Year 1, Week 11, Day 4 Bible Reading Observations

Year 1, Week 11, Day 4

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Exodus 33.

Today’s reading consists of the interactions between the LORD and Moses in the immediate aftermath of Israel’s covenant unfaithfulness and idolatry. Exodus 33 continues noting the LORD’s reaction toward Israel as He threatens to not go with them to the Promised Land. However, amid these threats, Moses persists in pleading with the LORD as well as modeling before Israel His understanding of the absolute need for the presence of the LORD to be with them as they move forward.

What struck me from today’s reading was how essential the presence of the LORD is for our lives: “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” (Psalm 63:1-3). Moses’ intercession had resulted in the LORD deciding against completely destroying Israel. But there is a new development in the interaction between the LORD and Moses. Now the LORD has declared that He will deliver Israel into the land as He has promised them: “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” (Exodus 33:1-3). However, the LORD has announced that He will cast them out of His presence and will not go with them. The response of the LORD is reminiscent of His response to Adam and Eve in the aftermath of their covenant unfaithfulness and rebellion in the garden: “the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Genesis 3:23-24).

Israel is startled by the new plans concerning the LORD not going with them: “When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments.” (Exodus 33:4). But Moses was even more acutely aware of the disaster that the LORD’s plans held for Israel: “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:15-16). Moses was absolutely uninterested in going forward into the Promised Land without the presence of the LORD. Moses understood that both his and Israel’s real need was not merely a safe passage to “a land flowing with milk and honey”; but for the LORD to be present with them. Moses would rather stay put in the wilderness and be with the LORD than to arrive in fairer land without the LORD. Further, Moses understood that what made Israel special and distinct was not anything about them per se; what made Israel what they were was the LORD’s presence with them. As Moses will explain a generation later: “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers” (Deuteronomy 7:6-8a).

Moses gets it. Moses understands the absolute necessity of the presence of the LORD for the nation. So Moses modeled before Israel the kind of posture that they needed towards the LORD. Even before the Tabernacle is constructed, before it was safe for Israel to meet with the LORD, Moses met with the LORD in special ways: “Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting…and the LORD would speak with Moses…Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” (Exodus 33:7-11). Moses particularly modeled before Israel what they needed in regard to the LORD. So Moses prayed: “Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight” (Exodus 33:13); and also: “Please show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). Moses got it and his prayers reflected not only that he got it, but also so that perhaps Israel would get it.

Moses grasped that knowing God was an absolute. For Moses to live and to know how to live, he would need to know God, that is, to see the goodness of His glory through personally and experientially living in relationship with the LORD. Moses grasped, at least in part, what Jesus grasped perfectly: “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:22-23).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe