The Lord said to Moses: “Come up to Me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.” So Moses set out with Joshua his assistant and went up on the mountain of God. He had said to the elders: “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, if anyone has a dispute, let them go to them.” When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. To the Israelites, the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. (Exodus 24,12–17)

After fleeing Egypt for defending a Hebrew, Moses settled in Midian; there he started a family and discovered his calling as the liberator of his people. After leading the Hebrews out of Egypt and granting them their freedom, while travelling through the desert toward the land promised to their ancestors, God called Moses up to Mount Sinai to give him unique laws for all the tribes and to establish a new covenant with His people.

This scene represents the moment where Moses receives the Ten Commandments, he has rays of light shining from his head, reminding us how, according to the Book of Exodus, his face became radiant after seeing God. The depiction of the Judeo-Christian God as an elderly man emerged in the 13th century causing some controversy; it comes from an interpretation of a vision described in the Book of Daniel as the “Ancient of Days” who gives his kingdom and power to the Son of Man. Moses receiving the Ten Commandments is a central figure in Old Testament iconography, it represents the ancient covenant, the Law which, according to Christians, Jesus would come to fulfill and abolish in order to bring salvation to all.