Exodus 33King James Version
God says He will no longer go up among the people Himself, lest He consume them. The people mourn. Moses pleads. Moses asks to see God's glory. God puts him in the cleft of a rock, covers him with His hand, and passes by. Moses sees the back of God but not His face, for no man may see the face of God and live.
God tells Moses to lead the people to Canaan but says he will not go with them personally, lest he destroy them on the way. The people mourn and strip their ornaments. Moses pitches a tent outside the camp called the Tent of Meeting; when Moses enters, the cloud pillar comes down, and God speaks with Moses face to face as a man speaks to a friend. Moses makes three requests: know whom you will send with me; show me your ways; show me your glory. God grants the first two and grants a partial third: I will make all my goodness pass before you, but you cannot see my face and live. You will see my back.
After the greatest failure in Israel's history, Moses returns to negotiation with God not from a position of shame but from a posture of urgent intimacy, and God responds in kind.
v14: "And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest" -- Moses refuses to move without this and God concedes it. The whole chapter turns on this exchange.
The Sinai camp, in the aftermath of the golden calf crisis. The tabernacle has not been built yet. Moses pitches a simpler tent outside the camp. God's presence descends there rather than inside the community because the community is in a broken state. The people watch from their tents and worship in silence.
Moses negotiates with escalating boldness; God withdraws his personal presence as a consequence of the calf and then restores it at Moses' insistence; Joshua stays in the tent after Moses leaves; the people watch the cloud at the tent door and worship from their own tent openings.
Verse 11, 'the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend,' is one of the most intimate descriptions of divine-human relationship in the Torah. The request to see God's glory and the answer, I will show you my goodness, becomes the basis for John's prologue: 'the Word was made flesh and we beheld his glory.' Jesus is read as the full disclosure of what Moses requested here.
For when you have failed spectacularly and you are not sure whether the relationship is still intact, and you need to know if God is still going with you before you take one more step. Moses will not move without that answer. He says it plainly.
1And the LORD said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it:
2And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite:
3Unto a land flowing with milk and honey: for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee in the way.
4And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned: and no man did put on him his ornaments.
5For the LORD had said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiffnecked people: I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume thee: therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee.
6And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the mount Horeb.
7And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the LORD went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp.
8And it came to pass, when Moses went out unto the tabernacle, that all the people rose up, and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he was gone into the tabernacle.
9And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the LORD talked with Moses.
10And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door.
11And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.
12And 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.
13Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew 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.
14And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.
15And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.
16For 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.
17And 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.
18And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.
19And 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.
20And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
21And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
22And 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:
23And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.