33:12 ¶ And Moses said unto the LORD, See, thou
sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou
wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also
found grace in my sight. 13 Now
therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy
way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider
that this nation is thy people. 14
And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee
rest. 15 And he said unto him, If thy
presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. 16 For wherein shall it be known here that I and
thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest
with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are
upon the face of the earth. 17 And the
LORD said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou
hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. 18 And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy
glory. 19 And he said, I will make all
my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before
thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on
whom I will shew mercy. 20 And he said,
Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. 21 And the LORD said, Behold, there is a
place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: 22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory
passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee
with my hand while I pass by: 23 And I
will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall
not be seen.
Moses pleads with God to tell him who is to be Moses’ helper and
heir to his ministry and to show him God’s plan. He throws in a plea to
consider that the Hebrews are God’s people.
In this passage we see that a nation in the Bible is not like a
modern nation-state, the likes of which only came into being in the last five
hundred years. A nation is a people of like ethnicity. The word nation in Hebrew is goy, which has
become a Jewish name for a non-Jew. In the New Testament the word nation is translated from ethnos from
which we get ethnic. The United States of America is not a nation in the
Biblical sense. It is a republic composed of many nations and apart from Native
Americans living on their own territory or an Italian neighborhood in New York
or Cajuns in a Louisiana bayou we are mixed and mingled in different locations.
God answers Moses’ plea that His presence will go with Moses.
Moses is then, in type, like Christ, a mediator between God and the people of
God. God’s presence is His angel.
Isaiah 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and
the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed
them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.
Moses insists that the mark of God’s hand in the Israelites existence
is His presence and God promises to go with Moses. Moses has found grace in
God’s sight. Thee and thou, which along with thine, the singular you, had fallen out
of usage by the time of the King James Version of the Bible except for intimate
terms, like in, “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The singular you, or
thou, began to be used for social inferiors and then completely died out except
for religious uses and in some dialects of rural England where it has even
become “tha.”
Bringing the singular you, thou,
back was a great way of distinguishing when a speaker meant an individual or a
group of people. As an example, who is Jesus talking to here, and when is He
referring to just Peter or making a reference to all of the apostles;
Luke 22:31 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold,
Satan hath desired to have you,
that he may sift you as wheat:
32 But I have prayed for thee, that thy
faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.
Moses asks God to show him God’s own glory. Jesus showed chosen
disciples His glory inasmuch as they could bear it.
Mark 9:2 And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John,
and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was
transfigured before them. 3 And his
raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can
white them.
Here, Moses is not permitted to see God’s face and is protected
from the effects of God’s glory in His
appearance. God’s glory must be very powerful on an individual to look upon…
Ezekiel 3:23 Then I arose, and went forth into the plain:
and, behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, as the glory which I saw by the
river of Chebar: and I fell on my face.
…so much so that people thought they were going to die when they
saw the angel of His presence.
Exodus 20:18 ¶ And all the people saw the thunderings, and
the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and
when the people saw it, they
removed, and stood afar off. 19 And they
said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak
with us, lest we die. 20 And Moses said
unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may
be before your faces, that ye sin not. 21
And the people stood afar off, and
Moses drew near unto the thick
darkness where God was.
Judges 6:22 And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon
said, Alas, O Lord GOD! for because I have seen an angel of the LORD face to
face. 23 And the LORD said unto him,
Peace be unto thee; fear not:
thou shalt not die.
Judges 13:20 For it came to pass, when the flame went up
toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the LORD ascended in the
flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground. 21 But the angel of the LORD did no more appear
to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the LORD. 22
And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen
God.
23
But his wife said unto him, If the LORD were pleased to kill us, he
would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands,
neither would he have shewed us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these.
No one has seen God the Father, who is a Spirit, as in the words
invisible and incorporeal.
John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only
begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
John 4:24 God is
a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
The Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word by which all things
were created, reveals Him. In a manner of speaking, He is the body of God that
can be seen.
Hebrews 1:3a Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of
his person…
John 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long
time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me
hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
The phrase, the Son of God,
represents Christ coming in the authority of God the Father as a king’s son
would come in the authority of the king as the heir of the king. The Word has to do with how He spoke the universe
into existence and how He maintains or sustains it.
John1:1 ¶ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him
was not any thing made that was made.
Colossians 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things
consist.
It seems clear that when people in the Old Testament saw God, as
an appearance, or an angel, they were seeing the preincarnate Christ. This was
also true after the resurrection when Paul spoke with Him.
Acts 27:23 For there stood by me this night the angel of
God, whose I am, and whom I serve,
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