“And YHVH said unto Moses, Come up unto the LORD…Moses alone shall come near the LORD [just like an attorney is the only one who confers with the judge]…And Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.”
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.”
“And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted / paganized themselves…Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation…
And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand…and the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables…as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.” (Exodus 24-32)
Do we not realize that Moses risked being struck down instantly by the wrath of God for having destroyed God’s word?! Is this not defiance, equivalent to the nightly destruction by adversaries of creation spoken into existence by this same Almighty God?
No it wasn’t.
“Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the LORD’s side? let him come unto ME!
“And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel…
Really? When did the LORD have the opportunity to give this order to Moses?
He didn’t.
In other words – Moses has just made himself EQUIVALENT TO THE LORD!
Unlike at the beginning of their relationship, when the LORD had to dictate to Moses. “And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh…” (Exodus 4:22), Moses now knows the LORD’s mind well enough to speak for him without waiting for instructions.
Get it? Moses is taking dominion!
Now comes the hard part.
“on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said…if thou wilt forgive their sin–; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.
Now do you get why Moses is so important? He was willing to give up his life. And not just for three days and three nights. FOR ETERNITY to save his people.
“whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:15)
Melchizedek Adam, of course, is the prototype of this characteristic when he knowingly ate the fruit to join his wife in death. We find this trait expressed in every subsequent Melchizedek ranging from certain social isolation to physical martyrdom.
Not to minimize what Jesus Christ did, but he did in fact have prophecy to cling to: “thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” (Psalm 16:10, Acts 2:27)
I can’t think of any hope Moses could have had when he made his offer of redemption.
Fortunately for Moses, YHVH did not take him up on it. As he couldn’t, since Moses had his own share of sin and needed a redeemer for himself.
But he did task Moses with a great deal of the work of redemption.
“And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Therefore now go, [You] lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee…Depart [from the covenant making process at Sinai]…for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou [including Moses with his people] art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee in the way.” (Exodus 32-33:3)
And here is where Moses really kicks into gear as the role model of the peerless advocate. If the people went against the giants in the land of Canaan without God’s supernatural empowerment they would certainly be destroyed.
“if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ / YHVH’s Savior The Chosen Heir the righteous:” (I John 2:1)
“And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp…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…as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the LORD talked with Moses…face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.
And Moses said / argued with 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 / YHVH hast said:
- I know / define thee / Moses by name / way – i.e. exactly as Moses’ mother had defined him as belonging to her by identifying him by her attributes of rescuing him from certain death by her way of drawing him out of the water, safeguarding him from all of Pharoah’s subjects who would have thrown him back in.
- Now therefore…shew me now THY way, that I may know THEE: “He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.” (Psalm 18:16-17)
- And thou [Moses] hast also found grace in my [YHVH’s] sight – exactly as Moses had found grace in Pharaoh’s daughter’s eyes when she raised him up as a prince of Egypt.
- that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that THIS [my] nation is THY people: “Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God…Esteeming the reproach of The Promised Savior greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.” (Hebrews 11:24-26)
- 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? – Exactly as his mother accompanied him into a Hebrew’s most dangerous place on earth – Pharaoh’s presence.
“And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. (Exodus 33:14)
And Moses, emboldened or just high on adrenaline, keeps pushing his luck. “And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory / splendour.” We should understand this as Moses craving to get ever closer in his relationship with Almighty God, who surely toned down his light / energy to accommodate a human. Think of it like a budding relationship shifting from meeting in a public restaurant, to spending a private evening in one’s home, to baring it all.
“And he said, I will make all my goodness / superlative physical appearance pass before thee [but] Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me / be exposed to a force greater than the atomic bomb, and live…there is a place by me, and…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: And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.” (Exodus 30:18-23)
And here is where the timeline gets sketchy. There is not a clear sequence of events in Exodus chapters 33-34. We can expect a certain amount of back and forth in time following different trails of context in the narrative. Here is where it appears to me that there must be a prolepsis – a reference to a future occurrence.
The reference to the LORD speaking to Moses face to face in verse 11 – which doesn’t begin until the future according to clear statements in the narrative – is used to clue us in to the sequence of events making it possible for Moses to encounter God face to face and survive..
As the narrative proceeds, pay attention to how much more of YHVH’s work is delegated to Moses as a trusted colleague.
“And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first” (Exodus 34) whereas before it was “I will give thee tables of stone” (Exodus 24:12)
and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.
Can’t you just see the LORD giving Moses a sideways look?
and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai…And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name / attributes of the LORD.
-
- The YHVH / I AM / Infinite Singularity,
- The Lord God,
- merciful
- gracious,
- longsuffering,
- abundant in goodness and truth
- Keeping mercy for thousands
- forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin
- and that will by no means clear the guilty;
- before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation:
- and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the LORD: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee. I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
- But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:
And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee (and only through him, with the Hebrews).
And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand…Aaron and all the children of Israel saw…the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him. And Moses called unto them [obviously as they were fleeing for their lives] and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them.
And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him in mount Sinai. And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a vail on his face. But when Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he took the vail off. (Exodus 34)
“And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,” (Deuteronomy 34:1)
What clearer proof do we need that Moses had developed into the likeness of God?
“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called [pronounced, delegated] the sons of God…Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him…
“for we shall see him as he is.” (I John 3:1-2)
And if this murderer, stutterer, coward, 80 year old elder can, so can we.
Kingdom Come 