The Bible Recap - Day 041 (Exodus 33-35) - Year 6

Episode Date: February 10, 2024

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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Think back to yesterday. The people of Israel have just made a golden calf while Moses was meeting with God. Then Moses destroyed it and gave the people an ultimatum. The Levites rose to the occasion and killed 3,000 people who weren't on God's side. In the aftermath of all this, Moses has a conversation with God. If you're looking at your Bible with your eyes right now, imagine 33, 7-11 is copied and pasted above verse 1. The conversation that happens between God and Moses in verses 1-6 actually flows straight into

verse 12. Verses 7-11 are just a little detour segment the author inserted to show the depth of the personal relationship between God and Moses. Hopefully that's not too confusing. Verses seven through 11 tell us that God and Moses spent time together regularly. Any time Moses wanted, he'd go to the tent of meeting outside of the camp and God would meet with him there. By the way, this tent of meeting is altogether different from the tabernacle God just described to Moses

when they were on Mount Sinai for 40 days. That structure doesn't exist yet. And when it does, it will be among the people, not outside the camp. Because remember, God said he wants to dwell in their midst. Lots of people came to seek God at this tent of meeting, but Scripture says God spoke with Moses face to face. Now, God the Father is spirit,

so he doesn't technically have a face, but Scripture often anthropomorphizes God. That just means it explains him in human terms we can grasp. You may wonder, but what about theophanies, Tareli? When he showed up to Abraham as an angel in Genesis 18, he had a face then. You're right, he had a human face that was a facade veiling his glory.

But it wasn't literally God's face. So don't imagine God with a face here. That's not what's happening. This is just Scripture's way of indicating the level of intimacy and accessibility here. They spoke face to face as with a friend. Joshua spent a lot of time at this tent too. You may remember Joshua as the guy who led the battle against the Amalekites when they had attacked the Israelites unprovoked while Moses was up on the mountain with his staff. Today we saw God sending the Israelites away from the

mountain of God, which is also called Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb. He sends them toward Canaan, the promised land, and he says he will not go with them himself, but will send his angel. Now, if this particular angel is the angel of the Lord, then it sounds like what's happening here is that God the Son will be accompanying them, but not God the Father, who had been appearing as a pillar of fire and cloud. In his anger, God wants to consume the Israelites because of how they'd broken the covenant with him. He describes them as a stiff-necked people, stubborn and rebellious basically.

He's furious with them. It's not always fitting to compare human emotions and God's emotions. That can get us off track sometimes. But at the risk of leading us down this path, think for just a moment about anyone who's broken a covenant with you. Was your initial reaction something like burning anger in response to the hurt you felt? But Moses is not okay with God's response. He reminds God of his promises to him, and he reminds God that these are his people.

He appeals again to God's promises and God's heart. Moses knows they are helpless without God, so he wants to be certain God is going with them. In fact, in 34, 8 through 9, he even says that the very reason God should go with them is because they are a stiff-necked people. They are especially in need of God's presence and guidance. Then, Moses asked God to show him his glory. And again, we see a lot of anthropomorphizing here, so don't imagine that God the Father has an actual body. These are metaphors.

God also tells Moses a few more things about himself. In 33 19, he says, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. This is fitting, especially if you recall what we've learned about grace and mercy and what we deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve, and grace is getting what you don't deserve. God doesn't owe mercy to anyone, that's why it's called mercy. And He doesn't owe grace to anyone, that's why it's called grace. So He doles those out to whoever He wants,

whenever He wants. And right now, He's choosing to dole out mercy aplenty to a bunch of people who just broke their covenant with him. Moses intercedes, and God relents. Then God tells Moses they're going to remake the tablets Moses broke when he was angry. God cut them the first time, but this time Moses had to. I guess it's a bit of a you-break-it-you-make-it policy here. There's a little bit of a discrepancy about who had to write on the tablets this time around, since the passage just says, he. But when Moses is retelling this story in Deuteronomy 10, 1 through 4, he says, God was

the he who wrote on them. Which was nice of God. He can probably chisel significantly faster than Moses. God also tells Moses a bit more about himself in 34, 6 through 7, and these are things he has demonstrated so clearly through his relationship with his people so far. He's merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin—so many things that sound amazing. All the good here precedes the harsh. He says he will by no means clear

the guilty. And he reminds Moses that sins have generational consequences. We can trust that in the scope of God's character, even those harsh things are good and necessary. We want a God who punishes the guilty. No one would trust a judge who didn't do that. He would be impeached. God is both loving and just, and those two things are not at odds. And by the way, this use of thousands when God says keeping steadfast love for thousands, many commentators believe this actually translates

into keeping steadfast love for a thousand generations, which if that's true, means this statement carries the weight of his steadfast love being carried out 300-ish times more than the effects of sinfulness on the generations, which only extends to the third and fourth generations. God then gives Moses a refresher course on everything. Then Moses takes Tablets 2.0 down to the people, and when he gets there, his face is so radiant from being in the presence of God that he has to put a veil over it because the people were afraid to look at him.

He kept this up for I don't know how long, maybe the whole 40 years they were in the wilderness. Oh, spoiler alert, did I mention that? They're out here in the wilderness for 40 years. But they're not lost in the wilderness, they're not even wandering in the wilderness. They're following God's lead, step by step, place to place, cloud to fire. We eventually find out why he takes His time with this process, so hang in there, I don't want to give it all away. We ended today with Moses filling the people in on everything

God had said during Sinai meetings number one and two, because He was a little preoccupied after meeting number one, destroying idols and drinking gold dust and whatnot. Then, once again, the people say they're bought in. So God sets out an optional, not required, donation for the tabernacle. And according to the passage, everyone whose heart stirred him donated. It just makes me ask, how do hearts get stirred? Who does that? I have some ideas. Speaking of which, what was your God shot? Mine was short and simple. In 3316, Moses says,

Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth? I love that. God is what gives us our identity. He is what's noteworthy about us. Through His children, He makes Himself and His goodness known throughout the earth. He shines light in the dark. He gives hope to the lost. He shows kindness to the harsh. He brings patience to the frantic. He is our identity. He is what's noteworthy about us. And he's where the joy is.

TBR is where we read the Bible, and we have a partner ministry called D-Group where we study the Bible. By the way, D-Group stands for Discipleship Group. We start new studies in D-Group every six weeks, and our next session begins soon. Check out the show notes to watch a promo video or visit mydgroup.org for info on how you can join an in-person or online D-Group. We have groups for men and for women. That's mydgroup.org or click the link in the show notes. From the burning bush to the parting of the Red Sea to manna from heaven,

we've read about several miracles in our trip through Exodus. And this is the Old Testament. My friends at Hope Nation put together a list of the Bible's top seven most awesome and jaw-dropping miracles. Click the link in the show notes to check it out.