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.