The seeds of concern began for Moses when God told him in Exodus 33:3, “Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you (Israelites) are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.” And to Moses again in verse 5, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go with you (to Canaan) even for a moment, I might destroy you.’”
The Israelites had really done it this time – making that stupid image of a golden calf and claiming it had saved them from Egypt, and not God. So if that’s what they thought of him, then one more insulting dismissal of his obvious love and power on their behalf would rightfully risk the death of them. Which really distressed the Israelites (4), but it also deeply concerned Moses who said to God in verse 15, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.”
To Moses there was no point in going one step further toward “the land that God had promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (1), so in reply to God he boldly said: “Then everything stops right here, because life is nothing without your Presence with us.” And Moses didn’t finish there either, because he went on to say in verse 16, “How will anyone know you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? And what else will single us out from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
Bold words again, but in reality, what was the purpose of God doing all he’d done for Israel if, by deserting them, it looked like he didn’t care for either Moses or Israel after all? And why do all those outstanding miracles to release Israel from the most powerful nation on earth if they now ended up looking like any other nation that God wasn’t with? “Remember that this nation is your people,” Moses said in verse 13, so why, at this crucial point when the whole purpose of God setting up Israel to be the “great nation” God promised to Abraham was about to happen, would God not be present with them to see it through?
Well, God was clearly deeply pleased with Moses – and wanted him to know it too, because he replied in verse 14, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” His “rest” being verse 17, that “I will do the very thing you have asked (finding favour in God’s eyes, verse 13), because I am pleased with you,” but then the best assurance of all when God then says to Moses, “And I know you by name”….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 