Hidden in the Cleft of the Rock Text: Exodus 33:18-23
Introduction: The Holy Longing
We come today to one of the most breathtaking moments in all of Scripture. Moses, having just interceded for a stiff-necked people who fashioned a golden calf while the thunder of Sinai was still echoing in their ears, makes a request of God that is staggering in its audacity. He has just secured God's promise that His presence will go with them to the promised land. Most men would have been content with that. Most men would have breathed a sigh of relief and gotten on with the business of organizing the camp. But Moses is not most men. Having tasted true fellowship with the living God, having spoken with Him as a man speaks to his friend, he is not satisfied with promises. He wants the Promiser. He is not content with the benefits of God's presence; he wants God Himself.
This is the great dividing line in all of religion. There are those who want God for what they can get out of Him, a cosmic butler to bless their plans and bail them out of trouble. And then there are those who want God, full stop. They have seen enough of His goodness and tasted enough of His grace that all the ancillary benefits of faith pale in comparison to the desire to know Him, to see Him, to be near Him. Moses' prayer, "Show me Your glory," is the cry of a heart that has been truly regenerated. It is the engine of all true worship and the goal of all true discipleship.
But this passage is not simply about man's longing for God. It is also about God's gracious condescension to man. It reveals the terrible, glorious, and merciful paradox of how a holy God can reveal Himself to a sinful creature without annihilating him. Here we find the collision of God's infinite holiness and His sovereign grace. And in this collision, in this place on the rock, we find a stunning prefigurement of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What happens here on the mountain with Moses is a shadow, a type, of what God would one day do for all His people in the person of His Son.
The Text
Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!”
And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”
But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!”
Then Yahweh said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock;
and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by.
Then I will remove My hand, and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.”
(Exodus 33:18-23 LSB)
The Audacious Prayer (v. 18)
We begin with Moses' raw, desperate plea.
"Then Moses said, 'I pray You, show me Your glory!'" (Exodus 33:18)
To understand the weight of this, we must understand what the Bible means by "glory." The Hebrew word is kabod, which carries the idea of weight, substance, and heavy significance. God's glory is the external manifestation of His intrinsic worth. It is the sum total of all His perfections shining forth. Moses is not asking for a fireworks display or a light show. He is asking to see the very essence of God. He wants an unfiltered, unmediated perception of the reality of who God is. Having walked with God, he now wants to see God.
This is the logical conclusion of genuine faith. If you have come to know God at all, you will want to know Him more. If you have seen His works, you will long to see His face. This is the desire that drove the psalmists, who cried out, "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?" (Psalm 42:2). This is the longing that the Apostle Paul confessed, counting all things as loss "for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:8). Moses' prayer is the prayer of every true saint, whether they articulate it with such boldness or not. We were created for this very thing: to see and savor the glory of God.
The Sovereign Answer (v. 19)
God's response is a marvel of grace, revelation, and absolute sovereignty.
"And He said, 'I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.'" (Exodus 33:19 LSB)
God grants the request, but He defines the terms. And the first thing He does is define His glory. Moses asks to see glory; God promises to show him goodness. "I will make all My goodness pass before you." This is a profound theological anchor. God's glory is not some abstract, terrifying power detached from His character. God's glory is His goodness. His majesty is a good majesty. His power is a good power. His defining characteristic, the thing He puts forward as the summation of His glory, is His goodness.
Next, He says He will "proclaim the name of Yahweh." In the ancient world, a name was not a mere label; it was a revelation of character and nature. When God proclaims His name, He is unpacking His attributes. This is exactly what happens in the next chapter, when He passes by and declares, "Yahweh, Yahweh, a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth..." (Exodus 34:6). God's glory is revealed in His character.
But this revelation of goodness is grounded in His absolute freedom. "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion." God's goodness is not a commodity we can earn or a principle we can manipulate. It flows from the free and sovereign pleasure of His own will. He is not obligated to be gracious to anyone. That He is gracious at all is a wonder. The Apostle Paul picks up this very verse in Romans 9 to lay the foundation for the doctrine of election. Our salvation does not rest on the flimsy foundation of our will, but on the granite foundation of His. His grace is His own, to be given to whom He pleases. This is not a cause for fear, but the very ground of our assurance. If His grace depended on us, it would fail before breakfast. Because it depends entirely on Him, it is eternally secure.
The Merciful Prohibition (v. 20)
God's gracious "yes" is immediately followed by a necessary and merciful "no."
"But He said, 'You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!'" (Exodus 33:20 LSB)
The "face" of God represents the full, unmediated, direct manifestation of His glory. To see His face is to experience the undiluted reality of His being. And this, God says, is lethal for a human being. The infinite, holy energy of the Creator would utterly consume a finite, sinful creature. This is not God being difficult or secretive. This is a loving father keeping his toddler from sticking a fork in a power outlet. The danger is real.
This establishes the infinite Creator/creature distinction. God is holy, we are not. He is an all-consuming fire, and we are, in our fallenness, combustible stubble. The fall did not just make us naughty; it made us incapable of bearing the direct presence of God. This is why Adam and Eve hid. It is why Isaiah, upon seeing a vision of God's throne, cried out, "Woe is me, for I am ruined!" (Isaiah 6:5). A direct encounter with God's holiness is a death sentence for a sinner. God's prohibition here is an act of profound mercy.
The Divine Provision (v. 21-23)
But God does not leave it there. He does not simply say, "No, you can't." He says, "Here is how I will make a way for you."
"Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove My hand, and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen." (Exodus 33:21-23 LSB)
This is the gospel in miniature. God Himself provides the place of safety. "There is a place by Me." He brings Moses near. He provides the rock. And then, in an act of stunning intimacy, He places Moses in the "cleft of the rock," a fissure or cave within it. As the overwhelming intensity of His glory passes by, God Himself shields Moses, covering him with His own hand. God protects man from God.
Only after the full force of the presence has passed does God remove His hand, allowing Moses to see His "back." This does not mean God has a physical back. It is anthropomorphic language to describe seeing the after-effects, the trailing edge, the glorious wake of God's presence. Moses could not see the face, but he could see where God had just been. He witnessed the results of God's passing by.
This is a picture of our experience in this life. We do not see God face to face. But we see His back. We see His providence by looking backward. We trace the hand of His goodness through the years and see the wake of His glory in our lives, in His church, and in His world. We see the evidence that He has passed by.
Jesus, Our Rock
This entire narrative is screaming Christ. It is a profound type, a shadow pointing to the reality that was to come. For who is this Rock where a man can stand in the presence of God and not be consumed? The Apostle Paul tells us plainly: "and the rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4).
We, like Moses, are sinful and cannot bear the unveiled holiness of God. His law condemns us, and His glory would destroy us. But God, in His mercy, has provided a place of safety. He has provided a cleft in the Rock. On the cross, that Rock of Ages was struck, cleft for us. And by faith, God takes us and hides us in the wounds of His Son. We are placed in Christ. We are covered by His hand, shielded from the just wrath of God that our sins deserve.
God's glory passed by on Calvary. But it was Jesus who was not shielded. He bore the full, face-on, unmediated force of God's righteous judgment against sin. The hand of God was not covering Him in mercy; it was crushing Him in justice. He endured what would have annihilated us so that we could be brought near.
And because we are hidden in Him, the glory of God that passes before us is "all His goodness." Because we are in the cleft of the Rock, we can hear the proclamation of His name, "compassionate and gracious," not as a threat, but as a promise. Moses saw God's back. But in the new covenant, we see something even greater. John tells us, "No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him" (John 1:18). And Paul says that God has "shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6).
The very thing Moses was forbidden to see, the face of God, has been revealed to us in the face of our Savior. In Jesus, we see the perfect manifestation of God's glory and goodness. And because we are hidden in Him now, one day we will fulfill Moses' prayer completely. We will see Him face to face, and we will not die. We will, in fact, truly live for the first time.