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, this is 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 for emphasis. This takes a little getting used to, but it has a certain poetic elegance.

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 should strive to have. 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 we have overlooked.

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These weekday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay. Saturdays' by Matt Richardson. Subscribe here: https://www.ailbe.org/resources/community

The weekly study guides, which include questions for discussion or meditation, are here: https://www.ailbe.org/resources/itemlist/category/91-deep-studies

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV stands for the English Standard Version. © Copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NIV stands for The Holy Bible, New International Version®. © Copyright 1973 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NASB stands for the New American Standard Bible. Used by permission. All rights reserved. KJV stands for the King James Version.