Exodus 33 — Sketch

Seeing God

Big Idea:

• God tells Moses to lead the Israelites on toward the Promised Land, and He promises to send an angel ahead to drive out their pagan enemies.

• God then warns the Israelites that He will not go with them because He doesn’t want to destroy them (God is still angry about their idolatry). He also tells the Israelites to take off their jewelry, and they do (so they won’t make more idols?).

• People who want to talk to God must go to Moses at the “Tent of Meeting” — or Tabernacle — outside the camp. Whenever Moses goes into the Tabernacle, God’s presence covers the entrance as a pillar of cloud, and all the Israelites stand at the entrances of their own tents and worship God together. When Moses leaves the Tabernacle, Joshua stays behind.

• At Moses’ request, God changes his mind and promises to go with Israel to the Promised Land. Then Moses asks to see God’s glory.

• God puts Moses in the cleft of a rock and covers the cleft with his hand. Then he passes by the spot and removes his hand so Moses will only see His back.

Jesus in This Chapter:

In John 14, Jesus tells His disciple Philip, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” If Jesus is God, then to see God is to see the mind-blowing, self-sacrificial love that was demonstrated on the cross. I think that love is what Moses saw from the cleft in the rock. As 2 Corinthians 4:6 says, the knowledge of the glory of God is found in the face of Christ.

(Originally drawn October 20, 2010)