And Moses said to Jehovah, Behold, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people; but thou dost not let me know whom thou wilt send with me; and thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in mine eyes.
Israel has just made the golden calf. God tells Moses to lead the nation on, but does not say who will go with him. So Moses takes two things God had said about him and turns them into an argument for the whole nation.
This is not the first time Moses pleads for Israel. Here he admits he cannot move a step on his own.
For the third time in this whole episode, Moses prays in lovely intercession for Israel (v. 12). The Lord had told him to bring the people up to their land, he says. But he feels helpless to do this without the Lord's presence. Yet, he insists, the Lord had also told him that He knew Moses by name and that Moses had found grace in His sight (v. 12). Since this is true, God must have a way that He could show to Moses.
God had already promised an angel to go before them. Moses treats that as an unanswered question rather than an answer.
He wants first to know whom the Lord would send with him. God had said that He would send an angel (v. 2). But Moses wanted to know more. He asks for this knowledge because the Lord had said to him, "I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight." … Everything now depended on Moses as mediator. So he presents his own cause first, and then he brings the people before God. … It was not enough for Moses that God had appointed him to lead Israel, and that an angel should go before him on the way. He wanted to know God's way through the wilderness, not his own, so that he might also know Him.
The phrase is not a compliment on Moses' record. It describes the relationship God had given him.
Jehovah dealt with Moses according to his faith, according to how far he perceived and grasped God Himself. He appeared before Jehovah truly as a man. Yet he was a man so shaped by the knowledge of God that he thought, spoke and acted in perfect agreement with the mind of God. He came to Jehovah with high human dignity and holy freedom, yet always with deepest reverence. And in everything he said he carried Israel in his heart. God accepted him into a very close relationship with Himself — "I know you by name" — and God received his intercession: he found grace in God's sight.
God gives Moses an opening to walk away from Israel. He will not take it.
What can be more lovely, more like Christ, than this? He uses all the personal confidence that God had in him on behalf of the people. That is the point of it all. … He will not give up his love and desire for Israel. God may treat them as the people of Moses and say, "They are the people you have brought up; they are your people." "Oh no," says Moses. "They are Yours, and You are their only hope." He will not be put off.
Read as a matter of justice, Israel's condition ruled God's presence out. Read through the mediator, it turns into the strongest possible plea.
Moses asks for the accompanying presence of Jehovah as proof that they had found grace in His sight. If it were only a question of justice, He could only consume them by coming among them, since they were "a stiff-necked people." But as soon as He speaks of grace, through the mediator, their very stubbornness becomes the ground for demanding His presence.
What Moses did with Israel's failure, a believer may do with his own.
Why must I insist on having God with me? Because I have this terrible flesh about me. Unless I have Him with me in His grace, I shall never get through the wilderness. My reason is this: I am so bad. And through grace He can have me with Him, despite all my weaknesses.
God says yes. His reason is the very thing Moses had quoted back to Him.
Yet the Lord makes clear why He answers favourably: Moses had found grace in God's sight. The same is true, in the fullest sense, of the Lord Jesus. He has above all found grace in God's sight, and God knows Him by name.
- Cause — after the calf, Israel could go no further on their own. Everything now hung on the mediator's standing with God.
- Gift — "I know you by name" and "you have also found favor in my sight" are God's own words. They mark a close relationship, not a reward for good work.
- Plea — Moses spends that standing on the people. He will not let God call them just "your people."
- Reversal — grace turns the people's stubbornness into the very reason God must come with them.
- Result — God says yes because the mediator has found grace with Him. That points on to Christ, who above all has found grace in God's sight, and whom God knows by name.
(Where the ESV says "favor in my sight," older translations say "grace in my sight." Several quotes above use the older wording.)
And now, if indeed I have found grace in thine eyes, make me now to know thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thine eyes; and consider that this nation is thy people!
Israel had just wrecked the covenant at the golden calf, and God had refused to travel with them. So Moses asks for the one thing that could meet that ruin: to know God Himself.
(The ESV says "your ways" and "favor in your sight." Older translations say "your way" and "grace in your sight," and the writers quoted below follow that older wording.)
Moses does not ask for directions. He asks for the one path that belongs to God, because you know a person by how he acts.
The Spirit of God leads the Christian. His heart is in those ways. As Moses says, Show me Your way — not a way, but Yours — that I may know You. If I know a person's ways, I know him.
What Moses already knew of God could no longer satisfy him. The reason lay in the state of the nation.
What he had so far heard of Him would not do for him. He had already seen Him as the Lawgiver, and as the Lord of the conditional covenant... But such displays of God would not do. Moses was not satisfied. And rightly so. At that very moment Israel lay before his eyes in moral ruins. Everything was finished for them on the terms of the Law, or under their own covenant. So Moses had to see God in God's own way. He must know Him, as he now tells Him — know Him in sovereign grace.
A later psalm shows that God answered this prayer. It separates what the whole nation saw from what Moses came to know.
The Lord displayed His striking acts before the eyes of Israel. These acts of power did not call for an intimate knowledge of the Lord's character; they were plain to everyone. But only the spiritual could discern the ways of God — those dealings that flow from what He is. So we read, "He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel" (Ps. 103:7).
Moses asks again for grace he already has. Then he names the people God would no longer call His own.
"Show me now Your way, that I may know You." There you get knowledge. Then "That I may find grace in Your sight" — not that he had not found grace, but he wanted to know it every moment. "Consider that this nation is Your people." He never forgets God's people, though God would not call them His people. God's presence is the next thing. Moses must know God's way and have His presence.
The very fault that kept God away becomes Moses' reason for asking Him to come.
From this moment Moses presses a new plea. He turns the people's faultiness into a reason why God should go up — the very reason that righteousness had made a ground for refusing to go with them, in case His anger should burn against such a stiff-necked people. But, argues Moses, for this very reason we most of all want the Lord's presence. The boldness of faith is astonishing; but its pleading rests on the known grace of God Himself. In the tabernacle, outside the camp, Moses was near enough to God to see His grace better than he ever had before.
Moses asks for himself before he asks for Israel, and what he asks for is what no appointment or angel could supply.
It was not enough for Moses that God had appointed him to lead Israel, and that an angel should go before him on the path. He wanted to know God's way through the wilderness, not his own, so that he might also know Him. Nothing less than knowing God and God's way could satisfy him — if he were to lead up the people. This is what every believer needs, and there is nothing beyond while in the wilderness.
- Ruin — After the calf the old covenant lay in pieces. What Moses already knew of God "would not do", so he had to see God in sovereign grace.
- Way — He asks not for a way but God's way, because ways reveal the person: know someone's ways and you know him.
- Ways over acts — Israel saw what God did; Moses learned why He did it. Anyone can see God's acts; only the spiritual discern His ways.
- Grace — Moses had already found grace, yet asks for it again — he wanted to know it every moment, not once.
- People — He will not let the nation go, pleading their very stubbornness as the reason God must come. God's answer was His own presence.
And he said, My presence shall go, and I will give thee rest.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And he said to him, If thy presence do not go, bring us not up hence.
Israel had made the golden calf, and God said He would not go up among them. Moses answers that he will not move a step without Him, and he will not take for himself what the people are denied.
God did not cancel the journey. He took Himself out of it.
But then the Lord added something that devastated Moses: "I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people" (v. 3). Could Moses think of leading the people on these terms? Suppose the Lord told us as believers to make our way to heaven as best we can, without His presence. How should we react? If that is how it would be for us personally, how much more helpless must Moses have felt, having to lead over two million people through the wilderness?
Moses speaks this way at Israel's lowest point. Grace already shown to him makes him press for more.
It is painful, and yet also beautiful, to see how God dealt with Moses after the people made the golden calf. While everything lay in ruins, faith under grace can have closer fellowship than when there was no ruin. Moses never had such close fellowship with God as now, when the people had made the calf. And the calf was still in the camp. The way God meets Moses is beautiful: "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." Then Moses grows bolder still, and says, "If Your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here."
God had just promised Moses, "My presence will go with you." Moses spends that favour on the whole nation.
He uses all the personal confidence God had in him on behalf of the people. That is the point of it all. He will not give up his love and desire for Israel. God may treat them as the people of Moses, and say, "They are the people you have brought up: they are your people." "Oh no," says Moses, "they are Yours; and You are their only hope." Nothing puts him off.
Notice the shift inside the verse: God's presence with me, but do not bring us up. Moses will not be carried alone.
This comforted and emboldened his heart, and he replied, "If Your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here." (v. 15.) Now he identifies himself with the people. This intense love of Moses for Israel is no small picture of the heart of Christ. He links them with himself in his place of favour before God.
God named Israel's stubbornness as the reason He would not go with them. Grace turns that same fact into the reason He must.
Grace had come in during the interval; God's goodness had passed before him. This changed everything. Because the people were so stiff-necked, Moses says, we cannot do without God. So once grace is the foundation, Moses takes the very condition of the people and makes it his argument. That condition would have led God to consume them, or at least to keep Him from going among them. Now it is the reason for God to go up among them. The moment grace comes in, we feel that our very sinfulness is a reason why we cannot do without the presence of God.
Moses asks how anyone could tell that Israel stood in God's favour.
He claims, as it were, as proof of divine favour — of restored favour — God's own presence with His people. Nothing else could make it known. His presence would separate them from all other people. It is the same in principle today. The presence of the Holy Spirit on earth, building His people into a dwelling place for God, separates them from everything else.
Years later Moses faced a rebellious crowd. His first prayer proved to be the right one.
Who but the God of all grace could meet the ten thousand needs of wilderness life? Moses had said well, at the very beginning, "If Your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here." He was right and wise to put it that way. God's presence was the only answer to the demand of such a congregation. But that presence was an all-sufficient answer. God's treasury never runs out. He can never fail a trusting heart.
- Ruin — the calf was still in the camp when Moses came closest to God. Failure did not close the door; grace opened it wider.
- Boldness — grace received makes Moses bold. He presses God's own promise back on Him.
- Us — he refuses a blessing that stops with himself, and turns "your people" back into "Your people."
- Stiff-necked — God's reason for staying away becomes Moses' reason why He must come. Our weakness argues for His presence, not against it.
- Proof — nothing else marks a people as His, and nothing else carries them through the desert.
And how shall it be known then that I have found grace in thine eyes -- I and thy people? [Is it] not by thy going with us? so shall we be distinguished, I and thy people, from every people that is on the face of the earth.
After the golden calf, God said He would not go up among Israel, because they were a stiff-necked people. Moses will not accept that, and in this verse he asks what would prove God's favour and mark Israel off from every nation on earth.
God had just promised, "My presence will go with you," speaking to Moses alone. Moses will not keep that promise to himself. He asks it for the whole nation too.
He uses all the personal confidence that God had in him on behalf of the people. That is the bearing of it all... "Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight... consider that this nation is Yours." He will not give up his love and desire for Israel. God may treat them as the people of Moses, and say, "They are the people you have brought up: they are your people." "Oh no," says Moses, "they are Yours; and You are their only hope."
After the calf, God had spoken of Israel as Moses' people. In this verse Moses hands them back to God. He asks for God's presence as the one proof that favour has returned.
Now he identifies himself with the people... And not only so, but, rising higher, he now links them again with God. We have remarked that God took Israel on their own ground. Since they had rejected Him, He had said to Moses, "your" people. But now — now that Moses, acting as mediator, has gained the ear of God, he says again "Your" people... So he claims, in effect, as proof of divine favour — restoration of favour — God's own presence with His people. There was no other way to know it.
God had named Israel's stiff neck as His reason for staying away. Then God showed His goodness. Moses turns that same fact around and makes it his reason for asking God to come.
God had first threatened to consume them by coming up among them in a moment. Then He said, "I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people." Yet Moses says in chapter 34:9, "If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go up among us, for it is a stiff-necked people." In between, grace had come in; God's goodness had passed before him. This changed all... The moment grace comes in, even in the way God governs us, we feel this: our very sinfulness is a reason why we cannot do without the presence of God.
One thing marks Israel out from every other nation: God travels with them.
To be God's people meant that they had to dwell alone. He lived among them and went with them. That was the principle and the cause of their being separated from all people on the face of the earth (Exodus 33:16). It is ever so. There is the broad road of the world, and the narrow and separated path which leads to life. We cannot walk in the two at once.
Israel never earned this distinctness — they had just worshipped a calf. God marks them off from His own side, and that stays true even when His people fail to live up to it.
The people dwell alone. They are separate from others, because God has marked them off. They are not counted among the nations... That they are not counted among the nations comes from God's side. It is His grace and His gift. The people might not be true to their calling; nor were they: the Church of God has not been true to hers. This does not lessen the value of the truth.
God says yes in the next verse, and He names His reason: the favour of the man who asked.
The Lord makes it clear that His reason for a favourable answer is that Moses had found grace in God's sight, just as is true above all of the Lord Jesus. He has above all found grace in God's sight, and God knows Him by name.
- Presence asked. Moses will not take a promise or a land if God Himself will not go. He turns his own place of favour into a plea for the whole people.
- Presence as proof. Nothing else could show that God had restored His favour. His going with them is the one visible proof.
- Presence given. God Himself marks His people off from the nations. It is His gift, not a standard they reached.
- Presence despite failure. Once grace comes in, the same stubbornness that kept God at a distance becomes the reason they cannot do without Him.
- Presence secured. God says yes because the mediator had found grace in His sight. Writers see the same above all in Christ.
And Jehovah said to Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast said; for thou hast found grace in mine eyes, and I know thee by name.
Israel had made the golden calf, and God refused to go up with them. Moses pleaded on the ground of two things God had already told him: God knew him by name, and he had found favour. Verse 17 is God's yes — and the reason given for it is not Israel's improvement but the standing of the man who prayed.
Moses had asked God not to send someone else in His place, but to go Himself with the whole nation. God's reply gives him what he asked, and states the ground for it. Where the ESV says "favor," older translations say "grace" — the writers quoted here use "grace."
The Lord answered: "I will do this thing also that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight." Again He repeated the personal assurance: "And I know you by name." And so, because of the personal worth and faith of the mediator, the Lord Himself would once more go with Israel. The cloud of the divine presence would again be over them.
These words describe a closeness God had already granted. That closeness shaped how Moses came to Him, and how he prayed for others.
In complete nearness to God, he exchanged words and thoughts with the Infinite. With great human dignity, with holy freedom, yet always with the deepest reverence, he came to the Lord. In everything he said he carried Israel in his heart. God accepted him into an unusually close relationship with Himself — "I know you by name"; and God received his intercession — he found grace in God's sight.
God does not point to anything the people had earned. One writer looks past Moses to the One he pictures.
Above all, the reason for this is that we might see a picture of the grace of the intercession of the Lord Jesus for those redeemed by His blood, though they are overcome by the folly of disobedience, as we too often are... Moses is given the answer to his persistent prayer, "I will also do this thing that you have spoken" (v. 17). Yet the Lord makes it clear why He answered favourably: Moses had found grace in God's sight. The same is chiefly true of the Lord Jesus. He above all has found grace in God's sight, and God knows Him by name.
Moses could have kept this standing for himself. Instead he spends it on the guilty.
What can be more lovely, more like Christ, than this? He uses all the personal confidence God had in him on behalf of the people. That is the point of it all... He will not give up his love and longing for Israel. God may treat them as the people of Moses. He may say, "They are the people you brought up; they are your people." "Oh no," says Moses, "they are Yours; and You are their only hope." He will not be put off.
The same fact about Israel works two ways. Under justice it would mean their destruction; with a mediator and grace, it becomes their reason for asking Him to come.
Moses asks for the accompanying presence of the Lord as proof that they had found grace in His sight. If it were only a question of justice, His coming among them could only destroy them, because they were "a stiff-necked people." But as soon as He speaks of grace, in connection with the mediator, that same stiff-neckedness becomes a plea for demanding His presence.
One writer turns the same reasoning on himself:
That is exactly what we have to do. Why must I insist on having God with me? Because unless I have Him with me in His grace, I will never get through the wilderness with this terrible flesh still in me. I give as my reason: I am so bad. And through grace He can have me with Him, despite all my weaknesses.
Answered prayer did not settle Moses. What he received made him ask for more.
So the mediation of Moses was a complete success — complete for the restoration of the people. They are once again the Lord's people, to be put under a new covenant, as the next chapter shows: a covenant of law indeed, but law mixed with grace, in keeping with the character of God as now revealed. The effect of the divine favour on Moses is remarkable. Every fresh display of grace only stirs up larger desires; and so Moses now longs for himself that he may see God's glory.
- Ground — God's yes rests on grace found in His sight, never on the people's record.
- Gift — "I know you by name" is a closeness God had already granted. Moses prays from it.
- Reach — one man spends his favour on the many. Moses keeps calling them God's people, not his own.
- Reversal — through the mediator, their stubbornness becomes the very reason to plead for His presence.
- Result — the restoration is complete, and grace received enlarges desire: Moses asks next to see God's glory.
And he said, Let me, I pray thee, see thy glory.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thy face, and I will proclaim the name of Jehovah before thee; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.
Moses had just asked to see God's glory. Israel had made a golden calf and lost every claim on God. The answer Moses receives moves Israel's survival off law and onto God's free choice. It also raises the question Paul would later press: on what basis does God show mercy to anyone?
Moses asked for one thing and God gave him another.
The sovereignty of grace did appear. Their transgression and sin gave God His opportunity, if we may reverently use such a word of God. Now He could show His grace in a way not known before. Moses said, "Please show me your glory." But God said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you." Not His glory, but His goodness! Yet His goodness is His highest glory, the glory He delights in. The glory of judgment is His strange work.
Strict justice after the golden calf would have left no nation at all.
Israel had undertaken to have the promises by their obedience. If God had dealt with Israel in righteousness, every one must have been cut off. What could God do but retreat into His own sovereignty? There He had a resource. If He is to spare any of them, it must be in this way of mercy. "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy." Man is entirely lost, so now God says, I will act for Myself.
The timing carries as much weight as the words. God waited until Israel had nothing left to plead.
He would have mercy (or, be gracious) to whom He would be gracious, and have compassion on whom He would. So this did not depend on what the people deserved. It was part of the Divine prerogative. God, because He is God, can act as He will. Now the reader should mark the time God chose for this revelation. Everything was lost as far as Israel was concerned, and lost by their own sin. Only then did God first speak of these feelings of His heart, His compassions. He could show them to people who had proved they deserved nothing but judgment.
Some readers hear this freedom as unfair. One writer answers that objection head on.
Is this arbitrary? Very well: who can deny God His full arbitrary rights? Does He say, four times in the space of a short sentence, "I will," and mean nothing by it? Does a wise parent consult the opinions or whims of his little child as a guide to his child's training? Does he encourage or even tolerate the child's mocking of his authority? God's "I wills" stand, and only folly dares to quarrel.
God's words to Moses did not stay in Exodus. Paul used them in Romans 9 to answer people who said God should not bless outsiders.
For the time being, Moses had to be content to know the goodness and the name of the Lord, and along with that God displayed His grace and His mercy. Here we have the statement which Paul quotes in Romans 9:15, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy;" and by this God declares His sovereignty. The point is this: Israel had lost everything under strict law, and yet God chose to show mercy and continue with them. So Israel had no ground for objecting when God showed mercy to Gentiles in these Gospel days. From the days of the golden calf they owed their own existence to the mercy of God.
Moses was asking for something no covenant or ceremony could supply. The answer he received is the answer sinners still need.
The law cannot meet a sinner's case. Neither can conditional covenants, nor shadows and ordinances, nor even promises of the highest order. His case demands "sovereign grace." And the Lord delights in such faith... Paul quotes these words in Romans 9:15 as the expression of sovereign electing grace. What satisfied Moses, Paul preaches as God's gospel for sinners.
One writer turns this into an appeal: stop fighting God's freedom, and see what it does for the worst sinner.
Beloved friends, do not set your face against God. Do not oppose God. You leave God alone to exercise what I may call the prerogative of His love, and what will He do? "I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy," is His way of meeting the guiltiest sinner that ever walked the earth.
- Ruin. Israel broke the law at the golden calf. Under strict righteousness every one of them would have been cut off.
- Retreat. With every other ground gone, God retreated into His own sovereignty. Mercy was the one resource left for sparing anyone.
- Revelation. Moses asked for glory; God showed him goodness. Goodness is the glory God delights in, while judgment is His strange work.
- Right. The repeated "I will" is God's own right, not a whim. Mercy does not depend on what people deserve, and only folly quarrels with it.
- Reach. Paul takes the same words into Romans 9. Israel had lived by that mercy since the calf, so they cannot object when it reaches the nations. What satisfied Moses is now the gospel for the guiltiest sinner.
And he said, Thou canst not see my face; for Man shall not see me, and live.
Moses had just asked for the highest thing a man could ask: "Please show me your glory." God gave him part of what he asked for and held back the rest, and this verse says why.
In Scripture a person's face stands for that person made fully known. One writer draws the line carefully between what God let Moses see and what He held back:
The face speaks of the full disclosure of a person. The time had not yet come for the Son to declare the Father, or for the Son to be sent. God let Moses see and value all that He had made known so far — the back parts. But God could not reveal the "face" at that time. Yet the face was there. The Father was there, waiting for the Son to come and make Him known.
Another writer asks what a full sight of God would have had to include:
Moses wanted the perfect light of God. That is what His "face" means. God answers him, "You cannot see My face, for man shall not see Me and live." No one could meet God in the revelation of Himself. If God had revealed Himself to Moses, He must have made Moses know His hatred of sin. How could Moses have stood before Him if He let loose His wrath against sin? But God showed him His back parts. Moses never saw His face while on earth. But even the sight of His back parts made the skin of his face shine.
Moses stood here for the whole nation, so the refusal touched everyone:
God wanted the issue to be plain, so that no one could be deceived about it for a moment unless he chose to be. So He lets Moses know, as the people's representative, that no one can see His face. God is unknown: there is no way to clear the guilty, and therefore no way by which man may stand before Him.
Earlier in the same chapter the Lord speaks with Moses "face to face, as a man speaks to his friend." That means closeness, not sight:
We are not told what the Lord said to Moses, but He spoke to him as to a friend, face to face (v. 11). This does not mean that Moses saw God's face (Ex. 33:20), but that there was a close intimacy.
God did not leave Moses in the dark. But what He gave was only part of the light:
God did not grant Moses what he asked. What He then revealed was not of the "face" of God, but His "back parts" (v. 23). It was not the Light in the full power of its shining, showing God in the fullness of what He is in moral nature and life. It was one ray of that Light, revealing in part the One it was reflected from.
God refused the sight, but He gave Moses something else: a rock, a cleft, a covering hand. Writers read that shelter as a picture of the believer's standing:
God put Moses in a cleft of the rock, and covered him with His own hand. This is a beautiful picture of our position in Christ, and it is God Himself who gives us that place. As believers, God no longer sees us in the first man, Adam. Just as He put Moses in the cleft of the rock, He has united us with Christ. So we stand in perfect safety before God, covered by God's own hand.
What Moses could not have, the believer now has. The glory shines in the face of a Man who gave Himself for us:
We need no hiding-place now that would make the showing of the glory of the Lord only partial for us. There is no hiding in a cleft as the glory passes before us in John 17. Every ray of it falls on that face — the face once marred more than any man's. And we can look on the glory in His face, for it is the face of Him who gave Himself for us.
What faith sees now, sight will one day complete. One promise still lies ahead:
Then comes that glorious statement, "they will see his face." His face is connected with His glory in the revelation of Himself. Under grace the contrast is great. We can say, "God … has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." But what is still to come far exceeds that. Brought into favour, we shall live in the full light of the knowledge of God, perfectly revealed in Christ.
- Face. In this verse "face" means God fully disclosed — not a body part, but the whole truth of who He is.
- Barrier. The obstacle is sin: a complete self-revelation would have brought God's judgment on the man who saw it.
- Partial. Back parts, not face; a ray, not the full shining. The light God did give came only in part.
- Shelter. God answered the refusal with a gift: a rock, a cleft, a covering hand. Commentators read it as a picture of our place in Christ.
- Fulfilled. God now gives in the face of Jesus Christ what He withheld from Moses. It will be complete when we see His face.
And Jehovah said, Behold, [there is] a place by me there shalt thou stand on the rock.
Moses had just asked God to show him His glory. God answered that no one can see His face and live. What follows is not a flat refusal but an offer — God names a place, and puts Moses on a rock while His glory goes past.
God answers a bold prayer. One writer weighs what God gave, and where He drew the line.
The Lord hears, and grants as far as it was possible for Moses to receive, the request he had made. He would make all His goodness pass before him, and proclaim the name of the Lord... But despite this favour given to Moses — this privilege of seeing the goodness of the Lord and bearing His name — he could not see His face and live. The Lord would put him "in a cleft of the rock" while He passed by.
God's first offer is not an explanation. It is a location.
Still, it is a great blessing to know that God always has a place for us, a place of perfect security and complete safety. This place is found by Him, or near Him. There is peace and quiet, protection from dangers, and eternal safety. Nothing can harm us in the presence of God. The natural man does not know this place by God, for he has turned his back on Him and has gone out from His presence.
God does not just call Moses closer. He gives him ground to stand on, and the ground matters.
The rock was the only safe place for Moses, for otherwise he would have been consumed by the glory of God. There is important teaching in Scripture about God as the Rock. In Deuteronomy 32 Moses spoke again and again of God as the Rock of His people. He was the Rock of their salvation, the Rock who gave them birth and fathered them. This picture is also often used in the Psalms. God was the Rock in whom David trusted, and whom he blessed as the God of his salvation.
Commentators read the rock under Moses' feet as a picture of what a believer stands on now.
Our place near God has been prepared by Christ. We see this pictured in the second part of this verse in Exodus 33: "you shall stand on the rock." God showed Moses a place on the rock. In the same way, we have found a sure foundation in Christ, the Rock of ages. He is the One on whom our faith can build, both personally and together.
That foundation cost something. The same writer asks how God made room for people with no claim on Him.
We had no right to this place, for we were children of wrath and could not come into God's holy presence. How did God prepare this place near Himself? He did it by laying a sure foundation in the finished work of the Lord Jesus on Calvary's cross. This enables us to stand before Him.
The Hebrew word for "place" here is a common one. Deuteronomy uses it for something worth seeing.
So the important lesson of Exodus 33:21 is that there is a place of shelter in God's presence, a place near God. It is a place given by God Himself to this end. The Hebrew word for "place" in this verse is very common in the Old Testament. In the book of Deuteronomy it is used for the place of worship that Israel was to seek in the Promised Land. In this place, which the Lord would choose, the people would come to meet Him and rejoice in His presence. We also have a God-given place of meeting, for God wants us to meet around His beloved Son. Christ is the centre of our worship, and we come to God through Him.
The shelter was also a screen. Writers set what Moses had against what believers have now.
We need no hiding-place now, which would show us the glory of the Lord only in part. There is no hiding in a cleft as the glory passes before us in John 17. Every ray of it is concentrated on that face once more marred than any man's. We can look on the glory in His face, for it is the face of Him who gave Himself for us.
- Asked — Moses wanted to see God's glory; God gave as much as Moses could receive, and no more. The face stayed hidden.
- Given — The answer is a place, and the place is at God's side: perfect security, and nothing there can harm us. The man who has walked away from God does not know it exists.
- Founded — The place is a rock. Without it, the passing glory would have destroyed Moses. Commentators read the rock as a picture of Christ — the sure foundation God laid at the cross.
- Sought — The same word for "place" later marks the spot Israel was to seek for worship. There the people met God and rejoiced before Him — as we now meet around His Son.
- Widened — Moses needed a screen for the glory. Writers contrast that with seeing the glory now in the face of the One who gave Himself for us — no cleft required.
And it shall come to pass, when my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand, until I have passed by.
Israel had just made the golden calf, and Moses — pleading for a guilty people — asked to see God's glory. The answer here is strange and tender at once: God says yes, but first He hides the man who asked.
Moses does not find the shelter. God points to it. Only there could a man survive the sight he had asked for.
The rock was the only safe place for Moses, for otherwise he would have been consumed by the glory of God. Scripture teaches much about God as the Rock. In Deuteronomy 32 Moses called Him the Rock of His people again and again: the Rock of their salvation, the Rock who gave them birth and fathered them.
God does not just set Moses on the rock. He puts him inside it. Commentators read that difference as a picture of where the believer now stands.
God gave Moses a place not only on the rock, but inside the rock… God put Moses in a cleft of the rock, and covered him with His own hand. This is a beautiful picture of our position in Christ. And it is God Himself who grants us this place in Christ. As believers we are no longer seen in the first man, Adam. Just as Moses was put in the cleft of the rock, we have been united with Christ. In this way we have found a place of perfect safety before God, a place where we are covered by God's own hand. All of this is God's work.
God's glory here moves in judgment. Only one place lets a man watch it and live.
Which of us does not know this cleft of the rock? From it alone can we rightly see the glory of Him who passes by in the cloud of judgment. Yet we must notice that even so, it is not His "face." Here it is His ways of holy government that are in question. In the path of His judgments we do not meet Him face to face. We stand in a place of rest and safety, our cleft in the rock, hidden in His wounds, so to speak. Only from there can we rightly hold the glory of Him who — even as our God — is "a consuming fire."
But what kind of glory needed such a shelter?
The sovereignty of God in grace is an essential part of His glory. Israel had destroyed itself, and their only resource remained in Jehovah Himself. When all is lost, then is the time for grace to show itself. But you must stand in the right place to see the glory of this grace. God would put Moses in the cleft of the rock so that he might see it.
God's hand sets a limit on what Moses may see. Writers read that limit as a sign of something better still to come.
When Moses asks to be shown His glory, he is told that he cannot see God's face, for no one can see Him and live. What a clear announcement of a glory not yet revealed — the "excelling" glory of Christianity! Long after this an apostle says, as if echoing what is here: "No one has ever seen God." Then he adds, looking at the glory of the Word made flesh, "The only Son, who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known."
What Moses could not have, the believer now has.
We need no hiding-place now to make the sight of the Lord's glory only a partial one for us. There is no hiding in a cleft as the glory passes before us in John 17. Every ray of it shines on that face, once marred more than that of any man. We can look at the glory in His face, for it is the face of Him who gave Himself for us.
So what does a sheltered man do while all that goodness passes by?
The Lord passed by, and His goodness passed by, proclaimed aloud before His servant. What could he say while, sheltered there, he saw it and heard it all? He hurried, bowed his head, and worshipped; and so, beloved, it always is.
- Sheltered. The rock was the only safe place; outside it the glory would have consumed him.
- Sheltered by God. Moses did not climb in — "I will put you" — and every believer's place in Christ is likewise God's own work.
- Sheltered from judgment. Only from the cleft can a man rightly see the glory of a God who is a consuming fire.
- Sheltered to see grace. Israel had destroyed itself. What passed by was goodness — God's sovereign right to show mercy.
- Sheltered, then worship. Moses hurried, bowed his head and worshipped. And now the hiding place is gone: the glory shines full in the face of Christ.
And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see me from behind; but my face shall not be seen.
Moses had asked to see God's glory. This verse is God's answer: a hand lifted, a partial sight given, one thing still withheld. Why could Israel's most favoured man not see God's face, and what did he see instead?
The word "face" here is not about physical features. It stands for God made known in full. One writer explains why that would have destroyed the man who asked for it.
Moses was a man greatly favoured by God, and God spoke face to face with him. But that light only made him cry out for more. He says, "Please show me your glory." Moses wanted the perfect light of God. This is what is meant by His "FACE." God answers him, "No one can see my face and live." The meaning of that is that no one could meet God in the revelation of Himself. If God had revealed Himself to Moses, He must have made Moses know His hatred of sin. And how could Moses have stood before Him if He let loose His wrath against sin? But God showed him His back parts.
God gave Moses a view from behind: God known by the road He had already travelled. The ESV renders it "you shall see my back."
God let him see the "back parts" of the Lord but not His "face," for no one could see that and live. Moses was only to see God after He had passed by, and so know Him by the way He had taken.
Measured against knowing a person, that is very little:
How much, dear friends, would you know of a man if you only saw his back? What they saw then was God with His back to them, and His face turned away.
Notice who does the hiding. Moses does not climb into the cleft; God puts him there and covers him.
God put Moses in a cleft of the rock, and covered him with His own hand. This is a beautiful picture of our position in Christ. Just as Moses was put in the cleft of the rock, we have been united with Christ. In this way we have found a place of perfect safety before God, covered by His own hand. All of this is God's work.
One writer applies that cleft to every believer, and marks what even it does not give:
"I will put you in a cleft of the rock," the Lord says to Moses, "and cover you with my hand, while my glory passes by." And which of us does not know this cleft of the rock? From it alone can we rightly see the glory of Him who passes by in the cloud of judgment. Yet we must notice that even so, it is not His "face."
The refusal is not only about Moses. It marks the limit of a whole age — and points forward.
"I will take away my hand, and you shall see MY BACK; but my face shall not be seen." What a clear declaration of a glory not yet revealed! That glory is the "excelling" glory of Christianity. Long after this an apostle says, as if echoing this: "No one has ever seen God." Then he looks at the glory of the Word made flesh and adds, "The only Son, who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known."
What Moses could not see is now the very thing believers may look at:
We need no hiding-place now to keep the showing of the Lord's glory partial. There is no hiding in a cleft as the glory passes before us in John 17. Every ray of it falls on that face once more marred than any man's. And we can look on the glory in His face, for it is the face of Him who gave Himself for us.
Though partial, the sight was not grim. It ended Moses' asking — not by frustration, but by contentment.
Nothing can surpass such a picture of the abounding grace of God and the safety of the one who took refuge in it... He gazes and listens while the glory passes and the Lord proclaims His name. His spirit drinks in the revelation. It was not an overwhelming but a gladdening brightness... He no longer asks for more revelations of the Lord. He asks for the company of the One he has now found.
- Asked — Moses wanted God's "face": God made known in full. God refused. To meet God revealed is to meet His hatred of sin.
- Hidden — God's answer begins with a hiding place. Moses does not find it; God puts him in it and covers him with His own hand — a picture of the believer's place in Christ.
- Shown — From that shelter he sees God's back. He knows God by the road God has already travelled — real, but as partial as knowing a man from behind.
- Withheld — "My face shall not be seen" announces a glory still to come. An apostle later names the same limit: no one has ever seen God. Then he adds that the only Son has made Him known.
- Satisfied — Moses stopped asking for more sightings and asked instead for God's company. What withheld a face gave a Companion.