God's Back - Exodus 33:7-23

33:7-10 - I’m not exactly sure if they are still in Sinai or if they have made it to a new resting place when Moses pitches his tent “afar off from the camp”. The KJV translation calls it the “Tabernacle” but TB gives several reasons for why it almost certainly doesn’t mean THE tabernacle, but instead just a regular tent. First, he notes that the timing is off. The instructions are given for the tabernacle’s construction, but the people just left Sinai and haven’t had time to actually build it yet. Second, the Hebrew word used in theses verses are “ohel… this means, ‘tent’”. Third, it says that Moses was the one who put the tent up and the grandness of the tabernacle would have taken hundreds of people to erect. Fourth, the tabernacle was surrounded by the tribes in a very specific configuration, not outside of the camp. Fifth, Joshua was inside the tent the whole time, and he wouldn’t have been allowed inside the tabernacle because he was not a Levite priest, he was from the tribe of Ephraim, so he couldn’t have gone inside. Sixth, when Moses is meeting with God near the tent, the cloud representing God is stationed at the front entrance, whereas when God visits the tabernacle the cloud is OVER the tent.

It was around this tent that Moses met with God “face to face.” God met Moses in the mountain in Sinai, he also met with him just outside of his tent outside the camp. God removed His presence from Israel because they had broken the covenant with Him, which meant that the place where he met with Moses couldn’t be inside the “filthy” camp surrounded by Israel’s sin. The only “clean” place that God could have met with Moses was outside of the camp. TB notes, “Israel has severed their relationship with God; and so God has removed His presence from Israel, and his presence with them was all that distinguished Israel form anybody else.” This demonstrates that a people or a place is only blessed or sanctified or favored because God allows it to be so, which means that any one or any place can be “holy” and any one or any place can not be as well. Meaning God’s presence in a place or in someone’s life is what makes or breaks it as a holy or sacred place. This also means that God’s glory can be anywhere or with anyone regardless of what we as mortal people think it should be. Someone we deem as unworthy might be in fact filled with God’s presence and Spirit and at the same time, someone or somewhere that we think is “special” could just as easily not be either. It all depends on God’s choices and ours.

33:11-23 - Moses and God speak “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.” We know that this is a common sentiment found throughout the Book of Mormon as well. TB and the IM both go on a big discussion about the importance of the conversation being really “face to face” or “face to presence” or “can a person see God’s face and live?” I personally don’t feel that this is an important issue that I was to take time to discuss because I think there are multiple examples of “face to face” conversations happening like two friends talking but God was still in a cloud like what happened to the brother of Jared, but Joseph Smith saw both the face of God and Jesus, so it clearly is important in some contexts but not in others and I just don’t care that much to discuss it. Plus, there is a JST for verse 20 where God clarifies that Moses can’t see His face and live at that moment because God’s wrath is still kindled against the people, and “no sinful man hath at any time, neither shall there be any sinful man at any time, that shall see my face and live.” So that’s an important clarifying statement.

Then there is this really confusing part where God tells Moses to hide in the crevice of a rock and not look at God’s face while he walks by but then he can look at his back after he’s passed him. It is pretty confusing for me and I don’t understand it at all.