Exodus 33:12-17 (ESV)

Moses said to the LORD, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”

And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”

Moses goes to bat for Israel and hits a home run. He starts off by simply stating the problem, but in a wonderfully personal way. Rather than saying straight up that God won’t be with them, he complains that, “you have not let me know whom you will send with me.”

He’s objecting to being led by a stranger! That’s why he then points out that God had said, “I know you by name.”

Then Moses asks for something that sounds off topic. Instead of asking for God to go with them, his request is, “please show me now your ways.” It implies God’s presence – if He’s not there, He can’t show Moses anything – but it has a personal feel. Moses wants God there, not for the material benefits, but so he can get to know Him better. He then caps this off with, “Consider too that this nation is your people.”

So God relents and says, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Moses chooses that moment to say, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.” This is an odd time to say that; God just said He’s coming. Actually, it’s just the Hebrew way of repeating something for emphasis. God’s presence is important to him. God responds in kind and reiterates His promise and reiterates why.

English communication avoids repetition; it feels clumsy and redundant. In Hebrew it’s common, especially as a way of emphasizing something. Get used to it.

Moses never even hints at arguing Israel’s goodness. He knows all too well that they are a stiff-necked people.

But Moses has a caring heart. He doesn’t admire them; he loves them.

This kind of caring heart is exactly the kind of heart Christians seek. Ask the LORD to transform your heart so that you can love people who, for one reason or another, aren’t easy to love.

Ask Him to teach us to care about, and for, people whom we have been overlooking.

The weekly study guides, which include discussion questions, are available for download here:

https://www.ailbe.org/resources/itemlist/category/91-deep-studies