Комментарий о цитате к Шмот 34:2

The Midrash (Shabbat 89) says that Satan had brought darkness and confusion on to the globe at that time, and that he showed the Israelites an image of Moses lying on a bier. This accounted for the people saying: “arise let us make gods who will go before us, for this man Moses who brought us out from Egypt-we do not know what became of him.”
Moses had spoken of 40 whole days not including the day on which he ascended the mountain. Accordingly, the people should not have expected him before the 17th of Tammuz. When the Torah writes (verse 6): “they rose early in the morning,” this was the 17th of Tammuz. It was ממחרת, “on the day after the 16th of Tammuz.” On that day they offered sacrifices to the golden calf. At noon on that day Moses returned and smashed the Tablets. On the day after that, the eighteenth of Tammuz, he burned the golden calf and convicted the people who had actively participated in the cult of the golden calf and commanded the Levites to execute these people. On the nineteenth of the month he ascended the mountain again pleading for forgiveness for the people, remaining there another forty days. He spent the entire period in prayer and pleading with G’d as he himself testified in Deut. 9,25: ”the forty days during which I threw myself down, etc.” These days came to an end on the first day of Ellul. On that same day, after having briefly returned to the camp, Moses ascended the mountain again after having been invited to do so by G’d, (34,2) and remained for forty days. This was in preparation of receiving the second set of Tablets. These forty days came to an end on the Day of Atonement, the tenth day of Tishrei. On that day the sin of the golden calf was finally forgiven; on the day following the day of Atonement the people began bringing their contributions for the building of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was erected on the first day of Nissan following, i.e. close to a whole year after the Exodus. All of this teaches you that the sin of the golden calf preceded the matters described in Parshat Ki Tissa. [The instruction to make sockets for the Tabernacle from the half-shekel contributions which were to atone for that sin would not make sense if the Tabernacle had preceded the sin of the golden calf. Ed.] This is merely another example of the fact that the Torah did not see itself as obliged to report matters in chronological order (compare Tanchuma Ki Tissa 11).

נצבים, interrupting their walk by assuming a position which invited enquiries by anyone seeing them. Our author quotes Exodus 34,2 ונצבת לי, as a similar use of this verse; i.e. Moses is invited by G-d to stop climbing the mountain and wait until He gives him the inscribed set of the second Tablets. וירץ לקראתם, “he ran toward them, having understood that this was the reason why these men had suddenly halted for a purpose.

ויתיצב עמו שם. Moses stood there close to G’d, as he had been commanded in verse 2.

ושב אל המחנה .( AND HE RETURNED INTO THE CAMP — After God had conversed with him, Moses used to return to the camp and teach the elders what he had learned. This Moses practised from the day of Atonement until the Tabernacle was set up, but no longer. For on the seventeenth of Tammuz the tablets were broken, on the eighteenth he burnt the calf and punished the of fenders, on the nineteenth he ascended the mountain, as it is said (Exodus 32:30) “And it came to pass on the morrow (the day after he had punished the wrongdoers; cf. vv. 26—29), that Moses said unto the people”, [Ye have sinned a great sin and now I will go up to the Lord]”. There he spent forty days and sought mercy for the people, as it is said, (Deuteronomy 9:18) “And I threw myself down before the Lord [as at the first, forty days and forty nights]”. These terminated on the last day of Ab (there were 11 days from the 19th to the 29th of Tammuz therefore 29 days in Ab complete the forty) and he then returned to the people. On the first day of the New Moon of Ellul it was said to him, (Exodus 34:2) “And be ready in the morning] and go up in the morning unto mount Sinai” — to receive the second tablets. He again spent there the forty days of which it is stated, (Deuteronomy 10:10) “[And I stayed in the mountain, according to the first, days, [forty days and forty nights]”. The words כימים הראשונים, “like the first days”, cannot refer to the number of days for this is stated immediately afterwards; they are to be joined with עמדתי — I stayed in the same state as on the first days: How were the first forty days passed? In God’s good-will (because the Israelites had not yet sinned)! So, too, the last forty days were passed in God’s good-will — from which you must admit that the intervening forty days were passed in God’s anger. On the tenth of Tishri God became reconciled with Israel in joy and perfect affection and said to Moses: “I have forgiven!” and handed him over the second tablets, whereupon Moses went down and began to command them concerning the work of the Tabernacle (cf. Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 31; Seder Olam 6; Rashi on Exodus 18:13, Deuteronomy 9:18 and also Taanit 36b). They were occupied in its construction until the first of Nisan and from the time when it was set up God did not converse with him any more except from the tent of meeting.