Breakfast at Tiffany's - God’s Character: The Glory of I AM [part 2]

Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Psalm 85:9-10

Israel had failed miserably. Their leader, Moses, had been communing with God on their behalf on Mount Sinai where he would receive the stone tablets written by God’s own finger. Tired of waiting for Moses to return, the Israelites—God’s chosen people whom he had miraculously delivered from slavery in Egypt—asked Aaron the priest to forge for them a golden calf so they could worship it as their god instead. Aaron agreed, and Moses returned to find these people whom God had called His treasured possession in an all-out rebellion born of boredom.

In his rage, Moses threw the sacred tablets on the ground, destroying them. The Lord then made it clear that because of their utter defiance of Him, this “stiff-necked” group would have to get along without His help from there on out.

The people grieved upon hearing this, and Moses built a tabernacle outside the camp where the people could come seek the Lord and worship while he entered to speak with God face to face. Moses asked the Lord not to withdraw his presence from the congregation. The Lord showed them grace, relenting from the judgment their sin had evoked. Moses then made a personal request, praying, “Please, show me your glory” (Ex. 33:18, LEB). The Lord responded saying, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim my name, ‘Yahweh,’ before you,” (33:19a). He then told Moses to make two new tablets to replace the broken ones and to meet him back at the top of the mountain the next morning.

Rather than responding to Moses’ request with displays of power and majesty, God instead “responds that he will show him his goodness and proclaim his name. This means that God’s glory is seen in his goodness, and the proclamation of his name reveals Yahweh’s goodness, which is his glory” (Hamilton, 97).

 I wonder if the Lord’s response to Moses’ prayer brought him back to the early days of his calling—before the plagues, before the splitting of the sea, before the pillar by day and the fire by night. Learning that he was the son of Hebrew slaves after spending 40 years as a member of an Egyptian royal family had created a midlife identity crisis that changed the trajectory of his life. Disillusioned and depressed, he fled to the desert where he spent another 40 years working for his father-in-law as a shepherd. It was while leading his flock near a mountain that he would first encounter Yahweh—the Hebrew God of his ancestors, who were little more than a distant memory for him now. The mountain was Sinai, the same place where he would receive the law written by God’s finger upon the stone tablets; the same place where he would experience the glory of Yahweh. But upon this first encounter, Moses probably knew Him only as a distant, impersonal Deity. He trembled in fear as God’s voice thundered from a burning bush commanding him to return to Egypt and rescue the Hebrew people. Moses greatly doubted God’s choice in making him the hero of the Hebrews due to his own lack of ability and authority.