Exodus 33:12-16
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?”
Tag: Knowing God makes us Distinctly Gods
In the above passage Moses is going to God to appeal to Him to go before the nation as they enter the promise land. God had just told the nation that because of their sins He would not go with them, although they could go on their own. Moses is saying to God, "If you aren't going to go with us he doesn't want to go." But, Moses adds another aspect to his prayer. He tells God that the special knowledge God has given them has set them apart, distinctly for God. Moses, in essence, is saying to God, "Any nation can march through these countries and beat them up and take their land. But, only one nation has Yahweh with them!" Knowing God in a personal way sets the nation of Israel aside. Paul in Philippians 3:10 strikes a similar tone about knowing Christ and the power of His resurrection. Knowing God through Christ in the power of the Spirit sets us apart from the world. We ought to strive for that as we move forward in this land.
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