Exodus 33:12-18 And Moses said to the LORD, See, you say to me, Bring up this people: and you have not let me know whom you will send with me… Moses on this occasion pleads with God to restore his presence to the people. Very noteworthy are the steps in his entreaty. 1. He veils his request under the form of a desire to know the divine intentions (ver. 12). Will God go up with them or not? God has not yet told him - will he tell him now? What, underneath this form of expression, the heart of Moses really presses for, is, of course, the assurance that God will go with them. 2. He urges the friendship God has shown him as a reason for granting his request - "Thou hast said, I know thee by name," etc. (ver. 12). 3. He entreats God to consider that Israel is his own people (ver. 13). He has chosen them; he has redeemed them; he has declared his love for them; can he bring himself now to cast them off? 4. When God at length - reading in his servant's heart the thought which he has not as yet dared openly to express - says, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest" (ver. 14); Moses eagerly seizes on the promise thus given him, and pleads with God to make it good. "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence" (ver. 15). This, in Moses' view, is the greatest distinction of Israel, that it has God in its midst, and if this distinction is withdrawn, he cares not what else remains (ver. 16). The earnestness of his entreaty secures for him a confirmation of the promise, this time given without reserve. For in the utterance of ver. 14, perhaps, a certain tone of distance is still to be detected. This disappears in ver. 17. View the passage as illustrating - I. THE PRIVILEGES OF FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD (vers. 12, 13). 1. Friendship with God gives boldness of approach to him. It casts out fear (1 John 4:18). 2. Friendship with God admits to intimacy with his secrets (ver. 13). "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him" (Psalm 25:14). Cf. God's words concerning Abraham - "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation," etc. (Genesis 18:17); and Christ's words to his disciples" I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you" (John 15:15). 3. The best use we can make of friendship with God is to intercede for others. So Abraham for Sodom (Genesis 18:23-33). So Moses here. So Daniel (Daniel 9.). So Christ for his disciples (John 17.). II. THE BLESSING OF GOD'S PRESENCE (vers. 14, 15). 1. God's presence is the highest blessing. Nought else can be compared with it (Psalm 73:25, 26). 2. It is the blessing which enriches all other blessings. It is that which makes earthly blessings truly worth having. They are not the same to us without it as with it. 3. God's presence, going with us, invariably conducts to rest. III. THE POWER OF PERSEVERING PRAYER (vers. 16, 17). - J.O. Parallel Verses KJV: And Moses said unto the LORD, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. |
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