Exodus 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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