He will not share us. He will not tolerate rivals. His love is an exclusive, all-consuming love.
The passage then explains how this snare works. It begins with covenantal compromise, which leads to social interaction ("invite you to eat of his sacrifice"), which leads to intermarriage ("you take some of his daughters for your sons"), which leads inevitably to spiritual adultery ("cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods"). The path to apostasy is paved with small compromises. It begins by failing to maintain the antithesis.
The Rhythms of Covenant Life (v. 18-26)
If the previous section was about what to avoid, this section is about what to embrace. God replaces the pagan calendar with His own holy calendar. He gives His people a new rhythm for life, a liturgical structure that constantly reminds them of who they are and who He is.
"You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread... You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest... Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord Yahweh..." (Exodus 34:18, 21, 23 LSB)
Time itself is sanctified. The week is structured around the Sabbath, a weekly declaration of trust that God, not our own frantic effort, is the source of our provision. The year is structured around three great feasts, pilgrimage festivals where the men of Israel would gather to worship together. These feasts were not arbitrary; they were gospel sermons acted out. The Feast of Unleavened Bread remembered their deliverance from Egypt. The Feast of Weeks celebrated the first fruits of the harvest, acknowledging God's provision. The Feast of Ingathering celebrated the end of the harvest, looking forward to the final rest.
These rhythms shaped them as a people. It taught them to see all of life, their work, their rest, their food, their families, through the lens of God's covenantal faithfulness. And notice the incredible promise attached to this: "no man shall covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before Yahweh your God" (v. 24). This is a direct test of faith. Leave your farms and your homes undefended to go worship Me, and I will be your defense. Put My kingdom first, and I will handle your national security. What a God!
The Written, Uncompromising Word (v. 27-28)
The section concludes with the formalizing of this covenant renewal.
"Then Yahweh said to Moses, 'Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have cut a covenant with you and with Israel.'" (Exodus 34:27 LSB)
Our faith is not a subjective experience. It is grounded in an objective, written revelation from God. God puts His promises and His commands in writing so that there can be no confusion. We are a people of the Book because our God is a God who speaks, and who has caused His speech to be written down for us. This protects us from theological drift and from the tyranny of our own feelings.
And Moses' forty-day fast, coupled with the mention of the Ten Commandments, shows us the gravity of this moment. This is a re-founding. The Ten Words are the summary of the covenant's demands, and they are being etched in stone once more by the finger of God. This is a permanent, binding, and holy arrangement.
Conclusion: The Jealousy of the Bridegroom
How do we, as New Covenant believers, apply this? First, we must recognize that the fundamental antithesis remains. "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?" (2 Corinthians 6:14). The names have changed, but the principle is the same. We cannot make a covenant, a binding spiritual alliance, with the world system that is at war with our King.
Second, we must embrace the jealousy of God as our great comfort. We worship a God who loves us with the fierce, protective passion of a husband. The Lord Jesus is our Bridegroom, and He has purchased us, His bride, with His own blood. He will not share us with other lovers. His jealousy is what drives Him to sanctify us, to cleanse us, and to present us to Himself without spot or wrinkle. He is jealous for our holiness.
Finally, we are called to live in the new rhythms of the New Covenant. Our Sabbath rest is found in Christ, a rest we enter by faith and commemorate each Lord's Day. Our liturgical calendar is centered on the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Our covenant renewal meal is the Lord's Supper, where we are reminded of the broken body and shed blood that sealed this better covenant.
This covenant is not based on our ability to keep it, for we, like Israel, are adulterers at heart. It is based entirely on the perfect obedience of the true Israel, Jesus Christ. He is the one who never made a molten god, who never cut a covenant with the world, and whose entire life was an act of perfect worship. And because we are united to Him by faith, His record becomes our record. God looks at us and sees the faithfulness of His Son. Therefore, let us walk as a people set apart, joyfully submitting to the exclusive claims of our jealous and glorious God.