Teach me your ways
Exodus 33:12-23
Introduction:
The text of Exodus 33:12-23 is the culmination of a series of new revelations of God’s identity and names throughout the book of Exodus. Moses pleads to see and know more deeply God’s “ways” (Exodus 33:13), God’s “glory” (Exodus 33:18), God’s “goodness” (Exodus 33:19), God’s “name” (Exodus 33:19). The Dialogue between God and Moses are revealed here. Moses' requests are three: Friendship of God, the Presence of God, and Glory of God.
Israel’s worship of the golden calf violated the first and important commandment about worshiping God alone and not worshiping idols (Exodus 20:3-5). This covenant-breaking act endangered God’s whole project of deliverance and dwelling amid Israel. without the surging power of that divine holiness destroying the people (Exodus 33:3)? The key question in Exodus 33:12-23 wrestles with was, How can the powerful holiness and glory of God live with and among a sinful people?(ref: workingpreacher.org).
1. Teach me Your Ways (Exodus 33:12-14)
Moses prayed to the Lord to ‘teach us to number our days’ (Psalm 90:12), it is translated with the following meanings: “Help us to understand how many days we have or the days left for us”. “Oh! Teach us to live well! Teach us to live wisely and well!” “Help us to remember that our days are numbered, and help us to interpret our lives correctly.” So that we will cultivate, develop and bring to you a heart of wisdom. Counting days and years make one wise, lead to wise living (Psalm 90:12).
Teach us to pray (Psalm 90:14-17), Fill us or Satisfy us with thy Mercy at the Fill us with your love, compassion, lovingkindness at the daybreak, Surprise us with love at daybreak as a mother does with her child. “Let the sunrise of your love end our night, pour abundantly your faithful love before we grow Older.” The discoveries of Christ and the love of God expressed in him, his pardoning grace and mercy are found on the day of our salvation (Psalm 63:3). This grace and mercy satisfy and fills us in an unexpected time, early, seasonably, as soon as could be "in the morning."
Teach me your ways: Moses was trained and educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action (Acts 7:22). The King's school had recruited and trained the students who have an aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve the kings. They learned the language and literature of that kingdom (Daniel 1:4-5).
Moses understood that all his education, experience in shepherding the flocks were not enough to lead the people, lead the life in the wilderness. He needed God’s teaching on the ways he should go and undertake. How could be life is very questionable.
J. I. Packer says, “A little knowledge of God is worth more than a great deal of knowledge about him.” We were made: to know God, and be known by him. Packer, the author of ‘Knowing God’ writes, “Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall into place of their own accord.” (ref:dashhouse.com).
Names are important. Because it refers to the personality and character of a person. God said to Moses, “I know you by the name”, which means God knows every need, every fear, every doubt, every vulnerability of Moses in this leadership and journey. God is making a statement about the deeper intimacy and relationship he has with Moses: God knows Moses than anyone on the earth. So Moses can rest in God. The same is true with us, When we struggle, when we face dark times, God says, “My presence with go with you, and I will give you rest. I know you by name.” (ref:standrewsenfield.com). Teach me, Lord, how to handle the situations, take decisions, relate with people, react to the situations and issues.
The ways of God are mercies and compassions. (Exodus 33:19). Thy way means Moses desires not to be left in uncertainty, but to be assured, by Yahweh's mode of proceeding, of the reality of the promises that had been made to him (Barnes’s Notes), the course and manner of thy dealings with men, and particularly thy purpose and will concerning me and thy people, and the method which thou wilt choose for the fulfilling of thy promise, and the course which thou wouldst have me take, and the way by which I shall conduct thy people to the Promised Land (Matthew Poole), either the way which he would take, the way of his providence in bringing the children of Israel into the land of Canaan; or the way he would have him take, the way of his duty, how he would have him behave in conducting them thither (Gill Commentary). Today, the way is unfolding to us that is Christ Jesus the TRUE WAY.
2. Let Your Presence Go with us (Exodus 33:15-17)
The presence of God is important for all of us. Even the patriarchs experienced it. God told Jacob In Genesis. 28:15 ‘I am with you’. In Deuteronomy 20:1 through Moses's teaching he told them that ‘while you go for a war, I will be with you’. Prophet Isaiah declares in 43:2 ‘when you pass through waters and fire, I will be with you’.
God was with Enoch; God was with Noah(Genesis 6). God was with Joseph in the pit, in the prison, and in the palace (Genesis 37:24, 39:2, 21). God was with David while he was with cattle and while he was hiding in the caves and when he was in the royal cabins. God was with three friends of Daniel in the royal courts, training schools, and in the brutal furnace(Daniel 1, 3). Jesus was with the persecuted Christians, he was with Paul and Silas when they were in the prisons when Paul had shipwreck, he was with him (Acts 16, 28).
Moses insists to God that you must “go with us” (Immanu — Exodus 33:16). The Hebrew word Emmanuel means “With us (is) God”. The word is first found in Isaiah 7:14 and 8:8. Emmanuel is a compound word of (el) "God" and (Emmanu) "with us". Jesus, who is God in our nature, the word that was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). The presence of God (Shekinah). Here Mathew identifies the Shekinah with a person called Jesus (1 Kings 8:27). The first one is a covenantal relationship and the second one connivance relationship or participatory relationship. Emmanuel was not a new name but was an experience of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now Moses and Israelites.
Secondly, Emmanuel is not only a relationship with God also it makes us recognize his characters and its utility in our day to day life God with us through every action of our life; we begin, continue and end in his name. He intervenes. He is God with us to comfort, enlighten, protect and defend us in every time of temptation and trial in the hour of death in the day of judgment and God with us and in us and we with and in Him to all eternity (Clarke).
Dayanand Carr: God intervention is found in three kinds of acts: Healing and exorcism, supplying food and drink, authority and power over nature. “God was with His people,” protecting, guiding, and ruling them. Now His Presence is more direct, personal, and immediate than any that had been known before (Ellicott). God should come to be known in this Emmanuel character, because he manifested in the flesh, and made the most intimate fellowship between God and men from henceforth and forever (Jamieson-Fausset-Brown).
3. Show me your Glory (Exodus 33:18-23).
Moses had already been admitted to closer communion with God than any one of the races of man since Adam. That experience did not satisfy him but further accelerated and made him desirous of something further, something closer, something than which nothing more close could be imagined (Pulpit Commentary).
God’s glory is almost impossible to describe. One person defines it as “the infinite beauty and greatness of God’s manifold perfections” (John Piper). Moses had already seen glimpses of God’s glory at the burning bush, and when he entered God’s presence on the mountaintop. Now he wants to see the fullness of God’s beauty and greatness.
The faithful servant of Yahweh, now assured by the success of his mediation, yearns, with the proper tendency of a devout spirit, for more intimate communion with his divine Master than he had yet enjoyed. He seeks for something surpassing all former revelations (Barnes Notes).
Keil and Delitzsch Commentary: Moses desired to see, as the answer of God clearly shows, must have been something surpassing all former revelations of the glory of Jehovah (Exodus 16:7, Exodus 16:10; Exodus 24:16-17), and even going beyond Jehovah's talking with him face to face (Exodus 33:11). When God talked with him face to face or mouth to mouth, he merely saw a "similitude of Jehovah" (Numbers 12:8), a form which rendered the invisible being of God visible to the human eye, i.e., a manifestation of the divine glory in a certain form (Ref:biblehub.com).
Not any visible luster, splendor, and brightness, as a symbol of the divine Presence, that he had seen, Exodus 16:7 nor the glorious essence of God, perhaps he may mean the Angel of God's presence, called his face, the promised Messiah and glorious Redeemer and Saviour, in whom there is such a bright display of the glory of the divine perfections; yea, is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person; and this favor was granted him, with some proper limitations and restrictions (Gill Exposition).
God's goodness is his glory; and he will have us to know him by the glory of his mercy, more than by the glory of his majesty. Upon the rock, there was a fit place for Moses to view the goodness and glory of God. The rock in Horeb was typical of Christ the Rock; the Rock of refuge, salvation, and strength. The cleft may be an emblem of Christ, as smitten, crucified, wounded, and slain (Matthew Henry).
