Quick note: As some of you may have noticed, over the last few posts, I have been slowly switching to the ESV. I like the ESV for its preciseness in translating and from now on, that will be my default version. Just a heads up on that.
After the Golden Calf incident, Yahveh decides that it is time to leave Sinai and head on to Canaan. He will drive out the inhabitants before them but Yahveh himself will not be among the Israelites. He is planning on removing himself from them, which is a sad switch from wishing to dwell among them. Yahveh says this because he realizes how screwed up the Israelites were and didn't want to "consume" them.
This news crushes the Israelites. The Bible calls it a "disastrous word." Yahveh, who had up to this point been so close and trying to get closer to his people, was now going to be removed, inaccessible. And, stupid as they could be, the Israelites clearly did not want that. They went into mourning, removing their jewelry, which they did not put back on, as Yahveh considered what to do with them.
This is all background to the real story I want to focus on. I am sure that there are some points that could be drawn from these few verse, but the real meat is what comes next.
At some point, Moses had set up a "tent of meeting" which eventually was replaced by the Tabernacle, when it was built. The Tent of Meeting is exactly what it sounds like: it was a tent Moses set up outside the camp where he would go and meet with Yahveh. If someone wished to inquire of Yahveh, they would head off to the tent. What they would do there is unclear but as for Moses, he would go in and speak with Yahveh face to face as one speaks with a friend. When he did this, the pillar of cloud would descend on the tent and everyone else in the camp would stand at the entrances of their tents and worship.
Anyway, after Yahveh tells Moses that he'll help the Israelites get into Canaan but that they're on their own after that, he goes to the Tent of Meeting and has a talk with Yahveh. He tells Yahveh, "See, you say to me, 'Bring up this people,' but you have not let me knew whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, 'I know you by name (I know your identity, the core of who you are) and you have also found favor in my sight.' Now there for, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people."
"My presence will go with you," Yahveh answers, "and I will give you rest."
"If your presences will not go with me, do not bring us up from here," Moses replies. "For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?"
Moses is interceding on behalf of the Israelites, practically begging Yahveh to come with them, but on a more personal level, he is saying to Yahveh, "Our relationship as it currently stands isn't good enough. I want to know you more. You say you know me, but I don't know you. I want to know what it is that makes you tick so that I can please you. Please, stay with me and teach me how to be what you want me to be. I need your presence in my life."
That is a prayer that all of us should pray. Often in today's society we are told to just be ourselves and not let anyone dictate who we should be. "Don't be a people pleaser," we are told. And for the most part, this is sound advice; we shouldn't let other people bend us into being who they want us to be.
When it comes to Yahveh, however, that advice should be tossed aside. We should bend our personalities, our goals, our values to his. This is called submission, something that people, particularly in our western, American culture, don't like to do. It's scary and sounds manipulative but in truth, it's the best possible thing. Remember that Yahveh made us; he knows our name, our identity, the essence of who we are far better than we know ourselves. He knows what we're capable of and how to get the best out of us. In submitting ourselves to Yahveh, we don't lose ourselves, but in the end are shown how truly awesome we can be.
Back to the story, Yahveh gives Moses his assurance that he isn't going to leave Moses alone. He will be there for Moses because Moses has "found favor" in Yahveh's sight. Then Moses makes a bold request.
"Please show me your glory," he asks.
In English, that doesn't sound like much. But that is an epic request nonetheless. In Hebrew, the word for glory is the word kavod, which also means weight or heaviness. The idea is that a person's "glory" is directly related to the full force or weight of their being. Moses wants to see Yahveh's full weight on display, unfettered and uncloaked
What makes this request even more incredible is that this just after Yahveh had told Moses that if he went with the Israelites, his presence might consume them almost by accident. Yet Moses is willing to risk that just to get the most intimate look at his friend he possibly can.
Yahveh surprisingly assents to the request, which shows that Yahveh tends to favor those who make bold requests of him. He tells Moses that he is going to have all of his "goodness" pass by and then he would proclaim his name.
Admittedly this sounds weird. When we think of glory, we think of bright flashing lights, maybe some thunder and lightning and probably a smoke machine just for good measure. In a sense, I suppose this is understandable as we are very visual beings.
But that is not what glory means to Yahveh. For him it is his name, which is the definition of his identity. And his identity, his definition is in his goodness. For Yahveh, it is about his character, his substance of being, the very things that makes him Yahveh. It is that that he shows to Moses.
Again, we don't think of it as a big deal because all that is just words on a page. It isn't the bright, loud, flashy explosion of fireworks that we tend to associate with glory. But revealing that character is apparently so powerful, so intense that Yahveh could not allow Moses to see his face, only his "back," otherwise the experience would incinerate Moses. By the way, the word in Hebrew, atah, is the preposition that means behind or after used here as a noun. So in other words, Yahveh could be saying that all Moses can see is his "after" or wake. That's how powerful Yahveh's character is.
So Yahveh takes Moses and places him in a cleft in the mountain and causes his glory to pass by. Yahveh proclaims, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation." Moses saw that and worshipped.
In a way, it is kind of anticlimactic. No flashing lights, not lightning and thunder, no fire and smoke. Just a list of attributes, almost like some guy randomly boasting.
The truth is, we don't know what Moses actually saw. Whatever it was, it was something so powerful, so awesome that it would've destroyed him had Moses seen it full on. It was as if he was looking into the heart of pure goodness, the source from which all good things flow and to a sinful mind, that is something so foreign, so strange, so alien that the only way he could've described it was through listing Yahveh's characteristics. It was the only way he could get his head around it.
That kind of experience changes you. It certainly changed Moses to the point that when he came down off the mountain, he glowed. Not the "I'm in love" glow or the "we're having a baby" glow, but a literal, actual, I'm a glow stick glow. It freaked the Israelites out to the point they made him stick a bag over his head.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a post touching on this same subject and passage titled "Radiance." One of the questions I ask is "Do we glow?" Being with Yahveh changes us, it makes us stand out as different, like we're glowing in a dark room. Jesus himself in the Sermon on the Mount made a comment similar to this in Matthew 5:14-16.
"You are the light of the world," he says. "A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to the whole house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."
Later, in Acts 4:13, the Jewish ruling council, when trying Peter and John, were amazed by the power of their words, despite being uneducated and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
The point is that being with Yahveh changes you. With a character and essence so strong that if you saw it full on it would destroy, how could being him not change you?
Have you seen Yahveh's glory? Do you pursue a friendship with Yahveh like Moses did? Have your friends, family, coworkers, or classmates taken note that you have been with Jesus?
Do you glow?
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