Exodus 33:12-23 - Then Moses said to the LORD, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people!’ But You Yourself have not let me know whom You will send with me. Moreover, You have said, ‘I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.’ 13 “Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people.” 14 And He said, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 Then he said to Him, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. 16 “For how then can it be known that I have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people? Is it not by Your going with us, so that we, I and Your people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth?” 17 The LORD said to Moses, “I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight and I have known you by name.” 18 Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” 19 And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” 20 But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” 21 Then the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; 22 and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. 23 “Then I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.”
1) The Mission of the Land - In the context, Moses needed reassurance of God’s presence with Israel (cf. 33:3,5). In light of the mission to bring the people into the land of promise, Moses requests to know the ways of YHWH so that he may know YHWH (13). Since this nation is “Your” people, the LORD should reveal Himself. YHWH’s answer is that “My presence shall go with you [Moses]” (singular, 14). Moses continues to implore that if His presence is not with them (plural, 15), Israel will not be distinct from other nations (16). Then, YHWH responds to Moses’ prayer of trust and confirms His presence with His people, “I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight and I have known you by name” (17). Thus, Moses mediatorial role succeeds once again. The Covenant LORD intimately knows Moses’ character, i.e., “knows his name.” Problem: we confess that God knows all things; yet in this sense of Him “knowing” Moses, the sense is different. Does the Covenant LORD know you?
2) The Mystery of Seeing the LORD - Moses’ request does not stop with imploring God for the resources of the mission (to bring Isreal into the Land). “Then” Moses asks for more: he desires to see YHWH’s glory (18). Remember, Moses has undergone a transformation. At first he was “afraid to look at God” (Ex. 3:6). Now He wants to see His full glory. The LORD also answers this request. “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you” (19). YHWH “equates his glory with all my goodness” (NB Comm.). YHWH’s name includes His sovereign, merciful character: “and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion” (19). The answer to Moses’ request comes with a condition, “you cannot see My face.” There is a reason for this: God’s unmitigated presence would kill Moses (see John 1:18; 6:46; 1 Tim 1:17; 1 John 4:12). So the LORD covers Moses with His “hand” in the “cleft” of the rock and permits him to see His “back.”“‘Hand’ and ‘back’ are anthropomorphisms (i.e., descriptions of the reality of God in terms or analogies understandable to men)” (Kaiser, EBC). “While people truly can know God, they can never know Him exhaustively” (Hannah, BKC). To know God as He is in Himself is the greatest thing; this is the beatific vision which will continue expanding throughout eternity for the blessed. To know one’s self as you are apart from the blessed Triune God is truly the miserific horror; it is that which all the horror films ever produced can hardly lisp. In order to know the beatific vision, we need the Rock of Ages to cleft for us, the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5).