Moses' Intercession (Exodus 33:12-23)

I took last week off without notice, but now I'm back with the rest of Exodus before I switch gears next week!

12 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. [In Moses’ mind there is a huge difference between “with” and “before”—the word God used of his angel’s leading in verse 2.] Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13 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. [Knowing God is foremost in Moses’ thoughts. He is after relationship not knowledge. What comes from knowing God?] Consider too that this nation is your people.” [Moses reminds God of his purposes. He does not simply want the prestige of being in charge.] 14 And he [the Lord] said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” [Prayer mission accomplished! God agrees to the full restoration of his original promise, not because Moses could get anything he wanted but because of God’s character. The “rest” is Canaan itself. Where does a Christian find rest?] 15 And he [Moses] said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 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?” [Moses wants all the people to be in God’s favor, not just himself. There is a deep concern that the surrounding Gentiles may see, hear, and believe because of God’s special relationship with Israel. Unless Israel, not just Moses, succeeded where other nations expected them to fail, they could not be that witness to the power and glory of God.]

17 And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” [God affirms his favor and will make Moses’ request so. However, he does not merely like Moses; he knows him. They have a special relationship, the kind of relationship God plans to have with all his people.] 18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” [Why does Moses need to see God’s glory again? Think of someone who asks their spouse, “Do you love me?” In the past, God had taken the initiative of showing Moses his glory. Now Moses initiates it.] 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness [splendor] pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ [God will reveal his character that Moses may have an experiential sensory perception of God.] And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. [Grace and mercy are God’s name, his character.] 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” [God continues to limit his exposure to his complete divine presence that only heaven allows. Why? Consider what “Christlikeness” means.] 21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” [God’s goodness—he has no “badness”—is not something to be seen at a certain time and place but an ongoing experience of God’s nature through his covenant. “To see his back,” in Hebrew, means to see virtually nothing. For Moses to have seen God’s face—to see all of him—would have been beyond his capacity to endure as a sinful human being. Like Moses, we wait for our own resurrection bodies so that we can see God face to face.]