Exodus 33:18
In Exodus 33:18 Moses is speaking, and then God is
speaking in the following verses. The Bible in Exodus 33:18-23, “And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. 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. And he said, Thou
canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. And the LORD
said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: 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: And I
will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall
not be seen.” Moses wanted to see God’s glory. Perhaps we should say
that Moses wanted to see more of God’s glory. We know that Moses had already
seen God’s glory as he saw it revealed previously. For example, it says in
Exodus 16:7, “And in the morning, then ye shall see
the glory of the LORD; for that he heareth your murmurings against the
LORD: and what are we, that ye murmur against us?” And in Exodus 16:10,
“And it came to pass, as Aaron spake
unto the whole congregation of the children of
The word “glory”
is an interesting word. It means literally in the Hebrew “possessions, glory,
honor.” The reason that it means possessions is that in general a person was
considered worthy and deserving of greater honor (among men) the more possessions
that they had acquired. The possessions were a symbol of their success and a
statement about their greatness. For example, the same word is translated
“honor” in First Kings 3:12-13 where God said to Solomon, “Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have
given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee
before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. And I have also
given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honour:
so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days.”
When we speak of the “glory”
of God, we are talking about the might and the majesty and the splendour of God in one great manifestation. Moses had
already experienced the glory of God, but Moses said to the Lord, “I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.” In other words
Moses knew that there was more to see and more to experience and more to know
about the glory of God. There always is more to know and more to see and more
to experience about Jesus because Jesus is infinite. The attributes of God have
no bounds and no limits. There is no limit to the love of God or the mercy of
God or the grace of God, or as Moses knew, the glory of God. For example, the
Bible says in Ephesians 3:16-21, “That he would
grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might
by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;
that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with
all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know
the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that
ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do
exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power
that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout
all ages, world without end. Amen.”
Maybe we need to have an attitude that is more
like Moses. Yes, we have experienced Jesus and the love of God. Yes, we have
had a glimpse of His glory. Maybe we have even been on the mountaintop at some
time in the past. Are we satisfied with that, or do we want more? Do we go to
the Lord Jesus and ask Him for more? Jesus said in Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock,
and it shall be opened unto you.” His love is so great it can fill any
void. One of the reasons that God takes away from you the things that you love,
is so that you can fill up the void with His great love. As we go through this
life, things are taken from us and people are taken from us. My friend, Jesus
Christ is much more worthy of our affections than any of these people ever
were, no matter how dear they were.
God’s initial response to Moses is the same that
it will be to us if we but turn from ourselves and our sorrows and seek His
glory. God said to Moses, “I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will
proclaim the name of the LORD before thee.” Why are some people never
comforted by the love of Christ? Why do some people mourn and cry and weep, but
never seem to be comforted? Here is one reason: they do not seek God to have
the love of Christ revealed to them in such a way to fill up the void. Of
course, from God there is plenty of love and power and glory to heal any hurt.
God said that He would grant Moses’ request, but God also said in Exodus 33:19
that God “will be gracious to whom I will be
gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.” God sets the
rules. You can drown yourself in your tears, or become more and more bitter as
you get older; or you can seek the Lord until you find the grace and mercy that
you need for your situation.
One of the things that is noticeable about this
passage in Exodus chapter 33 is the fact that God would not let Moses see His
face. Moses’ desire to see God’s face is symbolic of a healthy spiritual desire
to know more about God. But in fact no one can see God’s face. Of course, there
is an exception to this: we can look to Jesus and see in Him all that God is.
Jesus came to die for our sins, but Jesus also came to give us a greater
manifestation of the person of God. The Bible says in John 1:14, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of
grace and truth.” And it also says in John 1:18, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” If you want
to have a better glimpse of God, then ask the Lord to reveal to you a better
revelation of Jesus. There is always more to know, more to “see,” and more to
understand about the infinite Christ and His great eternal love. It may just be
that this situation will not change even in heaven. God said to Moses in Exodus
33:20, “for there shall no man see me and live.”
Evidently the Father is so holy and the zeal to enforce His holiness is so
strong that just one look at His holiness would consume us and burn us to a
crisp. No wonder that the main characteristic of hell is fire. The infinite
Christ took on the form of a man so that He could suffer death, but He also
took on the form of a man so that we could see Him. We will see Jesus in
heaven, and our thirst to see God will be satisfied.
The Bible says in Exodus 34:1-4, “And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of
stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that
were in the first tables, which thou brakest. And be
ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present
thyself there to me in the top of the mount. And no man shall come up with
thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the
flocks nor herds feed before that mount. And he hewed two tables of stone like
unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount
Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of
stone.” The fact that God replaced the original Ten Commandments in
stone that Moses had broken demonstrates a very important Biblical truth: God’s
Word is immutable. God’s Word will last forever. There are many enemies of the
Bible especially in its purest form, such as the English translation called the
King James Version of 1611 and the texts from which the KJV was translated.
There are enemies of the Bible from evolutionists, modernists, progressives,
some scientists that are falsely so-called, as well as hedonists from the
The Bible says in Exodus 34:5-7, “And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him
there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed by before him,
and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering,
and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty;
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's
children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” In Exodus 34:6
God Himself lists for us several wonderful characteristics about God that we
all need to be aware of. They are:
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1.
God is merciful. |
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2. God is gracious. |
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3. God is longsuffering. |
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4. God is abundant in goodness |
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5. God is abundant in truth. |
1.
God is merciful to us when He does not give
us what we deserve. We deserve punishment because we are all sinners. Because
of the death of Jesus on the cruel Roman cross, God can be merciful.
2.
God is gracious to us when He gives to us
what we have not earned and cannot earn. God gives us freely at no cost to
ourselves because Jesus paid it all with His precious blood. The gift of
salvation is the greatest example of His grace. There are many other examples
of God’s grace every day of our lives as He showers upon us the many blessings
of life on earth.
3.
To say that God is “longsuffering” in this verse means that God is “slow to anger.”
The word that is translated “long” literally means “slow.” Exodus 34:6 is the
first time in the Bible that the word “longsuffering”
is used. In the Old Testament the primary meaning is “slow to anger.” God would
be entirely justified if He became angry, and if He became angry right away
because He is the Holy Judge of the whole earth, and we are exceedingly sinful.
We are by nature and by choice just like the children of
4.
The fact that God is abundant in goodness
is demonstrated by all of the good things that Jesus constantly does for all of
us. Jesus said in Matthew 7:11, “If ye then, being
evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your
Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” It
also says in James 1:17, “Every good gift and every
perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with
whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” There is a lot of
evil in the world, but there is also a lot of good because God is everywhere,
and He is constantly doing good. God even does good for those that are evil.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:45, “That ye may be the
children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on
the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the
just and on the unjust.”
Exodus 34:6 tells us that God is abundant in
truth. God is the source of all truth. That is what is meant when John chapter
one tells us that Jesus is the Light. Jesus said in John 8:32, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
The fact that God is abundant in truth is one of the reasons that He gave us
the Bible. From the Bible we learn God’s truth, and the Bible is definitely an
unlimited supply of truth. You can search its pages for a life-time, and you
will never come to the end of all the marvelous truth that is there to be
discovered and enjoyed. You are searching the very mind of the infinite God
when you search the pages of the Holy Scripture. Make a lifetime of studying
the Bible by the power of the Holy Spirit, and you will only be scratching the
very surface of what there is to know and to learn. If you do that, when your
life is over, you will wish that you had another lifetime so that you could
learn a little bit more about the infinite Christ and His eternal love. Of
course, when your life is over, you will have more than a lifetime, you will
have an eternity. The Apostle Paul wrote in First Corinthians 13:9-12, “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when
that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood
as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish
things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I
know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
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Copyright; 2011 by Charles
F. (Rick) Creech
All Rights Reserved