Commentaria in Exodum
Chapter the Thirty-third
God still threatens the people, though he relents; Moses at last by prayer wholly reconciles God to the people, and obtains that not an angel, but God himself be their leader on the way. Secondly, in verse 18, Moses asks to see the glory of God, and hears: Thou shalt see my back parts, but my face thou canst not see.
1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Go, get thee up from this place, thou and thy people, which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, into the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying: To thy seed will I give it: 2. And I will send an angel thy leader, that I may cast out the Chanaanite, and the Amorrhite, and the Hethite, and the Pherezite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite: 3. And thou mayst enter into the land that floweth with milk and honey. For I will not go up with thee, because thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I destroy thee by the way. 4. And the people hearing this very bad word, mourned: and no man put on his ornaments according to custom. 5. And the Lord said to Moses: Say to the children of Israel: Thou art a stiffnecked people, once I shall come up into the midst of thee, and shall destroy thee. Now presently lay aside thy ornaments, that I may know what to do with thee. 6. So the children of Israel laid aside their ornaments by mount Horeb. 7. Moses also taking the tabernacle, pitched it without the camp afar off, and called it, The tabernacle of the covenant. And all the people that had any question, went forth to the tabernacle of the covenant, without the camp. 8. And when Moses went forth to the tabernacle, all the people rose up, and every one stood in the door of his pavilion, and they beheld the back of Moses, till he entered into the tent. 9. And when he was gone into the tabernacle of the covenant, the pillar of the cloud came down, and stood at the door, and he spoke with Moses, 10. And all saw that the pillar of the cloud stood at the door of the tabernacle: and they stood and worshipped at the doors of their tents. 11. And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend. And when he returned into the camp, his minister Josue the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle. 12. And Moses said to the Lord: Thou commandest me to lead forth this people: and thou dost not let me know whom thou wilt send with me, especially whereas thou hast said: I know thee by name, and thou hast found favour in my sight. 13. If therefore I have found favour in thy sight, shew me thy face, that I may know thee, and find grace before thy eyes: look upon thy people this nation.
14. And the Lord said: My face shall go before thee, and I will give thee rest. 15. And he said: If thou dost not thyself go before, bring us not out of this place. 16. For how shall we be able to know, I and thy people, that we have found grace in thy sight, unless thou walk with us, that we may be glorified from all peoples that dwell upon the earth? 17. And the Lord said to Moses: This word also, which thou hast spoken, I will do: for thou hast found grace before me: and thee I know by name. 18. And he said: Shew me thy glory. 19. He answered: I will shew thee all good, and I will call by the name of the Lord before thee: and I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it shall please me. 20. And again he said: Thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me and live. 21. And again he said: Behold there is a place with me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock. 22. And when my glory shall pass, I will set thee in a hole of the rock, and protect thee with my right hand till I pass: 23. And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face thou canst not see.
1. AND THE LORD SPOKE TO MOSES,—namely, when Moses had now gone up the second time into the mount Sinai, as was said in chap. 32, verse 34, where he remained continuously as many days as he had remained before, namely forty, asking pardon for the sin of the people, and at the end of these second forty days received the second tables of the law (for the former he had already broken, chap. 32, verse 19), as is plain from chap.
GO, etc., INTO THE LAND WHICH I SWORE TO ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB.—To Abraham alone did God expressly swear that he would give him Chanaan; to Isaac and Jacob he only promised it, but in like form as to Abraham, or by referring himself to what had been done with Abraham: by promising them, therefore, the same as he had promised to Abraham, and ratifying and confirming it, he implicitly swore to them the same that he had sworn to Abraham.
2. I WILL SEND AN ANGEL THY LEADER.—It is an apostrophe of God to the people; for a little before God had spoken to Moses: here he turns to the people, and speaks to Moses as the people’s mediator and sustaining their person.
AN ANGEL LEADER,—who may go before thee in the pillar of cloud and fire, and going before thee may terrify the Chanaanites, and smooth for thee the way to victory against them, in such wise, namely, that this angel represents not the person of God, as hitherto he has done, but his own, and is called an angel, not God, and consequently accompanies thee only in an angelic manner, and with simple guardianship, as thy keeper; and does not work those illustrious miracles which hitherto he has wrought by the virtue and power of God, as sustaining and representing the name and person of God.
3. FOR I WILL NOT GO UP WITH THEE,—I will not accompany thee, I will not be present to thee as hitherto I have been, namely by that singular patronage, and by the working of so many signs and miracles. For spiritual things are felt to be most present by the operation proper and commensurate to them. So Abulensis, and it is gathered from the Chaldee: stiffnecked, disobedient, refractory: hence, that thou provoke me not to anger, I will not accompany thee, but will send an angel to lead thee. This enallage of persons and change of speech is everywhere common among the Hebrews.
LEST I DESTROY THEE,—lest I avenge thy very great ingratitude, and the irreverence committed against me and my majesty, as the Chaldee has it, if namely I, showing myself present to thee by so many miracles, and so clement, and loving thee and caring for thee, should nevertheless be neglected by thee, scorned, and set after idols, as I have now been set after the calf.
4. AND THE PEOPLE HEARING THIS VERY BAD WORD (most sad), MOURNED: AND NO MAN PUT ON HIS ORNAMENTS ACCORDING TO CUSTOM.—What is here said of the people is inserted out of its order. For it interrupts the continuous conversation of God with Moses, which was during those second forty days on the mount. Moses therefore here, after his manner, interjects into the conversation of God a history consonant with the words of God, namely what the people said and did at the Lord’s words when they heard them: which was done not on the same day on which the Lord said these things to Moses, but after the forty days of Moses’ conversation with God on Sinai, when, these being completed, Moses came down from the mount, and told the people what he had done with the Lord, and what God had said. For on hearing this, the people, knowing that God was still angry with them because of the idol of the calf, mourned, and laid aside their ornaments, and, as the Septuagint render it, they mourned in mourning garb, namely in garments. This is therefore a hysteron proteron: for Moses remained the full forty days on the mount with the Lord, and did not come down thence till the thirty-ninth day, to hew the tables of the law; and presently on the same day went up again into the mount, and on the following fortieth day God wrote the Decalogue on the tables, as will appear in the next chapter. So Abulensis.
5. AND THE LORD SAID TO MOSES.—At the same time, namely, at which in verses 1, 2, 3 he spoke to Moses: whence God here repeats and presses what he had said there, that he may the more bend the Hebrews to penance; it is plain from what was said on verse 4.