Exodus 33:1-34:35 Study Guide: Show Me Your glory
Community Group Study Guide — Show Me Your Glory
Exodus 33:1-34:35
Study Information:
God dwelling with his people is one of the major storylines in scripture. The Bible opens and closes with the people of God in his presence with full and complete fellowship. Yet the middle of the Bible is filled with example after example of how sin messed that up. That is because sin separated us from God. God’s plan of redemption made a way to access his presence for the people of Israel, and that presence was fully restored in and through the person and work of Christ.
Our text immediately comes right after Israel’s big sin of idolatry with the golden calf and we read God’s response promising to send the people to the promised land but to not go “in their midst.” Basically, they’re offered an opportunity to have the Promised Land but not the one who promised it. If you could have blessings God has promised without God, would you take it? Moses knew that would be to miss the main thing they needed more than anything else and interceded on their behalf and in that intercession we get one of the most powerful pictures of God’s grace in all of the Bible.
“I Will Not Go Before You”
Exodus 33:1-11
In response to Israel’s sin of idolatry with the golden calf, God reconfirmed his promise to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan so that he could establish his people in the Promised Land, with one notable exception, “I will not go among you, lest I consume you, for you are a stiff necked people (Exodus 33:3).” To the people of Israel’s credit, they mourned when they heard this. God called them to a deeper level of repentance than just being sorry for their sin, he called them to cast off their false gods once and for all. If they continued in this sin and idolatry it would mean forfeiting access to God and remaining separated from him. What did they want really, wealth, pleasure and prosperity without God or to have God’s in their midst? God did not want them to remain double minded trying to worship him while keeping their idols because they could not have both and remain faithful to God.
Exodus 33:7-11 gives us a contrasting picture of what intimacy with God could look like and why Moses became the right intercessor between God and the people. Moses treasured the presence of God and experienced a deeper intimacy with God than many in the Bible. It was Moses’s practice to go to a place called the “Tent of Meeting,” where the cloud would descend and enter the tent and Moses would speak to God “face to face as a friend (Exodus 33:11).” This was a regular occurrence for Moses and a window into why and how Moses was the right person to go to God on behalf of Israel in their sin and his big request of “show me your glory!”
Show Me Your Glory
Exodus 33:7-34:9
Moses interceded with God, pleading with him to maintain his presence into the Promised Land. In this plea Moses leaned on God’s favor 5 times, reminding God of the grace he had shown them. Additionally Moses reminded God that these people are HIS people and that they needed the presence of God more than anything else. This led Moses to his bold request, in the face of the sin of the people and their failure he asked God, “please show me your glory (Exodus 33:18).” Glory is typically thought of as the character, fame or weight of who God is, but notice how God answered Moses’s request with “I will make my goodness pass before you!” Moses asked God to show him His glory and God knew Moses needed to see God’s goodness and receive compassion and mercy. We can think of God’s glory based on this passage as the very thing that makes God “God.” Moses gets to see God pass by, but the thing that stands out in this passage is that as Moses was hidden in the cleft of the rock God declared his glory by declaring this “name” to Moses and this is the foundation of what makes God who he is.
Exodus 34:6–7
[6] The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, [7] keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (ESV)
These verses are the most quoted verses in the entire Bible. They appear over and over again in one form or another in the Old and New Testaments. In them we get God’s “name” and his actions. God is first merciful and gracious, he has inexhaustible patience and is fully steadfast in his love, kindness and justice. Likewise, God’s actions are that he keeps his covenant promises, forgives the sin of the repentant and exercises justice on those who forsake him. Notice the differences in the numbers, God shows steadfast love to thousands and visits the iniquity to the third and fourth generation meaning that his desire to show mercy is great and there is a limit to his wrath. God is slow to anger, quick to forgive, and relentlessly faithful. This is the God of the “Old Testament” and it gets repeated over and over and over again.
After this, God gave Moses two new tablets and reaffirmed his covenant promises (Exodus 34:1-28).
When it comes to God’s heart for sinners, he is quick to forgive, slow to anger, and overflowing in faithful love to his people. Faith in the person and work of Jesus gives us access to God’s presence and this is the heart of God for his people. We may expect God to be quick to anger, changing in his promises to us based on our behavior or vindictive but that is not the God we worship and because of Christ we can expect God to overflow in forgiveness and reconciliation to us. Since God is so inclined to show us mercy, do you go to God with your sin and needs readily expecting him to show you his goodness?
Moses’s Radiant Face
Exodus 34:29-35
Mose came down from Mount Sinai with two new tablets and a radiant face his time with the Lord. This radiant face became the norm for Moses as he spent time with God so much so that Moses went around veiled with the people until he spoke to them again. This image reminded the people that Moses was God’s divine intermediary and with some irony that even though they couldn’t see the face of God they were able to see the radiance of God’s glory through Moses and the Law. The presence of God would be evident to the people through Moses.
At your community group:
Take 15-20 minutes to share about how God has been at work in your life, prayer concerns and pray for one another.
How did God speak to you through the scripture and the sermon this week?
Discussion Questions:
Read Exodus 33:1-34:35 (Select scriptures)
How did God respond to Israel’s sin with the golden calf? What are some reasons God responded to that sin this way?
Do you think the average person would want things like wealth, pleasure and security if it meant not having God’s presence with them? Why should a follower of Jesus choose God’s presence even if it means a more challenging life?
Read Exodus 34:6-7. This was God’s response to Moses’s request for God to show him his glory. What is God’s glory here and when you think of God in the Old Testament, do you think of what Exodus 34:6-7 describes?
If God is quick to forgive and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, how do you think he responds to your sin and how does that motivate you to draw near to God?
