1 The Lord spoke to Moses: ‘Go’ . Bring us out of here, you and the people you led out of the land of Egypt, to the land, the as I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying: ‘I will give it to your descendants.’
- The calf disaster is behind us – after every setback, you have to pick yourself up and carry on.
- Nothing was by any means lost yet. The goal can and must be achieved. The age-old covenants still hold true.
- In this formulation, God once again ‘distances’ Himself somewhat from the people and ‘shifts’ the responsibility for leading them out of Egypt onto Moses.
- Quite understandably, the incident with the calf left God with a certain ‘bad taste’ in His mouth regarding Israel.
- When infidelity occurs in a marriage, the betrayed partner may decide to forgive the other and carry on with their life together. However, trust and enthusiasm have been shattered – and the question is whether they can ever be fully restored. Even if they can, it requires genuine, deep repentance on the part of the betrayer (which the Israelites lacked) as well as time – sometimes a great deal of time.
- God partly concedes to Moses’ earlier argument when He says: ‘I will not give up on you, but it is the historical covenants rather than you yourselves.’
- God’s emotions are quite similar to those of humans (or rather, humans are created with emotions similar to God’s), and the pain caused by unfaithfulness is still all too raw.
- God says something like: ‘I’ll stay with you, even though you’ve betrayed me – because of the promise I made to you at the town hall.’ But my love for you has taken a considerable knock. We’ll remain husband and wife, and I’ll continue to look after you – but don’t expect much warmth for a while; I don’t want to see you too often.
- We shall also see in the third verse that God is thus wounded, when He refuses to walk amongst the people.
2 I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites.
- The objective remains the same, as do the protection and escort duties.
- The difference seems to lie in the fact that the Lord had originally planned to go amongst the Israelites Himself and deal with the enemies personally. Now, instead of going Himself, He is sending a representative.
- So something along the lines of: You’ll still be looked after – my secretary will take care of everything. But I’ll be sleeping away from home.
- It is strange that the land was promised to the Israelites without it being unoccupied.
- There were several reasons:
- The inhabitants were to keep it in a habitable and civilised condition whilst the owners were away; it was not to become a wilderness overgrown with jungle. Ex 23:29–30 “I will not drive them out before you in a single year, lest the land become a wasteland and wild animals multiply against you. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you have multiplied and taken possession of the land.”
- They waited until the inhabitants’ sin had reached its full measure: Gen 15:16 “… the fourth generation will return here, for the measure of the Amorites’ iniquity has not yet been fulfilled.”
- Last but not least, for the Israelites it was a test or ‘training’ – they had to claim God’s promises for themselves, in part through their own faith, initiative and perseverance.
- There were many local inhabitants, hailing from many different nations. And they were all, without exception, fatally corrupt – it is said that archaeologists have uncovered many remains of sacrificed children in Canaan.
- Such depravity is extraordinary even amongst pagan peoples. As far as I know, it was otherwise commonly practised only by the South American empires of the Maya, Aztecs and Incas.
3 Go to a land flowing with milk and honey. But I I will not bring it forth amongst you, for you are a stiff-necked people. Otherwise, I would s He met his end on the way, because of you.
- according to the LXX: And I’ll bring you;
- n.: amongst you; [the Hebrew term ‘qereb’ is frequently used in this way as a preposition (as are other anthropomorphic prepositions); its original meaning is ‘bowels’];
- You and the others carry on with the agreed plan – the agreement that you will reach the promised land still stands.
- But you will go without Me – I am already so fed up with these people that I cannot vouch for myself: If I were to have them constantly around me, if I were to have to listen to their complaints and discontent all the time and overcome their resistance, it is quite possible that I would lose my temper and destroy them.
- God had already lost all joy in dwelling amongst his people.
- Once again, there is nothing here that is incomprehensible or unimaginable to us – we move into a new environment, into a new family. We are invited in, and we are given a room to suit our needs. At first, it seems that we are welcome and that living together will be possible. Gradually, however, the new family turns out to be so toxic that remaining in its midst would exceed the limits of our psychological resilience. There would be a risk of violent conflict.
- To avoid any relationship disaster, we’d rather move out – we won’t cancel our planned plans together, but we’re no longer willing to live together.
- It is an incredibly sad story – what initially seemed like a great love affair ends in estrangement. A divorce solicitor would say that there has been a permanent and profound breakdown of the marriage, which is incorrigible.
- One cannot blame the Lord – if His ‘wife’, Israel, ‘runs off’ with the first wretch who happens to come along, is it any wonder that the husband loses interest in their life together? He may not throw her out onto the street out of respect for the marriage covenant, but the joy of living together will be gone.
- Above all, we can clearly see that God is by no means ‘calm by nature’ – He is neither a Stoic, a phlegmatic nor a Buddhist. He experiences relationship issues very intensely. If someone systematically goads and provokes him, he may explode in a devastating rage and destroy the provocateur with a wave of his hand.
- Once again, nothing unimaginable – if a husband is of a yielding and calm nature, he may put up with a quarrelsome, provocative and perpetually dissatisfied wife for a long time. But when his patience finally runs out, a terrible outburst may ensue.
- On the contrary, there are many examples of abused women who suffered in silence for a long time, but then pulled a knife or a gun on their abuser.
- Even human courts often show understanding in such cases.
4 When the people heard this (bad news,) they mourned and (They did not wear any jewellery.)
- h.: … bad;
- h.: no one adorned themselves;
- When it comes to a person the consequences of his actions, It comes as a shock to him. Situations where someone has been testing someone else’s patience for years and is then suddenly taken by surprise are by no means uncommon.
- In the case of one married couple, we witnessed the wife rejecting, humiliating and insulting her husband for years, and even having affairs with other men. She got away with it all for a long time – her husband meekly put up with everything, carried on ‘functioning’ as normal, and took care of everything. But then one day, he presented her with divorce papers. The wife was in shock – suddenly she had to face the consequences of her behaviour: she had to start looking after herself.
- Life without God has no meaning. What use is the Promised Land to me, what use is a comfortable life to me, what use is anything to me? – if God is not with me?
- They did not wear any jewellery It is an outward expression of inner sorrow. For a long time, the Israelites were ‘festive’ – dressed up, ‘all dolled up’, decked out in ornaments and gold.
- They were like the unfaithful wife or husband mentioned earlier, returning in the early hours of the morning, high on the excitement of a night out. Dressed in their finest clothes and wearing their best jewellery. They come home to find the flat empty. Suddenly, their jewellery ‘turns sour’ and they begin to take it off in disgust.
5 For the Lord said to Moses: ‘Tell the Israelites: You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to—’li Just one moment in your presence, and I’ll be done s you. Now take off your jewellery so that I may see how . what to do with you.
- [As is typical of the book, here too, in Exodus 33:4, a statement is first made, followed by an explanation of why it happened;
- It is further explained that the removal of the ornaments was not a spontaneous reaction on the part of the people, but a response to Moses’ words.
- For Moses had informed the people of the situation – that the Lord still refused to dwell amongst them and that the Lord was still full of wrath.
- Walking around decked out in gold, on the brink of destruction, is both inappropriate and provocative.
- If a husband catches his wife in the act and only just manages to restrain himself from shooting her on the spot, it would be unwise of her to flaunt herself in front of him, wearing the very necklace with which she committed her infidelity. It could quite easily happen that she would suffer the very fate she had narrowly escaped a moment earlier.
6 So the Israelites removed their ornaments at Mount Horeb.
- One could say that, since the ‘incident’ with the calf, fashion in Israel has changed – both men and women have started to dress less provocatively.
7 Moses took the tent and pitched it outside the camp, some distance from the camp, and called it the Tent of Meeting. Anyone who sought the Lord would go out to the Tent of Meeting, which was outside the camp.
- Moses’ next move was an interesting one – he found himself a quiet place in which to meet with the Lord.
- What exactly happened during Moses’ conversations with God before Mount Sinai?
- God spoke to Moses repeatedly and on many occasions, but nowhere do we read of any specific place where this took place. The tent is therefore a novelty.
- So this is something new.
- The first time the Lord spoke to Moses was by the burning bush, which was in fact Mount Horeb / Sinai.
- They then speak to him on various occasions in Egypt, without the location being specified.
- The place was outside the camp and quite a lot far away – What does that mean? A kilometre, perhaps? Or further?
- A camp for several million people must have been quite large in its own right.
- To give you an idea, let’s compare this to the size of Prague, with ‘just one million inhabitants’ – it would take several hours to walk from the city centre to the outskirts – plus some distance from the outskirts to the tent. It would be a walk of at least ten kilometres.
- It is more likely, then, that Moses lived somewhere on the outskirts of the camp, so that he would not have to walk so far to the tent.
- It was not yet the Tabernacle in the sense of a sanctuary, for which Moses had received detailed instructions on Mount Sinai. The construction of this Tabernacle had not yet even begun (we do not learn of it until Chapter 40).
- So it was a sort of ‘ordinary’ tent of Moses, which he used as a temporary meeting place.
- It must have been outside the camp, presumably because, following the sin involving the calf, the Lord was unwilling to ‘take up residence’ there or even to come amongst the people.
- The sin involving the calf still ‘hung over them’; it still ‘stank’ in God’s sight. It was only later that it was washed away by the blood of the sacrifices.
- Interestingly, this tent was not intended to serve Moses alone, but to everyone who sought the Lord.
- So does that mean anyone who wanted to could have gone there?
- It would have been a significant change – until then, access to the Lord had not, in principle, been open to ‘just anyone’ – the people had been prevented from having a personal relationship with God, under threat of death at Sinai.
- Rather, people went there to see Moses as an intermediary, wanting him to present their cases to the Lord. Perhaps they were waiting to catch him as he was coming.
- It seems unlikely that people would be ‘trickling in’ there one by one.
- As we shall see later, the young Joshua used to go into the tent with Moses and spent a great deal of time there.
8 And it came to pass that as Moses was going out to the tent, all All the people rose to their feet; each one remained standing at the blood He from their tent and watched as Moses went in until he had entered the tent.
- Moses’s visit to the tent was no ordinary occurrence. It was a significant event – the people knew this and showed it through their respectful demeanour.
9 And whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and come to rest at the blood He tent; and The Lord spoke to Moses. 10 When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the blood He In the tent, all the people rose to their feet and bowed down, each one at the blood He his tent.
- It was apparently Moses who initiated the meeting – he got up and went out beyond the camp to the tent.
- God responded and also appeared at the meeting place in the form of a pillar of cloud.
- It was an exceptionally powerful public affirmation of Moses’ authority.
11 The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. Then he returned to the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, did not leave the tent.
- [This term is most commonly used to refer to priests, the servants of the Lord, but also to the servants of Moses, Amnon (2 Sam 13:18, Solomon (1 Kings 10:5) and Elisha (2 Kings 6:15ff)];
- Moses’ encounters with the Lord were an utterly extraordinary event in human history – we have no other example of anyone conversing with the Lord in such a direct and intimate manner.
- We don’t even read anything of the sort about Jesus.
- Given that it is true that no human being can see the Lord face to face (as is stated explicitly in verse 20 below1), Asher Intrater’s theory that Jesus met with Moses in the tent makes sense.
- Joshua was an extraordinary figure – he was Moses’s assistant, utterly loyal and zealous. His zeal was even greater than that of Moses himself.
12 Moses said to the Lord: ‘Look, you tell me, “Lead this people out”, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have also said, ‘I know you by name, and indeed you have found favour in my sight.’ 13 Now, if I have truly found favour in your sight, let me know your ways, that I may know you . that I may find favour in your eyes, and may you see that this nation "I have your people.
- What follows is an account of one of the conversations that took place in the tent.
- There were probably more conversations, perhaps many – but Moses considered this one significant enough to record it.
- Moses begins to clarify two things: Look, you’re telling me.
- One might say that he is beginning to negotiate. Not, however, for his own benefit, but for the benefit of the people.
- Which of God’s words does Moses refer to? Lead these people out: Yes, this is what the Lord asked of Moses in the first verse of this chapter (Go . Bring us out of here, you and the people you led out of the land of Egypt, to the land, the which I swore …). after he had brought the discussion with the calf to an end, much to his regret.
- But you didn’t let on who you’d be sending with me: For God had told Moses to set out with the people, but also that He Himself would not go with them; instead, He would send an angel in His stead. Moses is therefore presumably asking which angel this will be – who it is, in fact, who will set out on the journey with them.
- And the second thing that interests Moses: You yourself, God, have admitted that I You know me personally and you like me. I believe that is the case.
- But I would like this acceptance on your part to lead to (if I have truly found favour in your eyes), more than before.
- To put it another way: if you say you love me, I’d like more from our relationship. I’d like two things:
- Firstly: I would like to discover my path so that I may come to know you.
- This is a rather unusual request: to know God’s way probably means understanding His purposes, gaining a deeper insight into the ways in which He guides the world – or at least Israel.
- And secondly: I would like you to regard this nation as your own people.
- Moses intercedes on behalf of the people – he does not agree with the idea that, whilst Israel will indeed journey to the Promised Land under the guidance of an angel and arrive there safely, God will no longer be with them.
- It’s a similar idea to a married couple who have children, and those children go astray. The husband would say to his beloved wife: ‘I’ll take care of our children’s future; I’ll pay for their education and their housing. But don’t let them come near me. I don’t want to see those brats any more.’ The wife replies: ‘I don’t want that – if you say you love me, don’t cast our children aside either.’ I’m not in it for the money, but so that we can be one family again.
- Moses once again proves himself to be a great intercessor and man of prayer. He recently turned down a generous offer of a fresh start for himself and his family; now he is rejecting a formal ‘economic’ relationship devoid of love.
14 He replied: ‘My presence will go’ with you and I’ll give you a rest.
- The Lord does not appear to respond immediately to Moses’ intercession on behalf of the people – he offers his presence, but only to Moses.
- Once again, the offer is a generous one – after all, what more could one ask for than for God to walk with me through life, for me to have a relationship with Him, and for my physical and emotional needs to be looked after?
15 And he said to him, ‘If you do not go with me’ with us, don’t drag us out of here.
- Moses does not accept this offer; he is unyielding … and puts everything on the line: Either you give us what I demand, or nothing at all.
- The risk is enormous – after all, the Lord could very well have said: ‘My offer of friendship was intended solely for you – if you are insatiable and want me to extend it to everyone at any cost, you will get nothing. If you don’t want it, so be it.’
- And the Lord might have departed – Moses would have been left alone in the wilderness, without God’s power, in the midst of a rebellious, unmanageable people. It is reasonable to assume that, had he not saved himself by fleeing quickly (perhaps to Midian), he would not have survived for long without God’s protection.
- This is a truly extraordinary ‘Christ-like’ display of courage. After all, Jesus acted in a similar way – he, too, risked his life to save people. Christ also said to God: ‘If you do not save this wicked and rebellious human race, I would rather die.’
16 How, then, can it be known that I have found favour in your eyes, both I and your people? Is it not by the fact that You will come with us, so that we – I and your people – will be set apart from all the nations which are on the earth’s surface?
- Moses continues his argument. He says: After all, nothing else but Your presence amongst us has any meaning.
- After all, it’s not about prosperity, security and a comfortable life, but about RELATIONSHIPS.
- Moses highlights the most important aspect of our relationship with God – he realised that A relationship is everything, The circumstances are of secondary importance.
- This truth is not easy to uncover, and not many people discover it. Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, David and Job all understood it. A relationship does not mean perfection or sinlessness. A relationship has nothing to do with how well I am doing in life.
- Furthermore, a relationship has this characteristic: one can be certain of it.
- That is why, and only why, the troubled David was able to stand firm in his righteousness. That is why Job was able to steadfastly withstand the attacks of his friends – not because Job or David were perfect, but because they were certain of their relationship with the Most High.
- Christianity is nothing other than a relationship with God – what sets Christians apart from other people is not sinlessness or better lives, but the fact that they know God and have a relationship with Him. The following is absolutely true: How, after all, can it be known that I (a Christian) have found favour in your eyes, both I and your people? Is it not by the fact that You will come with me, so that I may be set apart from all the nations which are on the earth’s surface?
17 The Lord said to Moses: ‘I will do even what you have asked, for you have found favour in my sight, and I know you by name.’
- Moses even ‘persuaded’ the Lord on this matter – God says so quite plainly: ‘I will grant your request, because we are friends, because I love you.’
- In other words, he is making a concession in that he will travel amongst the people in person, rather than simply sending a representative, as he had originally intended.
18 He said, ‘Show me your glory!’
- n.: Let me see;
- Moses ‘strikes whilst the iron is hot’ – he sees that God is ‘in a good mood’, that He is currently inclined to grant his requests, that He is favourably disposed towards him.
- He is therefore making a purely personal request – one that has nothing to do with the circumstances or with anything that is happening around him. Moses wants to get to know God better.
- Up to this point, the Lord had revealed Himself to Moses in a truly extraordinary way – it is likely that the Son of God Himself meets with him in person during these encounters.
- But Moses wants more – he longs for to know the glory of the Lord.
- We do not know exactly what this is all about, or what the glory of the Lord is – Moses somehow longs to look ‘behind the curtain’; he wants to know God not ‘merely’ as a (divine) human being, but as the Creator God, the ruler of the universe.
- Jesus ‘is not enough’ for him; he wants the Father. He wants to see how things are in heaven, where God sits on his throne and all creation gives him glory.
19 He replied: ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will show mercy to whom I show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’
- What does God say to this? The Lord gives neither a yes nor a no. He does not dismiss Moses’ request out of hand, but neither does He grant it in full.
- It offers or advertises two things: I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you.
- The outpouring of all God’s goodness upon humankind – we don’t know what it’s all about, but God’s goodness is one of the fundamental traits of His nature. And to possess it all To be close to her, to look at her, to experience her, to feel her in some way – it must be extraordinary.
- God’s name Moses knew (YHWH) and had apparently already heard the Lord speaking (from Mount Sinai or from the bush – assuming, that is, that it was not an angel speaking in those instances). Here, God offers a combination of ‘personally’ pronouncing His mysterious name YHWH.
- We are used to thinking of a name as merely a label for a person, without any greater significance. However, it is clear from many passages in the Bible that a name – especially God’s name – is something more: to a certain extent, it is inseparable from the person themselves, from their very essence, character or even presence.
- Hebrew šem and Greek ónoma are more than just a ‘file name’ – one might say that God’s name is a file with the .exe extension. Click on the file icon God's Name.exe "I have when God’s name is invoked or mentioned. God’s presence then ‘unfolds’.
- There is also the danger of an ‘unintentional click’ – hence the warning ‘You shall not misuse God’s name’.
- Some other links, at random:
- Deut. 12:5 ‘The place which the Lord will choose to make his name dwell there’ – God does not ‘dwell’ physically in the temple, but the presence of His name signifies that He is present there presence and glory
- Psalm 20:8 “‘They rely on chariots, they on horses, but we call upon the name of the Lord our God.’
- Psalm 23:3 “‘He refreshes my soul; he leads me along the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.’
- John 17:6, 11–12 “I have made your name known to the people you have given me… keep them in your name, which you have given me.”
- Acts 4:12 “‘For there is no other name under heaven given to humankind by which we may be saved.’
- Phil 2:9–10 “God exalted him and gave him a name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…”
- I don’t know if the offer was what Moses wanted – perhaps he was a little disappointed. Perhaps he had hoped that, given their long and close friendship, he would be allowed to see more.
- Perhaps in light of Moses’ disappointment, God adds: I have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I show compassion to whom I show compassion, presumably meaning: I shall reveal to you whatever I deem fit, to the extent that I deem fit; or, alternatively, to the extent that is possible (as we shall see shortly).
20 He said: ‘You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live.’
- God explains to Moses why it is not possible to grant his request in full – even if God were to ‘wish it so’ for all the world.
- It is interesting because this sentence brings to mind a well-known paradox: Can God create a boulder that He Himself cannot lift? Whether we answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’, it follows that God is not omnipotent.
- Can God really not reveal Himself to anyone without that person perishing? Can God really not temper the power of His presence, or shield a person from it? After all – if the ‘witness’ really is unable to survive it, can the Almighty not then resurrect that person? And so on, ad infinitum.
- He probably cannot – we know that God reveals Himself to people, without exception, in some indirect or vicarious way.
- For some reason, and for reasons that were not entirely clear, Moses’ request went beyond what the Lord was prepared to do at that moment.
- Perhaps we can already see here the first hint of God’s later Incarnation – It was only in Jesus that God truly revealed Himself fully to people, face to face, just as He is. It was only in Him that He shared the deepest possible fellowship with people.
21 And the Lord said: ‘Here’ "I have Come over here; stay standing on the rock. 22 And it shall come to pass, when my glory passes by, that I will place you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.
- However, God cannot be ‘blamed’ for not having tried to accommodate Moses to the greatest possible extent – He went to meet Moses’ request as far as He possibly could.
- Perhaps we can (once again) draw on the image of a nuclear reactor: If the Lord dwells at the ‘epicentre’ of a nuclear reactor, the human desire to look ‘home’ to Him is naïve and misguided, for any human visitor would be instantly annihilated.
- God, however, is looking for a solution: ‘Let’s do it this way – stand here behind this barium glass, and I’ll shield you with a lead screen, so you can still see me.’
- What you take from it is another matter … but you can’t say I didn’t try.
23 Then I will remove my hand, and you will see my back, but my face will not be seen.
- It would seem, then, that God intends to show Moses as much as possible.
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- Furthermore, in Exodus 19:21, during the revelation on Mount Sinai, the Lord warns Moses: ‘Go down and warn the people not to press forward to see the Lord, lest many of them perish.’
Judges 13:22: After meeting the angel of God, Samson’s parents (Manoah and his wife) say: ‘We are surely going to die, for we have seen God!’
John 1:18 No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the Father’s bosom, he has made him known.
1 Timothy 6:16 …who alone possesses immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. ↩︎