What Does Exodus 34:4 Mean in the King James?

And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.

Exodus 34:4 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The Hebrew root for Moses’s carving also names a carved image, showing that the shaped stone’s meaning lies in what it carries.

THE MEANING

Renewal reaches you without pretending the fracture never happened: Moses shapes two tablets like the first and carries them upward at the LORD’s command. The stone is prepared by human hands, while its pattern and direction remain received.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

What has been broken can only be replaced by something wholly different.

THE ROOT

וַיִּפְסֹל

wayyip̄sōl

GROWS FROM

פסל

pasal

To hew, cut, or carve into shape.

“hewed” in this verse is wayyip̄sōl. The verb ⁨וַיִּפְסֹל⁩ comes from ⁨פסל⁩, “to hew or carve.” The same consonants form ⁨פֶּסֶל⁩, a carved image: the language keeps shaping stone close to both the covenant tablets and the forbidden image, while the surrounding words distinguish what each shaped thing carries.

ALSO GROWS

pesel: A carved image.

פֶּסֶל

This noun shares the root’s consonants and names what has been shaped by carving; Exodus 20:4 uses it for a graven image.

məfassēl: One who carves.

מְפַסֵּל

This participle names the carver, keeping the person doing the shaping within the same word-family as the carved object and the act in this verse.

THE PATTERN

A broken receiving surface can be remade while the instruction remains continuous.

And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.

Exodus 34:1 · KJVThe replacement tablets match the first, and the LORD promises to write the same words on them.

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jeremiah 31:33 · KJVThe instruction continues as its receiving place shifts from stone to the heart.

Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

2 Corinthians 3:3 · KJVThe writing remains, while the heart becomes its living surface.

THE THREAD

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

Exodus 20:4 · KJV

The noun ⁨פֶּסֶל⁩, “graven image,” comes from the same root as Moses’s act of hewing these tablets. The shared root places both acts of shaping stone in one word-family; here, the stones are prepared to carry the words the LORD commands.

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