“And I know you by name”

So God’s way of reassuring Moses that he was well pleased with him, and without doubt had totally “found favour in his eyes,” was to tell Moses in Exodus 33:17, “I know you by name.” He’d said the same thing to Moses at an earlier time too, because Moses reminded him in verse 12, “You have said to me, ‘I know you by name.’” 

And God got that point across from the very start in his dealings with Moses, because the first two words God spoke to him in Exodus 3:4 were, “Moses, Moses.” God then quickly went on to explain why he’d called Moses by name too, and that was the massively important job he wanted Moses to do in “bringing my people the Israelites out of Egypt” (10) to kickstart the earth-shaking promises he’d made to Abraham. But how did God know Moses was the right person for the job?

There’s a clue in verse 11 when Moses says to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” That’s amazing, because Moses was “educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and powerful in speech and action” (Acts 7:22). With all his power, money and prestige, he could’ve been a great man, with ambition oozing out of every pore. But forty years with sheep had humbled him and dulled the eloquence and confidence he’d gained in Egypt (Exodus 4:10). At which point God knew Moses was ready – ready, that is, to trust in him, not in himself, when impossible situations arose leading hundreds of thousands of people through extremely trying circumstances.

And God was proved right, because “for three days” after leaving Egypt the Israelites “travelled in the desert without finding water,” and the first water they found was undrinkable too, Exodus 15:22-23 – and what was Moses’ first reaction? He “cried out to the Lord” (25). And the same again in Exodus 17, when for days the Israelites had travelled from place to place and again “no water for the people to drink” (1). And this time the Israelites were really angry (3). But again, Moses “cried out to the Lord” (4). He didn’t try to sort the situation out by himself; he looked to God. Moses was a man God knew he could work with.

God was proved right on that score too, because Moses’ humble trust in him meant that God could “speak with Moses like a friend” (33:11) – and respond happily to Moses’ highly personal request to God to “Show me your glory”….(next blog)