'And Moses said unto the Lord, See, Thou sayest unto me,
Bring up this people: and Thou hast not let me know whom
Thou wilt send with me. Yet Thou hast said, I know thee
by name, and thou hast also found grace in My sight.
13. Now therefore, I pray Thee, if I have found grace
in Thy sight, show me now Thy way, that I may know Thee,
that I may find grace in Thy sight: and consider that
this nation is Thy people. 14. And He said, My presence
shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. 15. And
he said unto Him, If Thy presence go not with me, carry
us not up hence. 16. For wherein shall it be known here
that I and Thy people have found grace in Thy sight? Is it
not in that Thou goest with us! So shall we be separated, I
and Thy people, from all the people that are upon the
face of the earth, 17. And the Lord said unto Moses, I
will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou
hast found grace in My sight, and I know thee by name.
18. And he said, I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory.
19. And He said, I will make all My goodness pass before
thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before
thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,
and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. 20. And
he said, Thou canst not see My face: for there shall no
man see Me, and live. 21. And the Lord said, Behold,
there is a place by Me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
22. And it shall come to pass, while My glory passeth
by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and
will cover thee with My hand while I pass by: 23. And
I will take away Mine hand, and thou shall see My back
parts; but My face shall not be seen.'--EXODUS xxxiii. 12-23.
The calf worship broke the bond between God and Israel. Instead of His
presence, 'an angel' is to lead them, for His presence could only be
destruction. Mourning spreads through the camp, in token of which all
ornaments are laid aside. The fate of the nation is in suspense, and
the people wait, in sad attire, till God knows 'what to do unto' them.
The Tabernacle is carried beyond the precincts of the camp, in witness
of the breach, and all the future is doubtful. The preceding context
describes (vs. 7-11) not one event, but the standing order of these
dark days, when the camp had to be left if God was to be found, and
when Moses alone received tokens of God's friendship, and the people
stood wistfully and tremblingly gazing from afar, while the cloudy
pillar wavered down to the Tabernacle door. Duty brought Moses back
from such communion; but Joshua did not need to come near the tents of
the evil-doers, and, in the constancy of devout desire, made his home
in the Tabernacle. In one of these interviews, so close and familiar,
the wonderful dialogue here recorded occurred. It turns round three
petitions, to each of which the Lord answers.
I. We have the leader's prayer for himself, with the over-abundant
answer of God. In the former chapter, we had the very sublimity of
intercession, in which the stern avenger of idolatry poured out his
self-sacrificing love for the stiff-necked nation whom he had had to
smite, and offered himself a victim for them. Here his first prayer is
mainly for himself, but it is not therefore a selfish prayer. Rather he
prays for gifts to himself, to fit him for his service to them. We may
note separately the prayer, and the pleas on which it is urged. 'Show
me now Thy way (or ways), that I may know Thee.' The desire immediately
refers to the then condition of things. As we have pointed out, it was
a time of suspense. In the strong metaphor of the context, God was
making up His mind on His course, and Israel was waiting with hushed
breath for the _dénouement_. It was not the entrance of the nation into
the promised land which was in doubt, but the manner of their guidance,
and the penalties of their idolatry. These things Moses asked to know,
and especially, as verse 12 shows, to receive some more definite
communication as to their leader than the vague 'an angel.' But the
specific knowledge of God's 'way' was yearned for by him, mainly, as
leading on to a deeper and fuller and more blessed knowledge of God
Himself, and that again as leading to a fuller possession of God's
favour, which, as already in some measure possessed, lay at the
foundation of the whole prayer. The connection of thought here goes far
beyond the mere immediate blessing, which Moses needed at the moment.
That cry for insight into the purposes and methods of Him whom the soul
trusts, amid darkness and suspense, is the true voice of sonship. The
more deeply it sees into these, the more does the devout soul feel the
contrast between the spot of light in which it lives and the encircling
obscurity, and the more does it yearn for the further setting back of
the boundaries. Prayer does more than effort, for satisfying that
desire. Nor is it mere curiosity or the desire for intellectual
clearness that moves the longing. For the end of knowing God's ways is,
for the devout man, a deeper, more blessed knowledge of God Himself,
who is best known in His deeds; and the highest, most blessed issue of
the God-given knowledge of God, is the conscious sunshine of His favour
shining ever on His servant. That is not a selfish religion which,
beginning with the assurance that we have found grace in His sight,
seeks to climb, by happy paths of growing knowledge of Him as
manifested in His ways, to a consciousness of that favour which is made
stable and profound by clear insight into the depths of His purposes
and acts.
The pleas on which this prayer is urged are two: the suppliant's heavy
tasks, and God's great assurances to him. He boldly reminds God of what
He has set him to do, and claims that he should be furnished with what
is needful for discharging his commission. How can he lead if he is
kept in the dark? When we are as sure as Moses was of God's charge to
us, we may be as bold as he in asking the needful equipment for it. God
does not send His servants out to sow without seed, or to fight without
a sword. His command is His pledge. He smiles approval when His
servants' confidence assumes even bold forms, which sound like
remonstrance and a suspicion that He was forgetting, for He discerns
the underlying eagerness to do His will, and the trust in Him. The
second plea is built on God's assurances of intimate and distinguishing
knowledge and favour. He had said that He knew Moses 'by name,' by all
these calls and familiar interviews which gave him the certainty of his
individual relation to, and his special appointment from, the Lord.
Such prerogative was inconsistent with reserve. The test of friendship
is confidence. So pleads Moses, and God recognises the plea. 'I call
you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but
I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my
Father I have made known unto you.'
The plea based upon the relation of the people to God is subordinate in
this first prayer. It is thrown in at the end almost as an
afterthought; it boldly casts responsibility off Moses on to God, and
does so to enforce the prayer that he should be equipped with all
requisites for his work, as if he had said, 'It is more Thy concern
than mine, that I should be able to lead them.' The divine answer is a
promise to go not with the people, but with Moses. It is therefore not
yet a full resolving of the doubtful matter, nor directly a reply to
Moses' prayer. In one aspect it is less, and in another more, than had
been asked. It seals to the man and to the leader the assurance that
for himself he shall have the continual presence of God, in his soul
and in his work, and that, in all the weary march, he will have rest,
and will come to a fuller rest at its end. Thus God ever answers the
true hearts that seek to know Him, and to be fitted for their tasks.
Whether the precise form of desire be fulfilled or no, the issue of
such bold and trustful pleading is always the inward certainty of God's
face shining on us, and the experience of repose, deep and untroubled
in the midst of toil, so that we may be at once pilgrims towards, and
dwellers in, 'the house of the Lord,'
II. We have the intercessor's prayer for the people, with the answer
(vs. 15-17). If the promise of verse 14 is taken as referring to the
people, there is nothing additional asked in this second stage, and the
words of verse l7, 'this thing also,' are inexplicable. Observe that
'with me' in verse 15 is a supplement, and that the 'us' of the next
clause, as well as the whole cast of verse 16, suggests that we should
rather supply 'with us,' The substance, then, of the second petition,
is the extension of the promise, already given to Moses for himself, to
the entire nation. Observe how he identifies himself with them, making
them 'partakers' in his grace, and reiterating 'I and Thy people,' as
if he would have no blessing which was not shared by them. He seeks
that the withdrawal of God's presence, which had been the consequence
of Israel's withdrawal from God, should be reversed, and that not he
alone, but all the rebels, might still possess His presence.
The plea for this prayer is God's honour, which was concerned in making
it plain even in the remote wilderness, to the wandering tribes there,
that His hand was upon Israel. Moses expands the argument which he had
just touched before. The thought of His own glory as the motive of
God's acts, may easily be so put at to be repulsive; but at bottom it
is the same as to say that His motive is love--for the glory which He
seeks is the communication of true thoughts concerning His character,
that men may be made glad and like Himself thereby. Moses has learned
that God's heart must long to reveal its depth of mercy, and therefore
he pleads that even sinful Israel should not be left by God, in order
that some light from His face may strike into a dark world. There is
wide benevolence, as well as deep insight into the desires of God, in
the plea.
The divine answer yields unconditionally to the request, and rests the
reason for so doing wholly on the relation between God and Moses. The
plea which he had urged in lowly boldness as the foundation of both his
prayers is endorsed, and, for his sake, the divine presence is again
granted to the people.
Can we look at this scene without seeing in it the operation on a lower
field of the same great principle of intercession, which reaches its
unique example in Jesus Christ? It is not arbitrary forcing of the
gospel into the history, but simply the recognition of the essence of
the history, when we see in it a foreshadowing of our great
High-priest. He, too, knits Himself so closely with us, both by the
assumption of our manhood and by the identity of loving sympathy, that
He accepts nothing from the Father's hand for Himself alone. He, too,
presents Himself before God, and says 'I and Thy people.' The great
seal of proof for the world that He is the beloved of God, lies in the
divine guardianship and guidance of His servants. His prayer for them
prevails, and the reason for its prevalence is God's delight in Him.
The very sublime of self-sacrificing love was in the lawgiver, but the
height of his love, measured against the immeasurable altitude of
Christ's, is as a mole-hill to the Andes.
III. We have the last soaring desire which rises above the limits of
the present. These three petitions teach the insatiableness, if we may
use the word, of devout desires. Each request granted brings on a
greater. 'The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis received.' Enjoyment
increases capacity, and increase of capacity is increase of desire. God
being infinite, and man capable of indefinite growth, neither the
widening capacity nor the infinite supply can have limits. This is not
the least of the blessings of a devout life, that the appetite grows
with what it feeds on, and that, while there is always satisfaction,
there is never satiety.
Moses' prayer sounds presumptuous, but it was heard unblamed, and
granted in so far as possible. It was a venial error--if error it may
be called--that a soul, touched with the flame of divine love, should
aspire beyond the possibilities of mortality. At all events, it was a
fault in which he has had few imitators. _Our_ desires keep but too
well within the limits of the possible. The precise meaning of the
petition must be left undetermined. Only this is clear, that it was
something far beyond even that face-to-face intercourse which he had
had, as well as beyond that vision granted to the elders. If we are to
take 'glory' in its usual sense, it would mean the material symbol of
God's presence, which shone at the heart of the pillar, and dwelt
afterwards between the cherubim, but probably we must attach a loftier
meaning to it here, and rather think of what we should call the
uncreated and infinite divine essence. Only do not let us make Moses
talk like a metaphysician or a theological professor. Rather we should
hear in his cry the voice of a soul thrilled through and through with
the astounding consciousness of God's favour, blessed with love-gifts
in answered prayers, and yearning for more of that light which it feels
to be life.
And if the petition be dark, the answer is yet more obscure 'with
excess of light.' Mark how it begins with granting, not with refusing.
It tells how much the loving desire has power to bring, before it
speaks of what in it must be denied. There is infinite tenderness in
that order of response. It speaks of a heart that does not love to say
'no,' and grants our wishes up to the very edge of the possible, and
wraps the bitterness of any refusal in the sweet envelope of granted
requests. A broad distinction is drawn between that in God which can be
revealed, and that which cannot. The one is 'glory,' the other
'goodness,' corresponding, we might almost say, to the distinction
between the 'moral' and the 'natural' attributes of God. But, whatever
mysterious revelation under the guise of vision may be concealed in
these words, and in the fulfilment of them in the next chapter, they
belong to the 'things which it is impossible for a man to utter,' even
if he has received them. We are on more intelligible ground in the next
clause of the promise, the proclamation of 'the Name.' That expression
is, in Scripture, always used as meaning the manifested character of
God. It is a revelation addressed to the spirit, not to the sense. It
is the translation, so far as it is capable of translation, of the
vision which it accompanied; it is the treasure which Moses bore away
from Sinai, and has shared among us all. The reason for his prayer was
probably his desire to have his mediatorial office confirmed and
perfected; and it was so, by that proclamation of the Name. The reason
for this marvellous gift is next set forth as being God's own
unconditional grace and mercy. He is His own motive, His own reason.
Just as the independent and absolute fullness of His being is expressed
by the name 'I am that I am,' so the independent and absolute freeness
of His mercy, whether in granting Moses' prayer or in pardoning the
people, is expressed by 'I will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.'
Not till all this exuberance of gracious answer has smoothed the way
does the denial of the impossible request come; and even then it is so
worded as to lay all the emphasis on what is granted, and to show that
the refusal is but another phase of love. The impossibility of
beholding the Face is reiterated, and then the careful provisions which
God will make for the fulfilment of the possible part of the bold wish
are minutely detailed. The distinction between the revealable and
unrevealable, which has been already expressed by the contrast of
'glory' and 'grace,' now appears in the distinction between the 'face'
which cannot be looked on, and the 'back' which may be.
Human language and thought are out of their depth here. We must be
content to see a dim splendour shining through the cloudy words, to
know that there was granted to one man a realisation of God's presence,
and a revelation of His character, so far transcending ordinary
experiences as that it was fitly called sight, but yet as far beneath
the glory of His being as the comparatively imperfect knowledge of a
man's form, when seen only from behind, is beneath that derived from
looking him in the face.
But whatever was the singular prerogative of the lawgiver, as he gazed
from the cleft of the rock at the receding glory, we see more than he
ever did; and the Christian child, who looks upon the 'glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ,' has a vision which outshines the flashing
radiance that shone round Moses. It deepened his convictions, confirmed
his faith, added to his assurance of his divine commission, but only
added to his knowledge of God by the proclamation of the Name, and that
Name is more fully proclaimed in our ears. Sinai, with all its
thunders, is silent before Calvary. And he who has Jesus Christ to
declare God's Name to him need not envy the lawgiver on the mountain,
nor even the saints in heaven.