The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Exodus Part 35

We have seen that the original promise of a great Angel in whom was the Divine Presence was full of encouragement and privilege (xxiii. 20). No unbia.s.sed reader can suppose that it is the sending of this same Angel of the Presence which now expresses the absence of G.o.d, or that He Who then would not pardon their transgression "because My Name is in Him" is now sent because G.o.d, if He were in the midst of them for a moment, would consume them. Nor, when Moses pa.s.sionately pleads against this degradation, and is heard in this thing also, can the answer "My Presence shall go with thee" be merely the repet.i.tion of those evil tidings. Yet it was the Angel of His Presence Who saved them. All this has been already treated, and what we are now to learn is that the faithful and sublime urgency of Moses did really save Israel from degradation and a lower covenant.

It was during the progress of this mediation that Moses distracted by a double anxiety-afraid to absent himself from his wayward followers, equally afraid to be so long withdrawn from the presence of G.o.d as the descending of Sinai and returning thither would involve-made a n.o.ble adventure of faith. Inspired by the conception of the tabernacle, he took a tent, "his tent," and pitched it outside the camp, to express the estrangement of the people, and this he called the Tent of the Meeting (with G.o.d), but in the Hebrew it is never called the Tabernacle. And G.o.d did condescend to meet him there. The mystic cloud guarded the door against presumptuous intrusion, and all the people, who previously wist not what had become of him, had now to confess the majesty of his communion, and they wors.h.i.+pped every man at his tent door.

It would seem that the anxious vigilance of Moses caused him to pa.s.s to and fro between the tent and the camp, "but his minister, Joshua the son of Nun, departed not out of the tent."

The dread crisis in the history of the nation was now almost over. G.o.d had said, "My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest,"-a phrase which the lowly Jesus thought it no presumption to appropriate, saying, "_I_ will give you rest," as He also appropriated the office of the Shepherd, the benevolence of the Physician, the tenderness of the Bridegroom, and the glory of the King and the Judge, all of which belonged to G.o.d.

But Moses is not content merely to be secure, for it is natural that he who best loves man should also best love G.o.d. Therefore he pleads against the least withdrawal of the Presence: he cannot rest until repeatedly a.s.sured that G.o.d will indeed go with him; he speaks as if there were no "grace" but that. There are many people now who think it a better proof of being religious to feel either anxious or comforted about their own salvation, their election, and their going to heaven.

And these would do wisely to consider how it comes to pa.s.s that the Bible first taught men to love and to follow G.o.d, and afterwards revealed to them the mysteries of the inner life and of eternity.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

_THE VISION OF G.o.d._

x.x.xiv.

It was when G.o.d had most graciously a.s.sured Moses of His affection, that he ventured, in so brief a cry that it is almost a gasp of longing, to ask, "Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory" (x.x.xiii. 18).

We have seen how n.o.bly this pet.i.tion and the answer condemn all anthropomorphic misunderstandings of what had already been revealed; and also how it exemplifies the great law, that they who see most of G.o.d, know best how much is still unrevealed. The elders saw the G.o.d of Israel and did eat and drink: Moses was led from the bush to the flaming top of Sinai, and thence to the tent where the pillar of cloud was as a sentinel; but the secret remained unseen, the longing unsatisfied, and the nearest approach to the Beatific Vision reached by him with whom G.o.d spake face to face as with a friend, was to be hidden in a cleft of the rock, to be aware of an awful Shadow, and to hear the Voice of the Unseen.

It was a fit time for the proclamation which was then made. When the people had been righteously punished and yet graciously forgiven, the name of the Self-Existent expanded and grew clearer,-"Jehovah, Jehovah, a G.o.d full of compa.s.sion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation." And as Moses made haste and bowed himself, it is affecting to hear him again pleading for that beloved Presence which even yet he can scarce believe to be restored, and instead of claiming any separation through his fidelity and his honours, praying "Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Thine inheritance" (x.x.xiv. 10).

Thereupon the covenant is given, as if newly, but without requiring its actual re-enactment; and certain of the former precepts are rehea.r.s.ed, chiefly such as would guard against a relapse into idolatry when they entered the good land where G.o.d would bestow on them prosperity and conquest.

As Moses had broken the former tablets, the task was imposed on him of hewing out the slabs on which G.o.d renewed His awful sanction of the Decalogue, the fundamental statutes of the nation. And they who had failed to endure his former absence, were required to be patient while he tarried again upon the mountain, forty days and nights.

With his return a strange incident is connected. Unknown by himself, the "skin of his face shone by reason of His speaking with him," and Aaron and the people recoiled until he called to them. And thenceforth he lived a strange and isolated life. At each new interview the glory of his countenance was renewed, and when he conveyed his revelation to the people, they beheld the lofty sanction, the light of G.o.d upon his face.

Then he veiled his face until next he approached his G.o.d, so that none might see what changes came there, and whether-as St. Paul seems to teach us-the l.u.s.tre gradually waned.

His revelation, the apostle argues, was like this occasional and fading gleam, while the moral glory of the Christian system has no concealments: it uses great frankness; there is nothing withdrawn, no veil upon the face. Nor is it given to one alone to behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, and to share its l.u.s.tre. We all, with face unveiled, share this experience of the deliverer (2 Cor. iii. 12, 18).

But the incident itself is most instructive. Since he had already spent an equal time with G.o.d, yet no such results had followed, it seems that we receive what we are adapted to receive, not straitened in Him but in our own capabilities; and as Moses, after his vehemence of intercession, his sublimity of self-negation, and his knowledge of the greater name of G.o.d, received new l.u.s.tre from the unchangeable Fountain of light, so does all true service and earnest aspiration, while it approaches G.o.d, elevate and glorify humanity.

We learn also something of the exaltation of which matter is capable. We who have seen coa.r.s.e bulb and soil and rain trans.m.u.ted by the suns.h.i.+ne into radiance of bloom and subtlety of perfume, who have seen plain faces illuminated from within until they were almost angelic,-may we not hope for something great and rare for ourselves, and the beloved who are gone, as we muse upon the profound word, "It is raised a spiritual body"?

And again we learn that the best religious attainment is the least self-conscious: Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone.

CHAPTERS x.x.xV-XL.

_THE CONCLUSION._

The remainder of the narrative sets forth in terms almost identical with the directions already given, the manner in which the Divine injunctions were obeyed. The people, purified in heart by danger, chastis.e.m.e.nt and shame, brought much more than was required. A quarter of a million would poorly represent the value of the shrine in which, at the last, Moses and Aaron approached their G.o.d, while the cloud covered the tent and the glory filled the tabernacle, and Moses failed to overcome his awe and enter.

Thenceforth the cloud was the guide of their halting and their march.

Many a time they grieved their G.o.d in the wilderness, yet the cloud was on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire therein by night, throughout all their journeyings.

That cloud is seen no longer; but One has said, "Lo, I am with you all the days." If the presence is less material, it is because we ought to be more spiritual.

Looking back upon the story, we can discern more clearly what was a.s.serted when we began-the forming and training of a nation.

They are called from shameful servitude by the devotion of a patriot and a hero, who has learned in failure and exile the difference between self-confidence and faith. The new name of G.o.d, and His remembrance of their fathers, inspire them at the same time with awe and hope and nationality. They see the hollowness of earthly force, and of superst.i.tious wors.h.i.+ps, in the abas.e.m.e.nt and ruin of Egypt. They are taught by the Paschal sacrifice to confess that the Divine favour is a gift and not a right, that their lives also are justly forfeited. The overthrow of Pharaoh's army and the pa.s.sage of the Sea brings them into a new and utterly strange life, in an atmosphere and amid scenes well calculated to expand and deepen their emotions, to develop their sense of freedom and self-respect, and yet to oblige them to depend wholly on their G.o.d. Privation at Marah chastens them. The attack of Amalek introduces them to war, and forbids their dependence to sink into abject softness. The awful scene of h.o.r.eb burns and brands his littleness into man. The covenant shows them that, however little in themselves, they may enter into communion with the Eternal. It also crushes out what is selfish and individualising, by making them feel the superiority of what they all share over anything that is peculiar to one of them. The Decalogue reveals a holiness at once simple and profound, and forms a type of character such as will make any nation great. The sacrificial system tells them at once of the pardon and the heinousness of sin.

Religion is both exalted above the world and infused into it, so that all is consecrated. The priesthood and the shrine tell them of sin and pardon, exclusion and hope; but that hope is a common heritage, which none may appropriate without his brother.

The especial sanct.i.ty of a sacred calling is balanced by an immediate a.s.sertion of the sacredness of toil, and the Divine Spirit is recognised even in the gift of handicraft.

A tragic and shameful failure teaches them, more painfully than any symbolic system of curtains and secret chambers, how little fitted they are for the immediate intercourse of heaven. And yet the ever-present cloud, and the shrine in the heart of their encampment, a.s.sure them that G.o.d is with them of a truth.

Could any better system be imagined by which to convert a slavish and superst.i.tious mult.i.tude into a nation at once humble and pure and gallant-a nation of brothers and of wors.h.i.+ppers, chastened by a genuine sense of ill desert and of responsibility, and yet braced and fired by the conviction of an exalted destiny?

To do this, and also to lead mankind to liberty, to rescue them from sensuous wors.h.i.+p, and prepare them for a system yet more spiritual, to teach the human race that life is not repose but warfare, pilgrimage and aspiration, and to sow the seeds of beliefs and expectations which only an atoning Mediator and an Incarnate G.o.d could satisfy, this was the meaning of the Exodus.

THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE.

188990.

_Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 7s. 6d. each._

JUDGES AND RUTH. By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A.

THE PROPHECIES OF JEREMIAH. By the Rev. C. J.

BALL, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn.

THE PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH. Vol. II. Completing the Work. By the Rev. GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A.

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. By the Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D., London, Author of "The Mosaic Era," etc.

THE BOOK OF EXODUS. By the Very Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Dean of Armagh.

THE BOOK OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. By the Rev. G. T. STOKES, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Dublin.

188889.

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