Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 33:14

And he said, My presence shall go [with thee], and I will give thee rest.

14. Jehovah promises that His presence shall go with Moses (as the representative of His people), and that He will give him and with him the people rest. The words do not however seem very suitable as an answer to v. 13; and Di.’s suggestion is a plausible one, that vv. 14 16 are misplaced, and should follow Exo 34:9 (so also McNeile, p. xxxvi), where, it may be noticed, Moses is still praying for what, if Exo 33:14 is in its right place, has been already granted (cf. p. 367).

presence ] lit. face, i.e. the person himself (2Sa 17:11), in so far as he is present (LXX. ): cf., of God, Deu 4:37 (‘brought thee out with his presence ’ [LXX. ]), Isa 63:9 (‘the angel of his presence saved them,’ i.e. the angel in whom His presence was manifest, cf. Exo 23:21; but LXX. ‘No messenger or angel, (but) his presence ( ) saved them’). The expression can hardly, however, have been intended to denote Jehovah’s entire Being: it must rather ( DB. v. 639 b ) have denoted His Being either as manifested in an angel more fully than in the ordinary ‘angel of Jehovah’ (B.), or as others think (Lagrange, Rev. Bibl. 1903, p. 215; Kennedy, Samuel, p. 323 f.), as attaching to the Ark (cf. p. 280).

give thee rest ] viz. in the assured possession of Canaan: cf. Deu 3:20; Deu 12:10, Jos 22:4.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Rest – This was the common expression for the possession of the promised land. Deu 3:20; Jos 1:13, Jos 1:15; compare Heb 4:8.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Exo 33:14

My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

Gods presence giving rest

This is a word in season to every one who is weary.

I. In what sense has God said, My presence shall go with thee? He is present to the believer as a Friend whose love has been accepted, and whose conversation is understood with all the intelligence of a kindred nature.

II. In what sense does the presence of God give rest?

1. It tends to give rest from the terror incident to a state of condemnation.

2. It gives rest from the anguish which springs from a discordant nature.

3. It gives rest from the cravings of an unsatisfied spirit.

4. It gives rest from the distraction felt amidst uncongenial scenes and associations.

5. It gives rest from the disquietude which results from want of human sympathy.

6. It gives rest from apprehensions regarding the future.

7. The presence of God with us now is the pledge of perfect rest in the next life. (C. Stanford, D. D.)

The pilgrimage of a true life

I. The path of a true life.

1. From captivity to freedom.

2. From scarcity to plenty.

II. The companion of a true life. Gods guiding, succouring, and protecting superintendence.

III. The destiny of a true life. Rest. Not inactivity. Harmonious activity is the destiny of the good; activity in harmony with all our powers, with the order of the universe, and with the will of God. (Homilist.)

A gracious promise

I. My presence shall go with thee.

1. By the presence of God, we are sometimes to understand His essential presence or ubiquity, which pervades all matter and space, and without which nothing could exist.

2. There is also the providential presence of God, by which He sees the wants, and provides for the necessities of His numerous family.

3. By the presence of God here is meant His gracious presence which He mercifully condescends to manifest in His house, and to reveal to His people.

4. The gracious presence of God is essentially necessary to His people, in order to show them the right way and enable them to walk therein.

5. The gracious presence of God is indispensable to His people to purify them, and make them ready for the heavenly Canaan. If ever we be made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, it must be through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth.

II. I will give thee rest.

1. The rest here mentioned has, undoubtedly, a primary reference to the land of Canaan, in which the people of Israel rested, after the toils, dangers, and fatigue of the wilderness. But then, there is something more implied in the word than this.

2. The people of God enjoy a comparative rest in this present world, inasmuch as they are delivered from the power and pollution of sin, and possess that kingdom of grace which consists of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

3. But there still remaineth a rest for them beyond the confines of the grave, in the participation of that felicity which is at the right hand of the Most High. (B. Bailey.)

Gods presence and rest

I. The journey. The people were in a journeying condition.

1. They had come from Egypt. A land of toil and oppression and misery.

2. They were journeying in the wilderness. A land of drought, sterility, and dangers. They had many trials and enemies. A true picture of the world through which believers are travelling.

3. They were travelling to Canaan. A land promised to their fathers; a land of freedom and rest, of plenty and happiness.

II. The presence. My presence shall go with thee. This presence was–

1. Divine.

2. Visible. Pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.

3. Efficient. Not merely Divine recognition and observation, but with them to do all for them they required.

4. Continued. When flesh and heart fail, etc. This God is our God for ever and ever, etc.

III. The rest. And I will give thee rest.

1. The rest of triumph after the conflicts of life.

2. A rest from the toils of wilderness journeyings.

3. A rest from the fears and dangers of the way.

4. A rest from the sufferings and afflictions of life.

5. A rest of eternal and heavenly glory. (J. Burns, D. D.)

Gods gracious presence with His people

I. The nature of the presence. Gods gracious presence with His people is more than His natural attribute of omnipresence.

II. While, however, God is constantly present with His own people, there are certain times in which His presence is specially manifest.

III. The mental states which precede the gift of Gods presence.

1. Earnest prayer.

2. The spirit of mourning and humiliation. (D. Macaulay, M. A.)

Gods presence promised

I. The need of refuge in God from the lives of others. Even in human society at its best the heart has no safe refuge.

II. The prayer of Moses suggests the need of one worn by well-doing. That well-doing brings exhaustion and despondency and so specially needs Gods aid is a fact which we sometimes forget.

III. The prayer of Moses expressed the need of one weighted by the sense of responsibility. He had a great work to do. He who feels little need of God has a low sense of personal responsibility. But he who faces all responsibility and tries to see his life as he will see it when the end of all things has come, has great need of God. To him life becomes a serious thing. For help he will often lift up his eyes unto the hills, and will take help from no lower source.

IV. This prayer of Moses received a gracious answer. It was the vision of God. (Willard G. Sperry.)

Gods special presence distinguishes His own people

I. The promised presence of God with His people will, so long as they are favoured with it, produce a wide difference and separation between them and all other men. When God comes to dwell in the soul, He imparts to it a portion, not only of His own views, but of His own feelings. He not only illuminates the understanding with His own light, but, as an apostle expresses it, sheds abroad His love in the heart.

II. That in proportion as God withdraws the manifestations of His presence from His people, this difference and separation between them and other men will diminish. God is the Sun of the soul. When He favours it with His presence and exerts upon it His influence, it is enlivened and enlightened, and made to glow with love, and hope, and joy, and gratitude. But when He withdraws and suspends His influences, spiritual darkness and coldness are the consequence. Then it is night, it is winter with the soul. In proportion as He thus withdraws from His people, they cease to view Him as a present reality; they cease to have those views, and to exercise those affections, which constitute the grand essential difference between them and other men. Nor is this all. As holy affections decline, sinful affections revive. It remains only to make a suitable improvement of the subject.

1. With this view, permit me, in the first place, to say to each individual in this assembly, Do you know experimentally the difference between the presence and the absence of God?

2. Let me improve this subject, by inquiring whether this Church now enjoys the peculiar presence of God, as it once appeared to do? (E. Payson, D. D.)

Gods presence realized

Since God is everywhere, in what sacred and peculiar sense is He present to the believing heart? Lord, how is it that Thou dost manifest Thyself to us, as Thou dost not unto the world? The principle on which He does so is illustrated by some of the common facts of life. A man is present to his friend, as he is not to a stranger, though he may be at the same moment speaking to both. The light which floods the landscape with a deluge of beauty is present to him who sees it, as it is not to the blind man walking at his side. Music, though it may ripple round the deafened ear, is only present to him who hears

2. The discourse of the naturalist on his experiments, of the scholar on his books, of the mathematician who is talking with raptures on the beauties of a theorem, will bring things into the presence of initiated listeners, which are still remote from the minds of those in the very same company who have no sympathy with the theme. So, two women may be grinding at a mill; two men may be in the field; one a believer, the other an unbeliever; and although the Great Spirit is near to them both, there is a sense in which He is present to the one as He is not to the other; for, in the case of the believer, the causes of estrangement have been taken away, a new relation exists, a new life has been born, and God is present as a Friend, whose love has been accepted, and whose conversation is understood with all the intelligence of a kindred nature. Everything we need to secure that peace which the world cannot give is secured by the promise, My presence shall go with thee, for that tranquil presence does not merely attend us, it enters the very soul, and sheds its benediction there. Plato seemed to have a glimpse of this glorious truth when he said, God is more inward to us than we are to ourselves. What was to Him a beautiful speculation is to us an inspiring reality; for we are the temples of the Holy Ghost. He dwells within us as a pitying, purifying friend, to kindle celestial light in our darkness, and by removing the cause of discord, and restoring the equilibrium of the soul, to give us peace at the very seat of life. Ignatius, from his eminent devotion, was called by his companions The Godbearer; and when Trajan said to him, Dost thou then bear the Crucified One in thy heart? his reply was, Even so; for it is written, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. This honour have all the saints, yet all do not seem to be fully conscious of it. Only let us feel it; only let us own that inward authority, and listen to that inward voice; only let us act in obedience to the suggestions of that Power that worketh within us to will and to do of His good pleasure, and we shall find that in proportion as we are actuated by the life of God within us, shall we feel His peace. (C. Stanford, D. D.)

Choice food for pilgrims to Canaan

I. What are the benefits of the Divine presence which is here promised?

1. The acknowledgment of the people as being peculiarly the Lords.

2. Preservation and protection.

3. Direction and guidance.

4. Real worship in the wilderness. What is bread, what is wine, and what is the table, if the King Himself be not there?

5. Communion with God. He is always ready for fellowship with His people.

II. What are the demands of this presence ?

1. That we rely upon it. Away with fear and melancholy. Treat it as a matter of fact, and be filled with rest.

2. That we use it. Exercise faith in God.

3. Do not lose it. Oh, how reverently, cautiously, jealously, and holily ought we to behave ourselves in the presence of God!

4. Glorify Him all that you possibly can. Seek out those who have lost His company, and go and cheer them.

III. What is the choice blessing which is appended to this presence. Best–both now and hereafter. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Alone: yet not alone

I cannot see that this choice of Moses, to walk in Gods way, if but assured of Gods presence, differs in anywise from the choice which that people was called on to make at that moment, and which God is ever pressing upon us all. In considering it in its broad human aspect, I observe–

I. Here are two ways on which the choice is to be exercised–two paths, which very plainly diverge. It is the old, old choice–worldliness, godliness–duty, pleasure–Gods will, self-will–the passions and appetites of the flesh or of the mind, the convictions of conscience and the Word of God.

II. The cry of the human spirit for rest. The longing of mans spirit amid all these strifes, discords, and confusions, is for rest. Nothing can eradicate mans conviction that strife and discord have no right in the universe; that they are abnormal; that the normal condition of things and beings is harmony, and that harmony is the music of rest. God must rest–rest even in working; and all that is of God and from God has the longing and the tending to rest.

III. The Divine assurance which was to Moses, and should be to us, an all-sufficient warrant to leave the world and the pleasures of sin and commit ourselves to the desert under Gods guidance, as the path to the heavenly rest. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)

Two kinds of rest

There are two kinds of rest, or rather what goes by the name of rest, within reach of man. The secret of the one is, escape from trouble; the secret of the other is, entering into life. Life is the harmonious balance of conflicting forces, the calm control of all opposite powers. Escape from trouble is not permitted to man, though he thinks it is. It is a wonderful feature in mans constitution that he can find rest only in his highest, in the full culture and activity of all his powers. He tries to rest in a luxurious home, in a feverish orgy, on a wantons breast. But who shall paint the anguish of the rest of the wicked? How many a man has gone out from a scene of uproarious merriment, to blow out his brains, in blank despair! There is no rest but in God. Man rests only in the fulness of his existence, in the completeness of his life. Moses found no rest in communion with earthly natures, but there was rest for him–it bathed his soul like the dewy moonlight the flowers–when he entered into that which is within the veil, and talked of things unspeakable with God. Having faith in the Saviours power and love, the spirit rests amid the severities of discipline, yea, sleeps sometimes, as Jesus did while the storm was highest; for ever when the danger is imminent, and the foaming surges are parting to engulf their prey, the Divine presence within shines forth around, and immediately there is a great calm, and the spirit rests still. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)

The Divine presence

I. Help comes when most needed. The idolatry of Israel discouraged Moses. So the trials which bring us to God in dependence and prayer, bring the Divine presence and blessing to our aid.

II. The desire of the spiritual mind is the presence of God. If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hither. Leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.

III. God supplies this want. His name shall be called God with us. Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. He shall give you another Comforter that He may abide with you for ever. The experience of this presence is a joy to be sought and found only in fidelity to God. It restrains from evil and inspires to good works. It gives rest from the uncertainties suggested by unbelief and doubt. It supplies the happiness of assurance and the calmness of peace. (E. W. Warren, D. D.)

Gods presence our rest

Rest must be sought deeper down than in circumstances. It must begin at the centre of our being, and in its accord with the being of God. His presence must be welcome to us and accompany us, or rest is a vain dream.

I. The circumstances by which this assurance was called forth.

1. Moses was a very lonely man. Perhaps more lonely in the midst of the two millions of people whom he was leading as a flock than he had been amid the solitudes of the desert tending the flock of Jethro. The very contrast between his lofty enjoyment of Divine communion and the people, always set on sensual pleasure, must have lent intensity to the isolation of his spirit, which reared itself amid their sensual longings, as the peak of Susafeh above the lower ranges of Sinai. In this his loneliness he has been compared to Elijah at Cherith or on Carmel; to Paul standing aged and friendless before the tribunal of Nero; to Alfred when, in the words of the old chronicler, he lived an unquiet life in the woodlands of Somerset; to Columbus when, with his great secret locked in his heart, he still prosecuted his quest over the weary waste of waters. Jesus was the most lonely man that ever lived. He drank the cup of loneliness to its dregs. And Moses said unto the Lord, See, Thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and Thou has not let me know whom Thou wilt send with me. Note that last clause, whom Thou wilt send with me. Do they not contain a sigh for a comrade, a companion, a friend in whose sympathy and judgment he might confide. In the physical world we are told that in the most solid bodies the atoms do not touch; and how often, though the crowd throngs us, we are not conscious that any one has touched us. It is to that state of mind that the assurance of the text is given.

2. In addition to this, the hosts were soon to leave the mountain region of Sinai, with which Moses had been familiar during his shepherd life, in order to take the onward road through unknown deserts, infested by daring and experienced foes. Such a summons to arise and depart is often sounding with its bugle-call in our ears. We are not like those who travel by the metal track of the railroad, on which they have been to and fro every day for years, and are able to tell exactly the names and order of the stations; but like an exploring expedition in an absolutely unknown district, and even the leader, as he leaves his hammock in the morning, does not know where it will be slung at night.

3. Still further difficulties had lately arisen in connection with the peoples transgression. From a careful study of the passage it would seem that a change was proposed by their Almighty Friend. Hitherto He had gone in the midst of them. Now He avowed His intention of substituting an angel for Himself, lest He should suddenly consume the people because of their stiff-neckedness (Exo 33:3). But now it seemed likely some sensible diminution of the evidence of the Divine presence and favour was about to take place; and the fear of this stirred the soul of the great leader to its depths. Are there not times with many of us when we have reason to fear that, in consequence of some sad failure or sin on our part, the Lord may be obliged to withdraw the conscious enjoyment of His love? Supposing He should be compelled to leave me to myself, to withdraw His tender mercies, to shut up His compassions. Supposing that I should be like a sledge abandoned in Arctic snows, or a ship abandoned by its crew in mid-ocean.

II. The place where this assurance was given. The earlier intercourse between the servant, faithful in all his house, and Him who had appointed him seems to have been on the mountain summit. But after the outburst of the peoples sin a change was made which did not necessitate such prolonged or distant absences from the camp. Indeed, he was absent for only one other period of forty days till the time of his death, some thirty-eight years afterwards (Exo 34:28). During the prolonged interview which he had been permitted to enjoy, God had spoken to him much of the Tabernacle which was shortly to be reared. He at once saw the blessedness of this proximity of the shrine for worship and fellowship, and his ardent soul seems to have been unable to brook delay. It was no longer necessary for him to climb to the mountain summit, entrusted with errands on behalf of the people, or eager for advice in difficult problems. He was able to transact all necessary business by going out to the tent. Thus the Lord spake with Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend; and Moses spake to his Father, who is in secret, with the freedom of a child. And as the people beheld that wondrous sight of God stooping to commune with man, they rose up and worshipped, every man at his tent door. It was as if he said, Wilt Thou Thyself be my Comrade and Companion, my Referee in difficulty, my Adviser in perplexity, my Friend in solitude? Thine angels are strong and fair and good, but none of them will suffice me, nothing short of Thyself. Without Thee, it were better for me to relinquish my task and die; but with Thee, no difficulty can baffle, no fear alarm, no obstacle deter. And Gods answer came back on his spirit with music and balm, My presence shall go with time, and I will give thee rest. Nothing was said as to the people. But faith gets bolder as it mounts. Each answer to its claims makes it claim more. We may seriously question whether our faith is of the right quality if it is unable to compass more in its hand to-day than it did a year ago. And, therefore, Moses not only took the assurance of the Divine presence for himself, but asked that it be extended to include the people. Wherein now shall it be known that I have found grace in Thy sight, I and Thy people? Is it not that Thou goest with us, so that we be separated, I and Thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth. In this respect also he was successful. And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken, for thou hast found grace in My sight. There are moments of holy intercourse with God, rapturous, golden moments, in the lives of all His servants; when next they visit us, and we would make the most of their brief, bright, rapturous glow, let us plead, not only for ourselves, but for others, asking for them an equal blessedness.

III. The blessedness which this assurance guaranteed. There was, first, the Divine presence; and there was, secondly, the premised rest; not the rest of Canaan, for this Moses never saw, but a deeper and more blessed inheritance, which may be the portion of all faithful souls. But at their heart these two are one. The Divine presence is rest. Of course the conscious presence of God with us is only possible on three conditions. Firstly, we must walk in the light, as He is in the light, for He will have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, or turn aside to go with us on any crooked path of our own choosing. Secondly, we must recognize that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son goes on cleansing us from all sin, not only that which we judge and confess, but that also which is only seen by His pure and holy eyes. Thirdly, we must claim the gracious aid of the Holy Spirit to make real that presence, which is too subtle for the eye of man, unless it be specially enlightened. And, above all, we must remember that for us, at least, that presence is localized in the man Christ Jesus. For us there is no attenuated mist of presence, though a mist of light, but a Person in whom that presence is made real and touches us.

1. Gods presence is rest from the conscience of sin. I will remember their sins no more.

2. Gods presence is rest from anxiety. The future is dim and we are apt to strain our eyes as we peer into its depths. Now we are elate with building castles of light, and again we are immured in dungeons of foreboding. We cannot rest tossed to and fro like this, but when we can look from the mist to the face of our Guide, who goes with us, such wisdom and kindness mingle there that we are at rest.

3. Gods presence gives rest to our intellect. The mind of man turns sick before the trifles and frivolities with which men, for the most part, seek to satisfy its insatiable appetite, and craves eternal truth, and this alone can be found in God.

4. Gods presence is rest to our judgment. This regal faculty is constantly being called into play to select out of one or two paths which offer themselves that which we should follow. It is left for Him to choose, and to make known His choice, whilst the soul waits, exercising careful thought indeed, but concentrating its whole power in seeking to know the Divine will.

5. Gods presence is rest to our will. The will of the self-life, which chafes like an unquiet sea, can only come to rest in the will of God, compelled by the powerful attraction of His near presence, just as we might conceive of a body passing from the earth to the sun, increasingly losing the attraction of the planet as it feels the pull of the mighty orb of day.

6. Gods presence is rest from weariness. There is in each of us a fund of natural energy, determined largely by health or temperament, or favourable circumstances. But at times this is crushed by disappointment and failure, and the sense of its inadequacy for some great task. But when God is near it falls back on Him like a tired child on a fathers strength, and is at rest.

7. Gods presence is rest to our heart. Who is there that does not pine for love? But to know God, to love God, to be loved by God, to delight in Gods perpetual presence–this is rest. I have a vision of a woodland glade. A group of tired, frightened children are cowering around the bole of an old tree, dropping the fragile, withered flowers from their hands and pinafores, as the first great drops of the thunder shower, which had been darkening the sky, begin to fall. They have lost their way, they sob bitterly, and crowd together. Suddenly through the wood there comes a quick step, beneath which the twigs crackle and break–father has come, and as he carries some in his strong arms through the storm on the nearest track for home, and the others run at his side, they have learnt that there is a presence which is rest. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 14. My presence shall go with thee] panai yelechu, my faces shall go. I shall give thee manifestations of my grace and goodness through the whole of thy journey. I shall vary my appearances for thee, as thy necessities shall require.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

My presence, Heb. my face, i.e. I myself, by comparing this with 2Sa 17:11. The Angel of my presence, Isa 63:9; the pledge of my presence, the cloudy pillar; and I will not turn thee over to an angel, as I threatened, Exo 34:2. See Deu 4:34.

I will give thee rest; not only rest from thy present anguish and perplexity of mind for thy people, but in due time I will bring them to their resting-place and settled habitation; for it is evident from Exo 34:15,16, that Mosess care and prayer was more for the people than for himself.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

And he said,…. In answer to his request:

my presence shall go [with thee]; or before thee, both with Moses and before the people; meaning the Angel of his presence he had before promised, the eternal Word and Son of God, who saved them, redeemed them, bore and carried them all the days of old: or “my faces shall go” y; all the three divine Persons, Father, Son, and Spirit; there was Jehovah the Father, whose the Angel of his presence was; and there was Jehovah the Son, Christ, whom they tempted in the wilderness; and there was Jehovah the Holy Spirit, whom they vexed, see Isa 63:9

and I will give thee rest; not ease, and peace and tranquillity of mind, or a freedom from the fear of enemies, and all dangers by them, much less rest in the grave, before Israel should be brought into Canaan’s land; but rather the promised land itself, which was “the rest” that was promised, and would be given, and was typical of that eternal rest which remains for the people of God in heaven, and is a pure gift; for this promise is not personal and peculiar to Moses, but belonged to all the people, to whom God would give the typical rest, see De 12:9.

y “facies meae ibunt”, Montanus, Vatablus.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

14. And he said, My presence shall go with thee We gather from this answer what the desire of Moses was, for God, in accepting his prayer, affirms in one word that He will go before them as He was wont, and this was a sure pledge of His presence in no ordinary manner. For although the whole world is governed by His providence, still His face does not therein appear so conspicuously as in His protection of the Church’s welfare. And, in fact, since the same Angel, who had before presided over the camp, now undertakes the charge of guiding the people, the eternal divinity of Christ is clearly proved from hence.

This clause, “My face (367) shall go before,” is equivalent to his saying, I will so go before thee, that thou shalt truly perceive that I am with thee, as if thou shouldst see my face set before thine eyes in a mirror. Now, since this was fulfilled in Christ, it follows that He is the eternal God, whose glory, power, and majesty is far above all creatures. The rest which He promises has reference to the perseverance of His grace, and its final accomplishment, (368) as if it were said, when the people shall have entered the land, they shall be under God’s protection and guardianship; for what was common to the whole people is ascribed to the person of Moses.

(367) “My presence shall go with thee.” — A.V.

(368) “Et au but ou Moyse pretendoit;” and to the object at which Moses aimed. — Fr.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(14) My presence shall go with thee.There is no with thee in the original, and consequently the phrase is ambiguous. Moses could not tell whether it was a personal promise to himself, or a renewal of the old engagement to go with the people. He consequently requires something more explicit. Will God go, not merely with him, but with the people? (Exo. 33:15-16).

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

14. My presence shall go Behold how Moses’s intercession prevails! In Exo 33:3 the Lord had said, “I will not go up in the midst of thee;” but after the penitence of the people, and repeated seeking unto Jehovah in the tent of the congregation, and especially this earnest plea of Moses, the God of Israel is moved to compassion, and promises his presence . The shallow sceptic would fain see in such a representation a changeableness and weakness in the God of Israel unworthy the nature of deity . But the believer sees here an illustration of that wonderful condescension and mercy with which God compassionates the penitent sinner . The mode of illustration, in accord with all these earlier revelations, is anthropomorphic, but the lesson taught is the same as when, in Isa 54:7-8, Jehovah says: “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee . In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.” Some writers have proposed an interrogative rendering for this verse: Shall my presence go, and shall I give them rest? But there appears no sufficient reason for this method of translation.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Exo 33:14. And he said, my presence, &c. Condescending to the intercession of Moses, the Lord promises that his presence, as usual, shall go with him, and give [Israel] that rest in the promised land which they sought. Le Clerc renders this verse, if my presence shall go with thee, wilt thou be at rest? Wilt thou be satisfied? Which, though rather a harsh translation of the Hebrew, seems to agree well with the answer of Moses; who, expressing (Exo 33:15.) the highest estimation for the Divine Presence, entreats that, if this be denied, they might not stir from the place where they now were: for, he goes on to observe, it was by Jehovah’s presence alone that their grand distinction and separation from other people was discovered: and in this view, the 16th verse should be rendered thus, For, whereby shall it be plainly known, that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Will it not be by thy going with us?So shall we be distinguished or separated, (i.e. by thy going with us,) I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth. We subjoin what Houbigant observes on this passage, of which the following is an exact translation: “My presence,” says he, “is the same as myself. God had before denied, in the 3rd verse, that he would go in the midst of this stiff-necked-people; therefore something else is now treated of, or God would contradict himself: wherefore Moses subjoins, unless thy Presence go with us, carry us not hence: as much as to say, ‘To have brought us out of Egypt by a thousand miracles, would not be of great consequence, unless thou thyself wouldst come and dwell among us; for this people, whom thou refusest to bring up, is not worthy of such mighty miracles.’ In consequence of which, Moses wishes that God would be with us, immanu; and afterwards in the 17th verse God grants his petition, saying, even this thing which thou hast spoken will I do; promising not only that his Presence should go before them, (for that was granted to Moses in the 14th verse; and the words, even this thing, prove that something new was promised,) but also that he would be God with us or Emmanuel; and would hereafter have a people, whom he would make far more glorious above other people, than they who now were the adumbration of them. After God had promised this to Moses, he earnestly entreats the Lord that he would shew him his glory; i.e. that he would shew himself to him in that character of Emmanuel, in which he was hereafter to appear: to which petition God immediately replies, Exo 33:19 that he would cause all his goodness to pass before him, i.e. would represent to him all that beneficence which, as God with us, he would exhibit in future times; and then, that he himself would invoke, or call upon the name of Jehovah; that is, would himself pray for mortals; and, sustaining this Person, would be gracious to whom he would be gracious; not only to that people from whom Moses departed, fixing his tabernacle without the camp; but to others, whom he would choose from the whole world as his peculiar people, 1Pe 2:9. Lastly, in the 20th verse, he declares that his face cannot be seen by any mortal; for he who is the Brightness of his Father’s glory, dwelleth in light unapproachable: he assents therefore so far to the last petition of Moses, as to shew himself such to him, as he was to be seen by mortals in after-times; Thou shalt see my back-parts, or that last state in which I shall be seen by mortals, the last revelation of myself; as the ancient writers of the church understood the words: which adumbrations of future things they who do not see, have the vail upon their hearts; denying that which Christ affirmed, that Moses wrote many things concerning him.”

Le Clerc very much admires here the inconstancy of the Hebrew language, Moses requesting to see the glory of God, though he had before his eyes that cloudy pillar, which is every where called the glory of God: but, upon our interpretation, that objection is removed: besides, 1st, the cloud is called in this chapter the pillar of cloud, and not the glory of God: and, although it were called so, Moses would signify, by his desire to see the glory of God when this cloud was present, that another glory of God was adumbrated in the cloud or obscurity: nor, secondly, is a language to be accused of inconstancy, because it does not always use the same word for the same thing; for this is the nature of all languages.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

DISCOURSE: 110
GODS PRESENCE WITH HIS CHURCH

Exo 33:14. And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

IT is not in the power of words to express, or of any finite imagination to conceive, the extent and riches of divine grace. The instances in which it was manifested to the Israelites of old, inasmuch as they were obvious to the eye of sense, are more calculated to excite our admiration; but the church at this time, and every believer in it, experiences equal tokens of Gods kindness, if we can but view them with the eye of faith. It was under circumstances, wherein the Israelites had justly incurred Gods heavy displeasure, that the promise in the text was made to them: and to us, if we do but use the proper means of attaining an interest in it, is the same promise given, notwithstanding our heinous backslidings, and innumerable provocations.

That we may be stirred up to improve it, we shall point out,

I.

The blessings here promised

Though the promise was given immediately to Moses, yet it was not literally fulfilled either to him or to the people of that generation; since both he, and they, died in the wilderness. This circumstance alone would lead us to look for some mystical accomplishment, which it should receive; and while the Scripture warrants, it will also fully satisfy, our inquiries on this head. The promise has relation to us, as well as to the Israelites; and teaches us to expect,

1.

Gods presence in our way

[God had refused to proceed any further with the Israelites, on account of their worshipping the golden calf. In answer however to the supplications of Moses, he had condescended to say, that he would send an angel in his stead. But when Moses would not be satisfied with that, and continued to plead for a complete restoration of his favour to Israel, God, overcome, as it were, by his importunity, promised to go before them still in the pillar and the cloud [Note: Exo 32:34, with the text.]. More than this they did not need; and less than this could never satisfy one, who had ever experienced the divine guidance and protection. And has not our blessed Lord made the same promise to us? Has he not said, Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world [Note: Mat 28:20.] ? Has not his prophet assigned this as a reason why we should dissipate our fears, and look forward to the eternal world with confidence and joy [Note: Isa 41:10.] ? On this promise then let us rely; and let us know, that if we have God for our guide, our protector, and provider, we have all that can be necessary for us in this dreary wilderness.]

2.

His glory as our end

[Canaan was a place of rest to the Israelites after the many difficulties that they sustained in their way to it: and heaven will be indeed a glorious rest to us after our weary pilgrimage in this world. Now as the prospect of the land flowing with milk and honey, sweetened all the fatigues and dangers of their journey in the wilderness, so the hope of that rest which remaineth for Gods children, encourages us to persevere in our labours to attain it: and this rest is promised us, in spite of all the exertions of men or devils to deprive us of it. Our conflicts may be many, and our trials great; but our rest is sure; for God hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee [Note: Compare Jos 1:5, with Heb 13:5-6.] .]

These blessings being so necessary, we should anxiously inquire into,

II.

The means of attaining them

Moses is here to be considered in a double view, as a type of Christ, and as an example to us: and, in these two capacities, he teaches us to look for these blessings,

1.

Through the intercession of Christ[Christ, like Moses, has immediate access to that Divine Being who is wholly inaccessible to us [Note: 1Ti 6:16.] ; and it is owing to his entrance within the tabernacle to appear in the presence of God for us, that the wrath of the Almighty has not burst forth upon us on numberless occasions, and consumed us utterly [Note: Heb 9:24.]. It is not only at our first return to God that we must seek the mediation of Jesus Christ; we must apply to him continually as our advocate with the Father, expecting nothing but through his prevailing intercession. This is the way pointed out for us by the beloved disciple, especially in seasons, when fresh-contracted guilt has excited just apprehensions of the divine displeasure; If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous [Note: 1Jn 2:1.]. Whether therefore we desire grace or glory, let us seek it through Christ, as the purchase of his blood, and the consequence of his intercession.]

2.

Through our own importunate supplications

[While the Israelites put off their ornaments in token of their unfeigned humiliation, Moses, as their representative, importuned God for mercy, and urged his requests with the most forcible and appropriate pleas [Note: 2, 13.]. In this manner should we also cry unto our God for pardon and acceptance, not enduring the thought of being left by him, lest we come short of that rest to which he has undertaken to lead us [Note: Heb 4:1.]. Nor should we cease to plead, till we have an assured hope that he is reconciled towards us, and a renewed prospect of his continued presence with us to the end of life. It is in this way that his people have prevailed with him in every age [Note: Dan 4:7-8; Dan 4:17-19.] ; and he has pledged himself to us, that, when our uncircumcised hearts are humbled, he will remember his holy covenant, and return in mercy to us [Note: Lev 26:40-42.].]

Infer,
1.

How greatly are we indebted to Jesus Christ!

[Where shall we find one who has not made to himself some idol, and provoked the Lord to jealousy? And how justly might God have sworn in his wrath that we should not enter into his rest! But our adorable Saviour has sprinkled the mercy-seat with his precious blood, and offered up the incense of his own prevailing intercession on our behalf. Surely he is well called Our peace [Note: Eph 2:14.], since he alone procures it, maintains it, perfects it. Let us bear in mind then our obligations to him, and ascribe to him the glory due unto his name.]

2.

How earnest ought we to be in intercession for each other!

[In the history before us we behold one man interceding for a whole nation, and that too under circumstances where there could be scarcely any hope to prevail: yet he not only obtains a revocation of the sentence which God had passed, but a renewal and continuance of his wonted favours towards them. Shall we then neglect the duty of intercession, or intercede for each other merely in a formal way, as though we expected no answer to our petitions? Let us not so greatly dishonour God, and so wickedly slight our own privileges [Note: 1Sa 12:23.]. We are expressly commanded to pray one for another, yea, and to make intercessions for all men [Note: Jam 5:16.]: let us not doubt therefore but that, by pleading earnestly with God, we may obtain blessings for our friends, for our country, and for all whose cause we plead. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.]

3.

How happy are they who are enabled to live upon the promises!

[Were we to consider the length and difficulty of our way, the enemies we have to encounter, and our utter insufficiency for any thing that is good, we should utterly despair of ever reaching the heavenly Canaan. But God promises to us his presence in the way, and his rest at the end of our journey; and he who has promised is able also to perform. Let our trust then be in him, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Let us cast our care on him who careth for us. Let our discouragements, yea, our very iniquities, bring us nearer to him, and cause us to rely more simply on his word. Thus shall we experience his faithfulness and truth, and be monuments of his unbounded mercy to all eternity.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

Observe the power of prayer: compare Exo 33:3 with this verse; the change is not in the divine mind, but in the people. The Lord varies his dispensations according as his grace makes them suited to receive the change. Isa 63:9-11 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Exo 33:14 And he said, My presence shall go [with thee], and I will give thee rest.

Ver. 14. I will give thee rest. ] Full content of mind, in the sense of my presence and light of my countenance.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

He [Jehovah] said. See note on Exo 3:7, and Compare Exo 6:10.

My presence. If this verse be punctuated as a question, then we can understand verse Exo 33:15, “Shall My presence go with thee, and shall I lead thee into rest? “as much as to say, How can My presence go with thee after this rejection of Me?

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Life in Gods Presence

My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.Exo 33:14.

These are the words of Gods assurance, anticipating an almost agonizing supplication of Moses, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. The prayer was uttered on the edge of the great wilderness. Moses was about to loose his hold on his last familiar resting-place, and commit himself and his people to its unknown wilds. All the magnitude of his great undertaking was pressing on him at that moment. Who is sufficient for these things? he cried, like one who, after the lapse of agesa pilgrim of Sinai, tooset his hand to the conversion of a world. The Divine guidance was absolutely a question of life or death. Thus far the ground over which the Israelites had passed was familiar marching-ground to their great leader Moreover, their march had been a triumphal exodus from bondage. Up to Sinai, Egypt was behind them, and they had the joyous sense that they were escaping from hated and tyrannous foes. From Sinai, Canaan was before them, and the grand difficulties and perils of their enterprise began. It was the great critical point of their course. They had need of a vision of a Divine leader, whose pillar of flame should shine, not on their march only, but in their hearts.

I

In the Wilderness

1. Moses was the man of Israel, the man in whom all the higher life and aim of the whole community expressed itself. We study Israel through him; and we shall get nearer to the heart of this great matterthe Lords guidance of the hostif we listen to his wrestling supplication, in which the intercessor was uttering the cry of a whole people, and catch the words of the answer of God, than if we were to study, as we might, the external form of the guiding angel, marvellous, miraculous, and richly symbolic as it unquestionably is. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them in the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night. He took not away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people. A grand, sublime symbol, amongst the greatest things in history. Think of it for a moment. Imagine that host winding through the dreary paths of the desert, lonely there as a people among peoples, as their Lord became lonely as a man among men; cut off utterly from all national associations and sympathies; the strongest people in the world behind them, animated by the most deadly hatred, and powerful nations in front, armed to receive them and to dispute with them every inch of the inheritance they were resolved to win; marching on along those solemn desert pathways, with the visible sign in the midst of them of the presence in person of the Lord God of the whole world. There, under the blazing rays of the burning noon, a soft cloud spread its cool shadow on the weary plain, and refreshed imaginationand what pure refreshment that iswith the picture of the shadowing love of the Lord God Almighty over the whole wearying pilgrimage and battle march of life! And then, as evening fell, and the glooms of night began to drop their awful shroudfor nightfall is awful in the lonely wasteover the weird forms and hues of those beetling cliffs, or the gaunt outlines of the desert palms, the cloud began to glow and lighten, till it cast a broad flood of living lustre, such as we see on earth only in dreams, on the whole scene of the desert encampment. It touched the spurs and peaks of the mountains, till they stood glowing like angel sentinels around the camp of Gods redeemed, and filled the night watchers with some vision of what might be seen, if the veils were lifted, and all the heavenly armies appeared attending the path of Gods host through battles and perils, through foaming seas and dreary deserts, to their glorious rest.

From lifes enchantments,

Desire of place,

From lust of getting

Turn thou away and set thy face

Toward the wilderness.

The tents of Jacob

As valleys spread,

As goodly cedars

Or fair lign aloes, white and red,

Shall share thy wilderness.

With awful judgments,

The law, the rod,

With soft allurements

And comfortable words, will God

Pass oer the wilderness.

The bitter waters

Are healed and sweet;

The ample heavens

Pour angels bread about thy feet

Throughout the wilderness.

And Carmels glory

Thou thoughtest gone,

And Sharons roses,

The excellency of Lebanon

Delight thy wilderness.

Who passeth Jordan

Perfumed with myrrh,

With myrrh and incense?

Lo! on His arm Love leadeth her

Who trod the wilderness.1 [Note: Anna Bunston.]

But magnificent as was the sign, the thing signified transcended it. In vain would the Divine presence have been shown to them in that miraculous cloud and glory, if there had been no inner sense of the Divine presence in their hearts. It is in the communion between Moses and the Divine Leader of the host that we are admitted into the true sanctuary of that peoples strength. Just so far as their spirits went with Moses in this prayer, in this yearning for the inner presence and guidance of God, did they march joyously and triumphantly on their way; and when that failed, the visible cloud of splendour helped them no longer; they dropped like blighted fruit from the living tree, and their carcases fell in the wilderness.

2. The lot of Moses was an unenviable one. He was about to quit the familiar ground, the old home of his exile, the mountain region of Horeb. The path onward lay through unknown deserts, and would most surely be beset by daring and experienced foes. It was a prospect before which even a soul of such heroic mould might quail. Would God go with him, not in a pillar of cloud, as the national leader, but as friend, companion, comrade of his spirit? Let him have that promise, and he would go bravely on. God had cast the lonely lot of this man amongst a people utterly uninstructed and unintelligent, unable to understand, indisposed to reverence his thoughts, and ever breaking in on the meditations and communings on which the fate of unborn ages was hanging, with their sensuous outcries, Hast thou brought out this whole nation into the wilderness, that it may perish with hunger? Here was a man, moreover, who had deeper thoughts about the Divine nature and character than any other man of his day; to whom the meaning of life and the sacredness of duty were more plain. For had he not entered into the inner court of the Divine presence, and gazed on the glory which no eye but his had prevailed to look upon, and talked with God face to face, as a man talketh with his friend? And see him there, among a people who clung to the outer court, for it was less dreadful than the inner; who had no conception of the solemnity of a Divine command, except when it was enforced by plagues; and who assailed him, when he came forth from this Divine communion, with the very glory on his countenance, full of that favour which is the life of men and peoples, with scornful questions about graves! Never, perhaps, was man so lonely.

Supreme excellence is always lonelythe great ruler, statesman, warrior, all tread a solitary path, all alike have secrets which no other may or can share. In some degree this is true of every man. Each one travels on a solitary way. What man knoweth the thoughts of a man?his hopes, his fears, his yearnings, his aspirations? God has given men their own lives to live;

And bade betwixt their shores to be

The unplumbd, salt, estranging sea.

Many of our experiences are unique, unanticipated, incommunicable. All alone we live, and all alone we die. Gods presence means companionship, and in that companionship is safety and strength. He knows all the way from the beginning, and with Him there can be no loneliness, no surprise, no disaster. He gives strength to walk the most lonely and difficult path.1 [Note: J. Edwards.]

3. What are some of the lonely experiences of life which will be cheered by this wonderful Companionship?

(1) There is the loneliness of unshared sorrow.Is there anything more solitary than sorrow that can find no friendly ear? Sorrow which has an audience can frequently find relief in telling and retelling its own story. How often the bereaved one can find a cordial for the pain in recalling the doings and prowess of the departed! It is a wise ministry, in visiting the bereaved, to give them abundant opportunity of speaking about the lost. The heart eases itself in such shared remembrance. Grief is saved from freezing, and the genial currents of the soul are kept in motion. But when sorrow has no companionable presence with which to commune, the grief becomes a withering and desolating ministry. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old. Ay, there is nothing ages people like the loneliness of unshared grief. And there are multitudes of people who know no friendly human ear into which they can pour the story of their woes. The outlet manward is denied them. What then? Is the desolation hopeless? My presence shall go with thee. The story can be whispered into the ear of the Highest, The Companionship is from above.

Said one lonely soul, who had been nursing his grief in secret, as the stricken doe seeks to hide the arrow that rankles in its breast, I will pour out my soul unto the Lord, and in the sympathy of that great Companionship his sorrow was lightened, and transfigured, like rain clouds in the sun.

In the dark and cloudy day,

When earths riches flee away,

And the last hope will not stay,

My Saviour, comfort me.

When the secret idols gone,

That my poor heart yearned upon,

Desolate, bereft, alone,

My Saviour, comfort me.

(2) There is the loneliness of unshared triumph.Lonely triumph is as desolate as unshared grief. When I sin and falter, I feel I need a companion to whom I can tell the story of my defeat; but when I have some secret triumph I want a companion to share the glow and glory of the conquest, or the glow and glory will fade. Even when we conquer secret sin the heart calls for a Companion in the joy! And here He is! My presence shall go with thee. If you will turn to the Book of Psalms you will find how continually the ringing pans sound from hearts that are just bursting with the desire to share their joy and triumph with the Lord. They are the communings of victory, the gladsome fellowship of radiant souls and their God. His Presence shall go with us, and He will destroy the loneliness of unshared joy.

My memory recalls with vivid clearness one of the boys in the school where I received my earliest training. He was an orphan, but more than that, he was perfectly friendless. Those who were nearest to him were all dead, and the entire interest of his guardian exhausted itself in paying the school-fees as they became due. When the holidays came, and we all bounded home, he remained at school, for he had nowhere else to go. I thought little or nothing about it. Certainly his position did not move me to pain, until one day his loneliness broke upon me with appalling reality, when in the class-lists he appeared as the premier boy in the school. His triumph was most distinguished and brilliant, but he had no one to share it! No father, no mother, no kinsman, no friend! I felt that in his success he was more desolate than in his defeats! His bereavement seemed to culminate in his triumphs.

I had a friend who in mature life published a book on which he had bestowed the hard labours of many years. Some time before its publication his wife died, and he was left alone. The book received an enthusiastic welcome, and now enjoys high eminence in its own department of learning. I spoke to my friend of his well-deserved reward, and of the triumph of his labours. His face immediately clouded, and he quietly said, Ah, if only she were here to share it! I say, his loneliness culminated there, and his sharpest pang was experienced in his sunniest hour.1 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]

(3) There is the loneliness of temptation.Our friends can accompany us so far along the troubled way, and by Gods good grace they can partially minister to our progress by re-arranging our environment, and removing many of the snares and pitfalls from our path. But in this serious business of temptation it is little that friend can do for friend. The great battle is waged behind a door they cannot enter. But we need not be alone! One Presence can pass the door that leads to the secret place. My presence shall go with thee, not as an interested or applauding spectator, but as Fellow-worker, Fellow-fighter, Redeemer, and Friend. The loneliness of the wilderness is peopled by the ubiquitous presence of the Lord.

Every soul that has had any moral experience whatever must know that the best elements in his composition are those derived from passages in his life where no second could keep his soul companywhere he must be alone; disappointments that he must suffer alone; reflections where he must look to his own soul and his God alone. Two conditions have affixed themselves to the history of moral reformers and heroes: they have first been overshadowed by the great ideas for the redemption of humanity which have filled their souls, in solitary thinking; and when they have gone out on their beneficent errands, they have had to work aloneconfront apathy and opposition unsupported by the sympathies of any multitude.1 [Note: F. D. Huntington, Christian Believing and Living, 208.]

(4) And there is the loneliness of death.It is pathetic, deeply pathetic, how we have to stand idly by at the last momentdoctor, nurse, husband, wife, childall to stand idly by, when the lonely voyager launches forth into the unknown sea! It is the loneliness of death that is so terrible. If we and those whom we love passed over simultaneously, we should think no more of it than changing our houses from one place to another. But every voyager goes alone! Alone? Nay, there is a Fellow-voyager! My presence shall go with thee. The last, chill loneliness is warmed by the Resurrection Life. There is a winsome light in the valley, as of the dawning of grander days. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.

He had of course his ups and downs during this time. He was in full practice, leading his life as before, but whenever we found ourselves alone together he was serious, and, though he did not again refer to his health, he never played the parts of the author, inflated or distressed, or did any of the other things which used to make my occasional Wednesday afternoon walks with him so delightful. One thing I do remember: during a walk home from the House he suddenly asked me what I took to be the most melancholy lines in English poetry. Being accustomed to such conundrums from him, I was not much surprised, and answered that, on the spur of the moment, I could think of none more melancholy, considering Swifts genius for friendship, than those lines of his written in sickness in Ireland

Tis truethen why should I repine

To see my life so fast decline?

But why obscurely here alone

Where I am neither loved nor known?

My state of health none care to learn,

My life is here no souls concern,

And those with whom I now converse

Without a tear will tend my hearse.

I spouted these lines, melancholy though they are, light-heartedly enough, and was completely taken aback by the effect they produced upon my companion. He stopped in his walk, exclaiming several times with a strange emphasis, Horrible! horrible! horrible! and twice added, Im not like that. I could only bite my lips and wish I had thought of some other lines.1 [Note: Augustine Birrell, Sir Frank Lockwood, 191.]

Wheneer goes forth Thy dread command,

And my last hour is nigh,

Lord, grant me in a Christian land,

As I was born, to die.

I pray not, Lord, that friends may be,

Or kindred, standing by,

Choice blessing! which I leave to Thee

To grant me or deny.

But let my failing limbs beneath

My Mothers smile recline;

And prayers sustain my labouring breath

From out her sacred shrine.

Thou, Lord, whereer we lie, canst aid;

But He, who taught His own

To live as one, will not upbraid

The dread to die alone.1 [Note: J. H. Newman.]

4. Interpreters in all times and of all shades of religious belief have agreed in finding in the wilderness a type of life. The type, however, covers only a partial aspect of life, and it is not on the wilderness aspect alone that we must dwell when we think of life in its fulness and continuity. The old spirit of Stoicism may enter unduly even in our day, to the spoiling of life as God gave it, although at the present time it is not so much a spirit of sternness as a spirit of indifference which finds in life nothing but a wilderness. To be an enthusiast is not fashionable. I cannot do this because I am bored, is too often the answer to the old heathen question, Is life worth living? But this is not the way in which we are to apply the type. The wilderness was only a passing phase in Israels lifes history, and even this was not without its spots of brightness. A prophetperhaps one who had himself passed through the Exilecould sing, The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It was hope that transformed the prophets wilderness, and it is hope that will transform ours. And if we ask, Whence does this hope come? surely we find the answer in the words spoken to Moses, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. It is Gods abiding presence with the soul which teaches it to know the dignity of a life lived in communion with Him, the continuity of which, begun here, can never be broken off through eternity. In thy presence, says the Psalmist, is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Psa 16:11).

I shall give only one of Dr. Rainys stories, which I think has never been published. It concerned two saintly fathers of the Disruptionthe dignified Dr. Gordon of the High Church and the quaint Dr. Bruce of St. Andrews Church. The two were conducting or had just conducted a joint service, which had been peculiarly inspiring and uplifting. Dr. Gordon, who had a manner almost majestically grave, in hushed solemn tones whispered to the other, Is not this a foretaste of Paradise? To which Dr. Bruce replied: Deed, I was jist nippin mysel tae mak sure I wasna oot o the body.1 [Note: P. Carnegie Simpson, The Life of Principal Rainy, ii. 97.]

II

The Presence of God

My presence shall go with thee.

Moses was promised not only guidance, but personal friendship. My presence means literally My Face. He was to have always with him a personal Companionship. He was to hold converse face to face, eye to eye, with One who was strong enough to meet all his demands for guidance, succour, and strength. What he should enjoy should be no mere superintendence, as from a distant heaven. An everlasting Friend should travel with him along the desert, and sit with him in his tent, and accompany him to the council, and to the seat of justice, and amidst the rebellious concourse, and to the field of battle with heathen foes, giants, and others, when the time should come He should experience the infinite difference of being never alone, never without a personal Presence, perfectly sympathetic, and at the same time almighty.

How is the presence of God to be realized in the Christian life?

1. Think, first of all, what the presence of God is in the individual Christians life. How infinitely more it means to us than it could have meant to Moses. To him it meant a signal honour for his people, a separation from all nations by the fact that God was with them, that they were the Lords host and God their Captain, their earthly leader only His vicegerent. In the fact of the Incarnation we bow before a greater mystery, we receive a higher gift, than patriarch or prophet or Old Testament saint could dream of. In the finished work of God the Son, human life has been transformed. In baptism we are separated, far more than ever Israel wasseparated not as a nation over-shadowed by Gods presence, but as those who by the grace of union have been united with God. No outward visible sign of cloud or fire, but the inward reality of a new life is ours. God and man are no longer separated as they were before Christ came. They are one in Him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead, while yet He has taken our nature upon Him. And that Presence of God is ever renewed to us in the sacrament of love. When we dwell with Christ and Christ with us, we are one with Christ; while if so be that deadly sin has separated us from that supernatural Presence, Christ has Himself ordained and blessed the ministry of reconciliation whereby the penitent is restored to grace. The whole meaning and purpose of Christianity is to assure to man the Presence of God, removing that separating barrier which sin has raised, destroying sin for us by the Atonement, killing down sin in us by the power of Divine grace. Pardon and life are the two needs of mans spiritual nature, the two gifts of God in Christ, whereby the Presence of God is secured to us.

2. But there is a danger in our day that this great gift of God should be lost to us almost without our knowing it. We have made a break with the past which synchronizes in the case of most of us with the first dawn of intellectual activity; we are learning to think for ourselves, and at the moment when we want the calmest judgment and the coolest head we feel for the first time, in their full strength, the special temptations of early manhood; we are surrounded by a life which ministers to self-indulgence, and is hostile to stern moral discipline. We have learnt perhaps the A B C of philosophy, and already feel ourselves competent to make for ourselves our religious creed. But religion is not madeit grows or dies. A made religion does not live. It is true, no doubt, that something of reconstruction must take place in the case of every one who thinks. The faith which we were taught as children, and unhesitatingly received, must become ours in a different sense if it is to go with us through life. It has to be brought into relation with the new truths of science, of philosophy, of criticism, which are flowing in upon us. We cannot keep it as the only part of our intellectual heritage which must not be examined, hidden away in some sacred place. But it is one thing to try to see the old truths in the light of the new knowledge; it is another, as it were, to sweep away the old and begin afresh. And this is what men so often do. And before long they discover that the Presence of God, which was with them in the old life, is not with them now. They thought they might drop the practice of religion till they had made a place for it in their new theory of life; and resume it when the reconstruction was complete. And they find they cannot; though there is still the longing for Him who made us for Himself, in whom alone our hearts can rest. It is in vain then that they attempt to fill the void with that God to whom the speculative reason, in abstraction from conscience, leads us. No one wants or cares for an abstract first cause. What the soul needs is a Living God, an invisible personality behind the veil of things we see, who can be to us both a Brother in sympathy and a sincere object of worship. The only God, it has been said, whom Western Europeans, with a Christian ancestry of a thousand years behind them, can worship, is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; or rather of St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, and of the innumerable blessed saints, canonized or not, who peopled the ages of faith. And religion stands or falls with the belief in a personal God, and the possibility of communion with Him.

O thou that after toil and storm

Mayst seem to have reachd a purer air,

Whose faith has centre everywhere,

Nor cares to fix itself to form,

Leave thou thy sister when she prays,

Her early Heaven, her happy views;

Nor thou with shadowd hint confuse

A life that leads melodious days.

Her faith thro form is pure as thine,

Her hands are quicker unto good:

Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood

To which she links a truth divine!

See thou, that countest reason ripe

In holding by the law within,

Thou fail not in a world of sin,

And evn for want of such a type.1 [Note: Tennyson, In Memoriam.]

3. In the wider life of the Church we are called upon to face a similar difficulty. The promise of Gods Presence is what it has always been, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. But it is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that the life of the Church is entering on a new phase. The old days of protection are going, if not gone, and men in their little faith think that religion is going too. A great wave of secularism seems to be passing over our land and beating against the temporal bulwarks of our national Christianity. And men, good men and true in their personal relations with God, men who have learned to see His Presence and His Hand in all the changes of their own lives, are getting anxious and doubtful or desponding as if Gods promise to His Church had failed. But in the controversies of the Church in every age, as in the struggles of our own individual lives, it is impatience that leads men from the truth. We are tempted to a reckless abandonment of eternal principles because in their traditional setting they do not fit the present need. But you cannot make a new religion. It is not by abandoning the Christian faith, but by being true to the faith we hold, that we shall reach the religion of the future. Amidst all the changes of the sixteenth century, when the Church was driven from the shade of the monastery to the broad daylight of the world, not one article of Christian faith was lost or left behind. And if we are to judge the future by the past, those whom God will choose to guide His Church through the crisis of the present age will be neither men who, panic-struck and despairing, shrink from change, nor those who recklessly abandon the ancient faith for some nineteenth-century nostrum; but real men, who, not being like children carried away with every blast of vain doctrine, have the strength to face the problem. It will be those who in all the changes and struggles of their own spiritual lives can trace the guiding hand of God, and therefore in the wider issues of the Church at large are strong enough to rest and wait, ready to face the grey and shivering dawn of a new era, yet true to the ancient Christian faith, and strong in the promised presence of their God.

III

Rest

I will give thee rest.

There are two possible sorts of rest. One is rest after toil, the lying down of the weary, at the end of the march, on the morrow of the battle, on the summit of the hill. The other is rest in toil, the internal and deep repose and liberty of a spirit which has found a hidden refuge and retreat, where feeling is calm and disengaged, while the march, the battle, the climb, are still in full course. This last was the promise to Moses. Another day, a distant day, was to come when he should taste the endless rest after toil, when he should sink down on Pisgah in the arms of the Lord, and (to quote the beautiful legendary phrase) should dieif death it could be calledby His kiss. But now he was to taste the wonderful rest in toil. He was to traverse that last long third of his vast and memorable life, thinking, ruling, guiding, bearing, under the Divine enabling condition of the inward rest of God, passing understanding.

Of course, the conscious presence of God with us is possible only on three conditions.

Firstly, we must walk in the light, as He is in the light; for He will have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, or turn aside to go with us on any crooked path of our own choosing.

Secondly, we must recognize that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son constantly cleanseth us from all sin; not only that which we judge and confess, but that also which is seen only by His pure and holy eyes.

Thirdly, we must claim the gracious aid of the Holy Spirit, to make real that presence, which is too subtle for the eye of man, unless it be specially enlightened.1 [Note: F. B. Meyer, Moses the Servant of God, 138.]

1. Rest in toil.The longing of mans spirit amid all the strifes, discords, and confusions of life is for rest. Nothing can eradicate mans conviction that strife and discord have no right in the universe; that they are abnormal; that the normal condition of things and beings is harmony, and that harmony is the music of rest. God must restrest even in working; and all that is of God, and from God, has the longing and the tending to rest. Perhaps some dull notion that they will have more rest in the life of the world, that they will escape many cares and distractions, and, at any rate, be at peace in sin, lies at the bottom of many a backsliding to Egypt in human hearts. No man at first is content to let the question aloneto leave the riddle of life unread. Hence arises the long discord in him who has not found the principle of the Divine harmony: The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit striveth against the flesh, and the two are contrary the one to the other. We long to find some truth which shall release us from the agony, and make some kind of harmony in our lives. We find this battle of life inexplicable; it sometimes shakes our faith in the wisdom and goodness of our God. We shout into the Sibyl cave and listen for the responses; we take the whispers of sense for the answer, and then we go on our way. But the conflict again begins, the perplexities again return; again and again we cry, each time in a more frenzied mood, Who will show us any good? Who will give us rest? From the midst of the glow of glory which surrounds the throne, the word of the Son of God, the great Captain of the human host, comes down to every earnest, struggling spirit: My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

Perhaps there are no words that appeal more to the human heart, or fall with a sweeter cadence on the human ear, into whatever language they may be translated, than the words of our Lord recorded by St. Matthew (Mat 11:28-30): Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. The whole secret of rest is there, not a rest of idleness, but a rest in bearing Christs yoke. And He adds, My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

An aged, weary woman, carrying a heavy basket, got into the train with me the other day, and when she was seated she still kept the heavy burden upon her arm! Lay your burden down, mum, said the kindly voice of a working man. Lay your burden down, mum; the train will carry both it and you. Ay, thats it! Lay your burden down! The Lord will carry both it and you! I will give thee rest: not by the absence of warfare, but by the happy assurance of victory: not by the absence of the hill, but by the absence of the spirit of fainting. I will give thee rest.1 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]

Rest is not quitting

The busy career;

Rest is the fitting

Of self to its sphere.

Tis the brooks motion,

Clear without strife,

Fleeing to ocean

After its life.

Deeper devotion

Nowhere hath knelt;

Fuller emotion

Heart never felt.

Tis loving and serving

The highest and best!

Tis onward! Unswerving

And that is true rest.1 [Note: John Sullivan Dwight.]

2. Rest after toil.Rest in toil carries with it the promise of a fuller and more perfect rest after toil. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

Art thou so weary then, poor thirsty soul?

Have patience, in due season thou shalt sleep.

Mount yet a little while, the path is steep:

Strain yet a little while to reach the goal:

Do battle with thyself, achieve, control:

Till night come down with blessed slumber deep

As love, and seal thine eyes no more to weep

Through long tired vigils while the planets roll.

Have patience, for thou too shalt sleep at length,

Lapt in the pleasant shade of Paradise.

My Hands that bled for thee shall close thine eyes,

My Heart that bled for thee shall be thy rest:

I will sustain with everlasting strength,

And thou, with John, shalt lie upon My breast.2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

Literature

Brown (J. B.), The Souls Exodus, 255.

Greenhough (J. G.), Christian Festivals and Anniversaries, 10.

Jowett (J. H.), The Silver Lining, 60.

MKim (R. H.), The Gospel in the Christian Year, 61.

Meyer (F. B.), Moses the Servant of God, 134.

Moule (H. C. G.), Thoughts for the Sundays of the Year, 9.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, ix. 145.

Robarts (F. H.), Sunday Morning Talks, 6.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), vii. No. 688.

Christian World Pulpit, lxiii. 317 (Fairbairn); lxv. 22 (Brown).

Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., iii. 129 (Moore).

Homiletic Review, xxxviii. 45 (Knox).

Preachers Magazine (1903), xiv. 32 (Edwards).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

My presence: Exo 13:21, Jos 1:5, Isa 63:9, Mat 28:20

rest: Deu 3:20, Jos 21:44, Jos 22:4, Jos 23:1, Psa 95:11, Jer 6:16, Mat 11:28, Heb 4:8, Heb 4:9

Reciprocal: Gen 18:32 – I will not Gen 32:30 – I have Exo 23:20 – Angel Exo 32:1 – which shall Exo 32:34 – mine Angel Exo 34:9 – let my Lord Lev 22:3 – from my Num 9:17 – and in the Num 10:33 – went before Num 23:21 – the Lord Deu 31:8 – he it is that Jdg 2:1 – And an angel Jdg 6:13 – if the Lord 2Sa 7:6 – walked 1Ch 17:6 – walked Psa 90:1 – the man

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A NEW YEARS PROMISE

My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

Exo 33:14

To-day we stand at the parting of the ways, the old year behind us, the new year before us.

I. The call to service.To-day there is a call to consecrate again ourselves and our time to the service of Almighty God: as this new year stretches before us all uncertain in its issue, to step out, upheld by the great resolve that by Gods help our feet shall be set upon a higher ridge than before, that we shall go across a battlefield where we shall not always be the vanquished, that our lives shall have less of self in them and more of God, that we will cast away some garment that impedes our every step and rise and come to Jesus, that we will take the wider views, look for larger horizons. Dim and misty and all uncertain lies before us this coming year. You and I may perhaps think we can see some part of our probable life, some part of our journey; but how indistinct it is! As you and I have sat upon some hill in the early morning, and have seen all the country covered with a mist, here and there perhaps some hill top or mountain standing out, so lies our life before us to-day. But read these words of the text into that life, and they will intershine it, will irradiate it and make it to glow with the purpose and the power of our God.

But our hearts sink down sometimes, brethren, do they not? Yet the uneasiness that comes to us, however sad, however terrible, is to be welcomed if it brings us to the feet of our Christ again in penitence and in contrition, if for us those awful words are never spoken which once were spoken, telling of the utter alienation of God from the soul, Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone. That God may not let us alone we may pray, that we may have no peace until we have put away all conscious sin before the feet of Jesus Christ Our Lord, till we resolve that we will enter into this new year free, freemen, taking as our motto the words of our text: My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

II. Freedom in service.Freedom is a necessity if we would enter into the meaning of the words of our text. Freedom is not licence to live to self, but power to live to God. And how is the presence here spoken of manifested but through love? What are the desires that we are conscious of from time to time, desires for something better, something purer, something higher than we ourselves ever yet attained towhat are these but God bending down to the soul to draw it up to Him, and the soul reaching up to God that it may answer to that attraction? In order that I may be able to render the free service of love, God has given me the power of refusing His love, and of refusing His service, in order that my service which is evoked by the love of God may be the service of a free and willing man. So through the love of God raising in us an echo, the returning love of our soul, there comes the free service that we would render to God. In the family life and in the life of the family of God, first there comes the love, and then the love issues into the desire of obedience or of service on the part of the members of the family, and so that love of God that evokes my love in willing service is to me an abiding proof of the presence in me of One Who not only attracts but upholds, supports, uplifts me. And then there comes that mysterious guiding of the hand of God of which we must be conscious from time to time in our lives. Looking back, we can see that there has been something mysterious from time to time that has shaped and guided our life, and we recognise the finger-marks of God upon the life.

III. The promised rest.And the rest that is promised, what are we to understand by that?

(a) Partakes of Gods Character.If it is to come from God it is clear that it must partake of the character of God. When God rested from the work of creation, as we read, did it mean inactivity, or did it mean a passing on to further and still greater work? Our Lord has answered that question for us, My Father worketh hitherto and I workwork, progress in work, change in work. In active loving service there is rest for the spirit of man. There stands before us the Central Figure in the history of the world, and from His lips is coming the precious promise, Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, and He goes on to tell us still, Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. To take the yoke, the daily burden under the guiding hand of God, to do the Lords work that He sets for you and me to-day, to live the life of God by the power that God can give usthus may we find rest unto our souls. In doing the will of God alone is there rest for the soul of man. We look into the Garden of Gethsemane and we see the Lord battling there with all the evil weight of temptation, and we see at last the human will bending to the will of God the Father; then it is that the rest begins and the agony is over, Nevertheless not My will but Thine be done.

(b) Sanctified by the Presence of God.In proportion as you and I learn to recognise the presence of God with us we shall be able to bow our will before God. In that surrender and in the active service of God that follows depend upon it we shall experience the promised rest. To-day once more we try by the power of God to prepare our hearts that the presence of God may be there. Let us rise to the height of our vocation! Try sometimes to take wider views, to look to more boundless horizons; not always to walk with our heads down and hearts heavy and lives depressed, but to look up into the sunshine. All things are yours; wont you stretch out your hand? Wont you believe God? Wont you believe that there is power from God not only to forgive sin but to give life and strength for service? Do we not serve One Who forgiveth all our sins and healeth all our infirmities? We can be temples of this living Godin a word, reconciled to God by Christ. The world may babble around us; there may be the same troubles, the same difficulties, the same hindrances, and yet there will ever be within the heart one chamber where there will be the hush that betokens the presence of our God, and thither we can retire in the midst of the turmoil and find rest.

Bishop E. R. Wilberforce.

Illustration

(1) Ah! Lord, it was good of Thee to revoke the penaltyto say, Depart, go up to the land; I will drive out thine enemies. But, Lord, the great thing is riot the land, nor any material blessingsother nations have lands and vaster empires than ours can ever be; but what marks out us from all other peoples is this, that we have Thy presencethat God is with us as He is with no other people. Lord, that was what fired my heart at the burning bush, and animated me through all these years. If that is not to be, I do not want to go up. We were to be a nation of priests, a holy nation, and so a witness to the world. But wherein shall it be known that I and my people have found grace in Thy sight? It can only be by Thy kindling, creative presence. We have no power inherent for so great an enterprise. But God being with us, filling our lives, permeating our activity, we shall be separated from every other people, an incontestable witness to Him. In the Kingdom of God everything must be of gracenot by man, but of God working in and through man. Would He deny the outshining of His power, would He extinguish the witness which He Himself had kindled in the world?

(2) My guiding presence, My sustaining presence, My protecting presence. Restnot from conflict, but the heart-rest of one who has learned the secret of victory. Restnot from proper forethought respecting the things of this life, but rest from worrying, anxiety, and care. Restnot from progress, but in progress; not from work for Christ, but in work for Him.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Exo 33:14. My presence shall go with thee Hebrew, My face, I myself, my own person, as the same phrase is translated 2Sa 17:11. Or, the angel of my presence, Isa 63:9. The meaning is, I will conduct you myself, as I have done hitherto, by my glorious presence in the tabernacle. So that this is a revocation of the sentence pronounced Exo 33:3. And will give thee rest Not only thee, Moses, from thy present perplexity, but in due time will bring thy people to their rest and settlement in the promised land. For it is evident that Mosess care and prayer were more for the people than for himself.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

33:14 And he said, My {f} presence shall go [with thee], and I will give thee rest.

(f) Signifying that the Israelites would exceed all other people, through God’s favour; Exo 33:16.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes