Here’s what you missed – before this week’s Bible reading from Exodus
33:12-23.
- Moses was up on the mountain doing the “hanging out with God” thing
- The people wondered if he was ever coming back.
- They made a golden calf idol
- God was really angry and was going to bring evil upon them
- Moses said, ‘Stop! Don’t! Please change your mind!” to God
- God changed his mind.
Then
- Moses came down from the mountain and saw what had been happening first hand
- He dropped the tablets with the 10 commandments and broke them.
- Aaron said, “I don’t know what happened! I just put all the gold in the fire and this calf came out!”
- Moses was really angry and got 3000 of the people to fight and kill each other
- God told Moses that the people would be punished
- God sent a plague on the people.
- Then God said that he would help the children of the people make it to the promised land, but not them. They were too stubborn and rebellious
- The people were sorry.
And that’s what you missed – except for this
little verse that occurs just before this week’s reading.
Exodus 33:11a Thus the LORD used to speak to
Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.
And then in one of those conversations:
- God promised Moses that everything would work out.
- Moses asked God, “Show me your glory”
- God said that no one could see the face of God and live.
- God let Moses see his back – or “back parts”
And what did Moses actually see when God
went past and then showed Moses his back?
Michelangelo had an idea - and likely based
on Jerome’s Latin translation of Exodus 33:23 – he painted, in one part of the
Sistine Chapel, a picture of God showing “backs”
I wonder what else we’re missing?
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