Jonathan Edwards · 332 of 409

Exodus · Part 4

Moses now acted as a mediator, and not merely as an intermessenger, as he did in the first giving of the law. He offers his life for theirs; he offers up himself to be accursed and blotted out of God’s book for them, after he had told the people that they had sinned a great sin, and peradventure he should make atonement for their sin, which is to do the part of a mediator. See chap. xxxii. 30, 31, 32.

On this occasion, the Lord speaks to Moses face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend, when he came to speak to God in behalf of the people; well representing the intercourse of our Mediator with the Father, chap. xxxiii. 11. And on this occasion God made all his goodness pass before Moses, and proclaimed himself “the Lord, the Lord God, gracious and merciful, forgiving iniquity,” &c. Chap. xxxiii. 19. and xxxix. 5, 6, 7.

The covenant the first time was written on tables that were the workmanship of God, as the soul and heart of man in innocency was; which workmanship of God was destroyed by man’s apostacy: so, upon the children of Israel’s apostacy, Moses brake the tables that were the workmanship of God. The covenant now was written in tables that were the workmanship of Moses, the mediator, as the law of God after the fall is written in the fleshly tables of the heart renewed by Christ.

God promises, that in fulfilment of the covenant he now the last time enters into with his people, he will do wonders, such as have not been done in all the earth, and that all the people should see the work of the Lord. So God in the way of the new covenant that he entered into with Christ, did those great things by Christ in the work of redemption which are so often spoken of in Scripture as being so exceeding wonderful.

God made this covenant with Moses, the typical Mediator, as the head and representative of the people, and with the people in him or under him as his people, that he showed mercy to for his sake. Chap. xxxiv. 27. “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel;” and verse 10. “Behold, I make a covenant before all thy people; I will do marvellously.”

Before Moses came down from the mount in wrath with the tables broken; so Christ comes as God’s Messenger to execute wrath for the breaking of the covenant of works. Now he comes down with the tables of the testimony in his hand, with his face shining. This being typical of the light of grace with which Christ’s face shines in God’s Israel. See Note on Exod. xxxii. 19. and xxxiii. 1.

[404] Exod. xxxiii. 14, 15. “And he said, My presence shall go with thee (in the original Greek or Hebrew ). And he said, if thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence.” Hence probably the heathen Pan and Faunus, the god of shepherds the shepherds were the Israelites that were by the Egyptians called the shepherds, because a shepherd was a strange thing in their country. Hence Pan is supposed to be one of Bacchus’s principal commanders, because God’s presence is here promised to be with Moses and the people, to help them in their wars. And Pan going with Bacchus to war, is said to have put astonishing fears on all their enemies, which arises from the great terrors with which the God of Israel (whose shepherd) brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, with which he terrified the Egyptians and Israel themselves, and all nations, by what appeared when God gave the law; and so the great terrors sent into the hearts of their enemies in Canaan, so very often spoken of. See Gen. xxxv. 5. Exod. xv. 14, 15, 16. Deut. ii. 25. and xi. 25. xxxiv. 12. and Josh. ii. 9. and Exod. xxxiv. 10. and Ps. cvi. 22. Deut. vii. 27. and x. 17, 21. xxvi. 8. Exod. xxiii. 27. God never manifested himself so much to the heathen nation in his awful terrors, as he did in the affair of leading Israel as their shepherd out of Egypt through the wilderness into Canaan, and settling them there. Those fears and terrors are spoken of as from the presence of the Lord. Ps. lxviii. 7, 8. “O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness; Selah: The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence, Greek or Hebrew, of the Lord, (the Pan or Faunus of the heathen,) even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of the God of Israel,” (the shepherds,) and Ps. xcvii. 4, 5. “His lightnings enlightened the world; the earth saw and trembled. The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.” For terror and trembling is often spoken of as what properly arises from the presence of the Lord. Isa. lxiv. 1-3. “O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations might tremble at thy presence! When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.” So Isa. xix. 1. Jer. v. 22. Ezek. xxxviii. 20. Whence that proverbial expression, panic fears. Bochart says that Faunus among the Latins is the same god, and of the same original, with Pan. Pan is said to be an Egyptian god, to come up with Bacchus (i. e. Moses) to fight against the giants. That which God promised Moses when he said, “my presence shall go with thee,” was his Son; the same with the angel of his presence, spoken of Isa. lxiii. and therefore when Christ was crucified. Hence the relation of Plutarch touching the mourning of the demoniac spirits for the death of their great god, Pan, and the ceasing of their oracles thereupon. Bochart says, “The Hebrew Greek or Hebrew, Pan, one that is struck, or strikes with astonishing fears.“ See Court of Gen. p. 1. b. 2. c. 6, 7, 70,71.

[266] Exod. xxxiii. 18-23. Moses, when he beseeches God to show him his glory, seems to have respect to a visible glory; something to be seen with his bodily eyes, yet not exclusive of an inward sweet sense of those glorious perfections, of which the external glory by which God manifests himself is a semblance, which was wont to accompany the external discoveries of divine glory that God made to the prophets, the external glory being made by the Spirit of God accompanying being made a means of a sense of the spiritual glory, as the music of a song of praise is the means of a sense of the excellency of divine things. But by the context it is manifest that it was a visible glory that Moses had a most immediate respect to. Moses seems to have apprehended from what he had seen of the visible manifestations which God had made of himself to him; and it may be from the apprehensions which other holy men before him had entertained concerning God, from what God had revealed to them; that there was some transcendent external majesty and beauty, some immensely sweet and ravishing brightness, the sight of which would exceedingly fill the soul with delight, that was immensely above all that he had yet seen. And God, in his answer to Moses, and in what he did in compliance with his request, seems to allow Moses’s apprehension to be just, which probably was because it was God’s design to all eternity to appear to the bodily eyes of his saints in such an external glory in the person of Christ God man; and Moses’s acquired right from the visible manifestations of an external glory which God had often made. These were indeed an intimation that there was such a transcendent external glory in some sort belonging to God, even to the second person of the Trinity, in that it was established in God’s gracious decree and eternal agreement of the persons of the Trinity; on the foot of which establishment were all God’s proceedings with the church of Israel, that Christ should everlastingly be united to an external nature, and in that be manifested to his church in an external glory. The external manifestations which he had made of himself to Moses and other holy men, were presages and prelibations of this. Moses longed to see and enjoy that of which they were specimens and prelibations. Christ is the glory of God in his image, and no man hath seen God at any time, but it is he that always manifested himself by visible appearances. God granted to Moses to see something of this glorious brightness, as he passed by, so much from a view as it were of his back, but not of his face. Probably this, as he passed by in a visible form, shone with an ineffably sweet and glorious brightness, far exceeding all the brightness that is ever seen in the world, for glory and delightfulness. (Vid. No. 265.) But God tells him that he cannot see his face, for no man should see him and live; i. e not only could they not see that spiritual glory in which he manifests himself in heaven; but there is evidently a respect to an external glory: no man should see that external glory of God’s face, in which God intended to manifest himself to his saints in heaven to all eternity, in the face of Jesus Christ.

Corol. Hence the glory of Christ at his transfiguration was not that glory in which the human nature of Christ appears in heaven, and especially that in which it will appear after the day of judgment; only a shadow and faint resemblance of it; for that glory, God says, is such as no man can see and live; and so, of the appearances of Christ’s visible glory that Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the apostle Paul, and the apostle John had.

[267] Exod. xxxiii. 18, 19. “And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” Moses, from his finding his great acceptance and favour with God in the power that his prayers and intercessions had with him, so as it were to appease God’s wrath against the congregation of Israel, which was so great for their making the golden calf; and from his obtaining, by prayer, the promise of so great a favour as that God’s presence should go with them, which promise was made with this gracious declaration made of God’s favour to him; “For thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name;” and from God having in all this spoken to Moses, as a man speaks to his friend: this great mercy of God to him has two effects on Moses.

1. It gives him a sense of God’s excellency and glory, especially the excellency of his mercy and free goodness from this manifestation of it to him and his people after their great sin, and makes him long for a full sight of the glory of so excellent and good a being.

2. It encourages him to ask for this exceeding great mercy of seeing God’s glory. God’s mercy and favour being so very great in past instances, encourages him to ask yet farther and more exceeding favour; and we do not find that God rebukes Moses as being too forward and presumptuous in such a request, or as not being content with so great mercy as he had received already, but on the contrary seems to manifest an approbation of his making such an improvement of mercy already received, for he grants his request so far as is consistent with his present state. Several things are observable, concerning the manner of God’s showing Moses his glory, wherein, though it was extraordinary, it is agreeable to the manner of God’s discovering himself to the souls of his people in this world.

1. It was not face to face, which is reserved for the heavenlystate; 1 Cor. xiii. 12.; but it was as it were a view of the back instead of the face.

2. It was as passing by. Herein is a great difference in the manner in which the saints have the discoveries of God’s glory, and that wherein they shall see him hereafter. Hereafter they shall dwell in his presence, they shall be fixed in an everlasting view of the glory of God, their eye shall be perpetually feasted with a full vision of his face; but here, when the saints have extraordinary discoveries of the glory of God, they are transient and short; sometimes it is only a glance; Christ stands behind the wall for the most part, and when he shows himself it is through the lattice as passing by a window, but hereafter they shall be in his presence-chamber with him. Here the saints see God as passing by before them, and then he is gone.

3. Hereby is properly represented how imperfect are the spiritual discoveries which the saints have of God here. They see God as it were when he is gone by, they have somewhat of a sight of him, but yet very imperfect, as of the back of one that is just gone by, giving of them a sense that he is indeed an infinitely glorious being if they could but have a full sight of him: they can see so much as to give an idea of what might be seen, if they could but come at it. They seem to be as it were on the borders of seeing it, and their appetite is excited to see it; but while they are admiring and longing, and reaching after it, it is gone and passed away.

4. The discovery of God’s spiritual glory is not by immediate intuition, but the word of God is the medium by which it is discovered: it is by God’s proclaiming his name. So God reveals himself to the saints in this world, by proclaiming his name in the joyful sound of the gospel.

5. It is by causing his goodness to pass before him, which is agreeable to the way in which God discovers himself to his saints by the gospel, which in a peculiar manner is a manifestation of the glory of divine grace or goodness. Divine grace is the leading attribute in that discovery, which God makes of his glory by the gospel, wherein God’s goodness is revealed more than any; wherein, and wherein especially, it is revealed as free and sovereign; and which is another thing that is a peculiar glory of the gospel, it is a mutation of free and infinite grace, as consistent with strict justice in punishing the Son; and therefore both are mentioned together in that proclamation God makes of his name to Moses, as in the 5th, 6th, and 7th verses of the following chapter.

6. While God draws nigh to Moses, and he is in God’s presence, Moses is commanded to hide himself in the clefts of the rocks, that God may not be a consuming fire to him, and that he may be secured from destruction, while the burning blaze of God’s glory passes by, (as Watts expresses himself,) which typifies the same Redeemer who is as the munition of rocks, and as a strong rock, and the hiding-place of his people; who is compared to a great rock to secure from the burning heat of the sun by its shadow, and was typified by the rock out of which water was fetched for the children of Israel. God’s people can be secured from destruction when they are in the presence of God, and in his approaches and converse, no other way than by being in Christ, and sheltered by him from being consumed by the flames of God’s pure and spotless holiness.

7. God covered him with his hand while he passed by, not only that he might not see more of the glory of God than he could bear, but also that his deformity and pollution might not be discovered, to bring on him destruction from the presence of that infinitely pure and holy God, and from the glory of that power that passed by. So in Jesus, God covers our deformity and pollution, he beholds not iniquity in Jacob, nor sees pollution in Israel; he turns away his eye from beholding our transgression; therefore it is that we are not consumed in our intercourse with God.

8. Moses beholds God’s glory through a crevice of the rock, as through a window at which he looked out; which represents the manner of God’s discovering himself to his people in this world, which is as standing behind a wall and showing himself through the lattice.

Another reason why God makes all his goodness to pass before Moses, seems to be, that this was the attribute that God had wonderfully been exercising towards Moses, and the congregation of Israel, whereby Moses was now especially affected with that attribute, and especially longed to see the glory of it, as was before observed. And at the same time God tells Moses that he will be gracious to whom he will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom he will show mercy, because he had wonderfully manifested the sovereignty of his mercy in forgiving, as he had done, a people that had so exceedingly transgressed as the congregation of Israel had done in making the golden calf; and also that Moses might not be lifted up by God’s bestowing such unspeakable favours on him as he had done, and now promised to do in answer to his request, but might be sensible that it was not for his worthiness, but his own sovereign pleasure. And another reason is, that the glory of God’s goodness is that part of God’s glory, of which such a poor, feeble, corrupt creature as man is can best bear the sight, while he lives and remains such; for it is the most mild and gentle attribute, and the manifestation of it affords a cordial and support to enable him to bear it.