Exodus 33:12-23

(Exodus 33:12-23 NRSV) 

¹² Moses said to the LORD, "See, you have said to me, 'Bring up this people'; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.' ¹³ Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people." ¹⁴ He said, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." ¹⁵ And he said to him, "If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. ¹⁶ For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth." ¹⁷ The LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name." ¹⁸ Moses said, "Show me your glory, I pray." ¹⁹ And he said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, 'The LORD'; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. ²⁰ But," he said, "you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live." ²¹ And the LORD continued, "See, 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."

In Exodus 33:12-23, we have the story of the request by Moses to see God face to face. The request is bold. Since Moses has found favor in the sight of the Lord, he wants the Lord to show him the ways of the Lord.  The “Presence” or “Face” of the Lord will go with him, the Lord promises. Such a promise carries with it the image of an almost independent hypostatic entity that suggests immanence while at the same attempting to protect the divine transcendence.[1] This text is one of the many places in the Old Testament in which we see the tension between divine transcendence and divine immanence. Christianity would resolve this tension in its notion of the Trinity. Moses affirms the importance of the Presence or Face of the Lord going with them. They will not leave their present position until the Lord goes ahead of them. He wants himself and the people to find favor with the Lord. He wants the people to be distinct from other people.

Moses makes his request that the Lord will show him the divine glory. The Bible makes it clear that God has a “glory” before which we cannot stand. In theology, we call this transcendence. This does mean hierarchy and authority. Someone stands above us and over us, to whom we are accountable. Many of us have found in the casual our level of comfort. Yet, God is more than our pal is. Relating to God is not a matter of minimalism. We do not serve anyone well, if we boil down the divine and human relation into a single phrase, a simple emotive transaction, or a silly slogan. A relationship with God is painful. It ought not to surprise us, then, that the Lord does not agree to this request. However, the Lord will show him the goodness of the Lord, proclaim the name of Yahweh, and the Lord will be gracious and merciful, showing that grace is an inner mode of being within God.[2] Yet, the Lord will not let Moses see the divine Face, for no one can do so and live, reminding us that in order to participate in the eternity of the divine, we will require a radical change.[3]

Yet, the Lord invites Moses to take a place beside the Lord. Such a place is a reminder that creation itself involves letting the works of God take their place alongside God. God gives creatures such a space where they can stand in their finitude and temporality, even as the presence of God still embraces them.[4] We can stand with this God only because God has created a place for us to stand in the divine presence. This place, theology calls “immanence.” God is available to us. Moses spoke with God as with a friend. The Lord called him to a vocation, that of leading the Hebrew people out of slavery and to the Promised Land. To fulfill that vocation, Moses would need to listen to God and God will listen to Moses. That is what friends do. The Lord will then place a hand over Moses so that he will not see the Face, but he will see the back of the Lord. Thus, not even Moses can comprehend fully the reality of the glory and presence of God. Our knowledge of God is in that sense never complete and always indirect.[5]

To know someone truly is to know them face to face. Just because we pass someone on a crowded street does not mean we know him or her. Just because people have told us about someone does not mean we know them. We can say that a relationship has begun when we single out a person from the crowd, meet them face to face, know their name, talk with them, and experience life with them. Then we can say there is a genuine friendship.

With God, the relationship will work itself out differently but analogously to that of human relationships. If God is real to us, then God deserves our highest respect and honor. God is transcendent, beyond us all.

With God, whom we can never know fully, we have the privilege of God granting us space alongside God. God is immanent and intimate with us because of a gracious decision and act of God.

What is the deepest desire of our hearts? Do we want to see God? If we see God truly, we will discover proper honor and authority that belongs to God. We will also discover that God has granted us a place alongside of God. We will acknowledge the transcendence and immanence of God.

The relationship with God of which I write is the reason religious institutions exist. The danger of all religious institutions is that they will get quite good at organizing religious activities and not guiding people to the experience of God. Participants learn what religious people do within that tradition without discovering the joy and pain of a true relationship with God. Oscar Wilde once said that religion is the fashionable substitute for belief. The point of true religion is not to bring more people into the institution, but to bring them to a transforming relationship with God. In fact, institutions and activities can feel like our human attempt to avoid what truly matters, namely, our relationship with God. We can hear about God and we can teach about God without every relating to God. If religion has become shallow, thin, and the same as culture, maybe the time has come to become deep, think, and become different (Jack Davis). In Hebrew the word for honor and glory is kbd (kabod), meaning “heavy.” We need a better grasp and experience of the holiness and weightiness of God. God is not the lightweight of much of contemporary theology.[6]

---

[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 415.

[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 415.

[3] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology Volume III, 607)

[4] (Pannenberg, Vol II, 85)

[5] Barth, (Church Dogmatics II.1 [25.1] 18-19)

[6] Timothy Tennant said something similar and inspires this, though I have broadened the comments.