Exodus 33:1–6
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
We come now to the hangover after the party. Three thousand men fell under the sword of the Levites, a bloody purge of the ringleaders. The plague had been stayed, but the covenant had been shattered. The relationship between Yahweh and His people was now in crisis. What we have in our text today is the formal, legal fallout of that great sin. It is God's official response to their national apostasy. And what we find is one of the most terrifying threats in all of Scripture. It is not a threat of fire or brimstone, but something far worse: the threat of God's absence. You can have all the blessings of the covenant. We live in a generation that treats the presence of God as a casual thing, a nice add-on, like heated seats in a car.