(Ex 33:18) And he said, "Please, show me Your glory." {19} Then He said, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and

I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." {20} But He said, "You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live." {21} And the LORD said, "Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. {22} "So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by.

 

 

(Ex 33:23) "Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen."

(John 1:18 NKJV)  No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

 

 

 

(Exo 34 NKJV)  And the LORD said to Moses, "Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke. {2} "So be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself to Me there on the top of the mountain. {3} "And no man shall come up with you, and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain; let neither flocks nor herds feed before that mountain."

 

(Ex 34:4) So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones. Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him; and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone. {5} Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

 

 

(Ex 34:6) And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering,

and abounding in goodness and truth,

{7} "keeping mercy for thousands,

forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,

by no means clearing the guilty,

visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation."

 

(Ex 34:8) So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.

 

 

{9} Then he said,

"If now I have found grace in Your sight,

O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us,

even though we are a stiff-necked people;

“stiff-necked:”  Their heads won’t bow!

 and pardon our iniquity and our sin,

and take us as Your inheritance."

 

(Ex 34:10) And He said:

"Behold, I make a covenant.

Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth,

nor in any nation;

and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD.

For it is an awesome thing

that I will do with you.

 

What are the Condtions?

 

{11} "Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. {12} "Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. {13} "But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images {14} '(for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),

 

(Ex 34:15) "lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land,

and they play the harlot with their gods

and make sacrifice to their gods, and

one of them invites you and you eat of his sacrifice,

{16} "and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods

 and make your sons play the harlot with their gods.

 

 

Ezek 20:31:  "For when you offer your gifts and make your sons pass through the fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols, even to this day.

 

At a very appropriate place, God says:

 

‘You shall make no molded gods for yourselves.’

(Ex 34:17)

 

 

(Exo 20:4-5 NKJV)  "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; {5} you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

In verses 18-22    several feasts and laws are repeated which we have recently studied:

The law concerning the firstborn. The Sabbath day

The Feast of Unleavened Bread;  the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Ingathering at the year's end.

{23} "Three times in the year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the LORD God of Israel. {24} "For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders;”

Other laws and clarifications follow verse 24.

 

{27} Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." {28} So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. {29} Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses' hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him.

(Ex 34:30} So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. {31} Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him; and Moses talked with them. {32} Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them as commandments all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. {33} And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. {34} But whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with Him, he would take the veil off until he came out; and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded. {35} And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him.

 

Paul elaborates on Moses placing the veil over his face and makes some interesting lessons from it.

(2 Cor 3:7-18 NKJV)  But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, {8} how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? {9} For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. {10} For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. {11} For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. {12} Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech; {13} unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. {14} But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ.

(2 Cor 3:15) But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. {16} Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. {17} Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. {18} But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

 

So Paul provides a great contrast between the Old Testament and the New.  The Old was very glorious in many ways, but the glory of the New is far greater.  (2 Cor 3:17) Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

 

(Gal 5:13 NKJV)  For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

 

 

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