exodus 33 and 34

Read Exodus 33 and 34 at Bible Gateway.

The Hebrew paragraph divisions for today’s chapters are:

Exo 33:1-11 {p} The bad news: the Lord will not go up with them/ Moses made his personal tent the tabernacle of meeting
Exo 33:12-16 {p} Mediation of Moses: My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest
Exo 33:17-23 {p} The plea of Moses: show me Your glory
Exo 34:1-26 {p} The renewal of the covenant, the Ten Commandments
Exo 34:27-35 {s} The 2nd set of tablets + Moses’ face shown with the glory of the Lord he had seen

We must remember that immediately prior to the golden calf incident, in Scripture, we had ten chapters of instructions in tabernacle blueprints and furnishings. The reason for it is so that God may dwell with and among His people. It has been the desire of His heart to dwell with His people, ever since Adam was exiled from the Lord’s presence in Gen 3.

Now by breaking the covenant and falling into idolatry, Israel has caused God to withdraw. Why? Because He does not love them anymore? No!

“But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you …” Isa 59:2

The Lord told Moses, that His reason for not continuing Himself with the children of Israel, is because they are stiff- necked; i.e., unbending to His sovereignty, lest they persist in their sin and He consume them on the way.

So, the Lord gives Moses the bad news, as the Scripture calls it, that His Presence will not go with them. This has been the bad news since the day of Adam’s fall! That I am exiled from the Presence of the Lord, that His Presence go not up with me, is the bad news. But then before we get to Moses’ intercession and the good news, Scripture interrupts the narrative with a seemingly unrelated detail, of where Moses pitched the tabernacle of meeting, and how the Lord talked with Moses face to face (Exo 33:7-11).

In fact, this is not an unrelated detail. In Hebrew, the phrase that is used here and throughout the rest of the Torah, for “tabernacle” or “tent of meeting,” is moed: the tabernacle of moed. Moed is first used in Scripture during Creation week:

Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons (moed), and for days and years;” Gen 1:14

Moed is an appointment, like an appointment on a calender. So the sun and the moon mark the appointed seasons. It is often translated as a set time or appointed time. So,

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘The feasts (moedim) of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts (moedim).” Lev 23:1-2

The festivals, or holy days (holidays) of the Lord (not of the Jews) are His set times of appointment.

But the vast majority of the time that moed occurs in Torah is as the tabernacle of moed – of meeting. So moed is an appointed or set time or an appointed or set place, that He has reserved in order to meet with His people, thus the English translation of tabernacle of moed is “tent of meeting”. The Hebrew reveals the purpose of the appointment – so that God may meet with man; so that they could draw near to each other until they meet!

It is not an accident that the seemingly out of place detail about Moses pitching the tabernacle of moed, of meeting, is sandwiched between the bad news of God’s Presence separated from Israel, and the good news (“gospel”) of “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest,” (Exo 33:14). The tabernacle of moed, which is a prophetic picture of Messiah and the new birth, of God’s Presence dwelling within the believer through Messiah, brings us to the good news!

In fact, Moses’ intercession is not another example of Moses getting God to change His mind, but the way God interacted with Moses throughout this incident, He did purposely for our sakes, to paint a prophetic picture of the bad news, and the good news! And once again it is Moses’ (as a type of Messiah, so Messiah’s) intervention that brings about the good news!

For further reading:
The above is a snip from The Law of Love by Christine Miller, which in like manner goes from the beginning to the end of Torah, revealing Messiah and the gospel of grace.