Fear No Fear

(All scripture from Lexham English Bible, Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software)

Now we hit a section that seems to be chronologically out of order. God tells Moses to go ahead and take the people up out from where they were and head to the Land of Promise. And that He would send an angel before them, but that God wouldn’t go with them because He might destroy them along the way – they were THAT rebellious in their hearts. He told them to take off all their ornaments and give Him time to think of what to do with them. The people heard about God’s attitude toward them and they mourned – not from a feeling of repentance, but more a poor-me because (1) they wouldn’t be blessed if God was mad at them, and (2) they didn’t want to suffer or die. Selfish people (broad strokes, not everyone in camp) who saw physical manifestations of God and experienced His Blessing, but still didn’t change their hearts. May we embrace the Word and seek not to do the same.

Because of this attitude, God said that He would NOT live in the midst of the Israelites. That Moses should put the tent of meeting OUTSIDE the camp. Anyone who wanted to hear from God had to go there. Moses went every day and people watched him from their tents. When Moses got there, the cloud descended on the tent and stayed as long as Moses was in the tent. Joshua tended to stay in the tent complex, but Moses returned to camp. Maybe this is one of the reasons Joshua was the chosen successor. He liked to be in the presence of the Lord. May that be true of us all.

However, this can’t be in the place it happened because the tent of meeting (or Tabernacle) hadn’t been made yet. That’s still to come.

Moses was unwilling to accept this new position of God. He pressed and reasoned and declared that if God didn’t go, he wasn’t going to go. He refused to go anywhere without God with him – and by extension the people. God agreed and Moses asked to see His Glory. But our flesh can’t HANDLE His Glory. God is careful to make sure no human being sees it so that we don’t die from the exposure to pure righteousness – that has to wait until we’ve taken off the dirt sack and gone to be in our spiritual bodies. But God craves a relationship with us, so He did this: He hid Moses in a rock (Jesus maybe? The revelation of Jesus as the Son of God is THE Rock – Matthew 16:18). God would cover Moses with His hand and pass by. And after He did, He would remove His hand and Moses would get a glimpse of His back.

God told Moses to make tablets like the ones he had broken, and God would write on them again (There’s an interesting tradition that God shows Moses a local sapphire mine and Moses carved them out there and was allowed to keep all the chips as his personal wealth). Moses got the tablets and went back up the mountain (the seventh time recorded).

God revealed His Glory – after putting Moses in the Rock – and He did it by descending in the cloud and PROCLAIMING His Name. He was proclaimed as merciful, gracious, and long-suffering – but not forever suffering. Thank Him that we have a Covenant through Jesus where the price of sin has been paid and no judgment awaits us. Moses responded in the only way a human being does when presented with God’s presence: he worshipped. He worshipped and asked for forgiveness for the people. He asked that God go with them as they went up to the Land of Promise. God responded by renewing the Covenant with them (the laws thus far that Moses had read out to the people – Exodus 20-24). Two interesting tidbits here. First, God declared and reassured the people that when they had to go to the Festivals, the land they left behind would be kept safe by the Lord. Second, that Moses had been on the mountain for ANOTHER forty days and nights without food or water. If the Lord wasn’t supernaturally sustaining Moses, he would be dead. This is flatout impossible. Moses again wrote out the commandments God had laid out, and took up the stone tablets where God had written the Ten Commandments, and came down the mountain.

“And Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the community returned to him, and Moses spoke to them.” (Exodus 34:31)

When Moses came down the mountain, his face glowed. Brightly. He had no idea, but his time in the presence of the Lord caused some of that presence to rub off onto him. It was so striking, that Aaron and the seventy elders ran away. Moses called them back, soothed them, and related to them – and later to all the people – everything that had happened on the mountain. They would live. They would go up to the Land of Promise. The Lord would go with them. But there is never any mention of the Israelites taking up ornaments of gold to adorn themselves as a cultural thing ever again that I can find (Exodus 33:4-6).

Moses sets up a few things. He reiterates FIRMLY the rules of Sabbath and their total reliance on the Lord for everything – including warmth in their homes. This was a POWERFUL shadow of the Messianic rest that was coming with Jesus of Nazareth and they REALLY needed to get it ground into their hearts.

Next, he called an offering for everyone who WANTED to participate for ANY amount they wanted to participate with – or offerings of service (some people MADE things instead of donating money). God set mandatory tithes to care for the Levites (priests), but when it came to building things it was voluntary. He released them to go think about it, and they left. They brought all the different kinds of material and riches that they would use. They made things for the tabernacle. There were enough of the people who cared to have God with them to provide a landing strip for God.

Moses also pointed out that two men (Bezalel and Oholiab) were given the talents, wisdom, and ability to teach, so that the skills needed for the tabernacle could be imparted to all the craftsmen involved. God didn’t just call them, He equipped them to succeed, AND have the burden of work shared so no one person got overwhelmed or burnt out. A good lesson for everyone, but especially for those in ministry.

Summary

Key Players: God, Moses

Key Themes: Relationship, Covenant, Construction

Key Verse(s): Exodus 33:12-14; 34:5-7, 27-28; 35:1-3