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Exodus 33:1-11

¹The Lord said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’ ²I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ³Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” ⁴When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. ⁵For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.’ ” ⁶Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward. ⁷Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. ⁸Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. ⁹When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. ¹⁰And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. ¹¹Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.

The people had foolishly offered themselves to a golden calf of their own making and now God is too furious with them to be in their presence. We God’s anger taking hold as He is restraining Himself from exercising His wrath. Have you ever been so angry with someone that you just had to remove yourself from their presence so that you didn’t permanently damage the relationship? That’s where God is at when He tells Moses “I will not go with you [into the Promised Land].” When God is this angry the damage He would do would indeed be permanent – and quite possibly fatal to the people. He is a God of mercy and grace and as such, He is restraining Himself from exercising His righteousness.

Then we see a description of how the people behaved when Moses would go to meet with God. The visual image that is drawn for us is very unique and seems really serene to me. As Moses goes into the Tent of Meeting, the people come to the doors of their tents and worship while God is present in the camp, speaking the Moses. My imagination grabs that idea and it feels quiet and holy. They are repentant and seeking to be faithful worshipers. These few verses (7-11) seem to be a recollection of what had happened in the past. God wants to withdraw from this practice because of His righteous anger for their idolatry.

In truth, God could look into each of our hearts and have the same burning anger against us as He had against the Children of Israel. But because Jesus blood was shed for us, now He sees instead the righteousness bought for us on the cross. I am certainly worthy of His anger and wrath. He most definitely should turn away from me just as He wanted to do with them. But instead He embraces me because I am found to be holy in Jesus.