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God Coaxed Moses Back and Guarded the Glory No Eye Sees

All Israel lined the path when Moses walked to the Tent. Then God told him to go back to the camp, and he said no.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Camp Lined the Path
  2. The Orphan Already in the Palace
  3. If Your Presence Does Not Go
  4. The Glory Even Angels Do Not See
  5. The Speech That Waited Thirty-Eight Years

Moses was told to go back to the camp. He said no.

God Coaxed Moses Back and Guarded the Glory No Eye Sees Click for full size

Not delay. Not a man still finishing his business. A flat refusal, aimed upward at the One who had every right to dismiss him. God had given the command. Moses had heard it. He was not leaving.

The Camp Lined the Path

Whenever Moses walked out toward the Tent, all Israel lined the sides to honor him. "Blessed is she who bore him," they whispered. "What does God see in him?" When he entered and the pillar of cloud came down, they knew the Shechinah (שכינה), God's presence, had drawn near to speak with him. Face to face, as a man speaks with his friend (Exodus 33:11).

People pressed each other to watch him pass. The cloud stood at the entrance. The camp rose where it stood, because something had come down to speak with one man. Not with them. Not with Aaron or the elders. With Moses alone.

The Orphan Already in the Palace

God said, "Moses, go back to the camp." Moses answered, "I will not return."

So God told him a parable. A noblewoman quarreled with her husband the king and stormed out of the palace. Inside the palace she had been raising a little orphan girl. The king sent word: come home. She refused. He tried again. She refused again. Then he played the one card that could reach her. "Know this," he said. "The orphan girl is being installed in the palace in your place."

God used the same argument. "By your life, Joshua already stands in the Tent of Meeting." Come back, not for Me. Come back for them. They cannot grow without you leading them.

The leverage landed. The threat was not a whip. It was a student already standing where he stood.

If Your Presence Does Not Go

Moses pushed back. "Master of the Universe, was it not for Your honor that I burned against them? You Yourself say, Bring up this people. You cannot abandon them."

God answered, "I have sent an angel before you."

Moses would not be handed to a messenger. "If Your Presence does not go, do not bring us up from here" (Exodus 33:15). Then he asked for the last thing. "Show me Your ways."

God had taught him every cure but one, the remedy for the plague that cannot be cured. Moses asked for that last secret. This once, God told it to him.

The Glory Even Angels Do Not See

Moses asked to see the glory in full. The answer was a gift and a refusal. "No person shall see Me and live" (Exodus 33:20). Then God arranged a crevice in the rock and a sheltering hand. When My glory passes, I will take My hand away and you will see My back. Not My face.

What Moses was shown from behind was not shown even to the highest angels. Not the Ofanim. Not the Seraphim. Not the Hayot who carry the throne. When the Holy One passes, they cover their faces and their feet and are still. They have never seen what Moses glimpsed from the cleft, because the Presence speaks to them as it moves, and they do not look up until it has passed.

Rabbi Akiva said even the holy creatures do not see the glory. Ben Azzai climbed one rung more: even the angels, who never taste death, never see it either. The vision sat beyond all of them. Moses received it from behind, in stone.

The Speech That Waited Thirty-Eight Years

Everything God said in that intimacy was spoken for Israel's sake. Go out, He said, and carry these words to the people. The thirteen attributes of mercy, the self-declaration, the covenant language: all of it was meant to be carried down the mountain into the camp.

For thirty-eight years in the wilderness, while the generation condemned to die was dying off, the direct word to Moses fell quiet. Only when that generation had passed did the speech resume. When Israel was estranged, the conversation stopped, because the conversation had always existed for Israel's sake.

When God came to give the Torah, He spoke the Readings, the Mishnah, the aggadah, and the Talmud. "Go and teach it to the children of Israel." Moses said, write it down for Your children. God refused the whole gift in ink. The nations would rule and take a written book, and Israel would look like every other people. So Moses said, write the Readings. Keep the Mishnah and the Talmud in the mouth. The distinction would live where a soldier could not seize it.

Moses had refused to leave because he could not bear to break the connection. God drew him back by pointing to Joshua already in the Tent, and to the people below. The glory he glimpsed from behind was not a private reward. It was a deposit Israel would have to live on for a very long time.

Yalkut ShimoniMosesDivine PresenceProphecyTorahSinaiMidrash
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From the tradition

Sources

4 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 394:2Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet (Yalkut Shimoni) · CC-BY-NC

"And it came to pass, when Moses went out to the tent" (Exodus 33:8), they would stand at the sides and honor him, saying, Happy is she who bore Moses! What does she behold in him? "And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend" (Exodus 33:9), they knew that the Divine Presence was being revealed to Moses. "And all the people rose up" (Exodus 33:10).

The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Moses, return to the camp. He said to Him: I will not return. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Know that Joshua is in the Tabernacle.

A parable, to what may the matter be compared? To a noblewoman who grew angry with the king and went out of the palace, while she was raising a certain orphan girl in the palace. The king sent after the noblewoman and said to her: Return to the palace. But she did not wish to return. He said to her: I am telling you to return, and you do not wish to; know that the orphan girl is established in the palace. So too: "And the LORD spoke to Moses face to face" (Exodus 33:11); He said to him: Return to the camp; and he did not wish to return. By your life, Joshua shall be in the Tent of Meeting!

He said to Him: Master of the universe, it was not for Your sake that I grew angry with them. See, You say to me, See, that You cannot leave them. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: I have already told you, "And I will send an angel before you" (Exodus 33:2). Moses said to Him: To an angel You are handing me over? "If Your presence does not go, do not bring us up from here" (Exodus 33:15). "Show me now Your ways" (Exodus 33:13).

A parable: of a physician who had a disciple, and he taught him every kind of remedy except the cure for an incurable plague. He said to him: Master, you have revealed to me all remedies except the cure for that plague. So too Moses said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the universe, "Show me now Your ways." And He made it known to him, as it is said, "He made known His ways unto Moses" (Psalms 103:7).

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 431:1Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet (Yalkut Shimoni) · CC-BY-NC

Rabbi Dosa says: Behold it says, "For no man shall see Me and live." In their lifetimes they do not see, but they do see at the hour of their death. And so it says, "Before Him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and he whose soul He did not keep alive" (Psalms 22:30). Rabbi Akiva says: "For no man shall see Me and live", even the living creatures that bear the throne do not see the glory. Rabbi Shimon ben Azzai said: I am not as one refuting the words of my teacher but as one adding to his words. "For no man shall see Me and live", even the ministering angels, whose life is eternal life, do not see the glory.

"Saying", go out and say to them words of persuasion, it is for your sake that He speaks with me. And so we find that during all thirty-eight years that Israel were in the wilderness and were as ones rebuked by Heaven, there was no speech with Moses, as it is said, "And it came to pass, when all the men of war had finished dying from among the people, that the LORD spoke to me, saying." Elazar ben Dahavai says: One might think He spoke with him for his own sake. Scripture teaches, "saying", it was for the sake of Israel that He spoke with him, and He did not speak with him for his own sake.

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 405Yalkut Shimoni

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet · CC-BY-NC

When the Holy One, blessed be He, came to give the Torah, He told Moses, in order, the Scripture, the Mishnah, the Aggadah, and the Talmud, as it is said, "And God spoke all these words" (Exodus 20:1), even what a seasoned student would in the future ask his teacher. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Go and teach it to the children of Israel. Moses said to Him: Master of the Universe, You write it for Your children. He said to him:

I wish to give it to you in writing, but it is revealed before Me that the nations of the world are destined to rule over them and to take it from them, and My children would become like the nations of the world. Rather, the Scripture you shall give them in writing, and the Aggadah and the Mishnah and the Talmud by mouth. "And the LORD said to Moses, Write down these words" (Exodus 34:27), this is Scripture. "For according to (al pi)" the Mishnah and the Talmud, which separate Israel from the nations of the world. "Write down for yourself."

The first tablets I wrote, as it is said (Exodus 31:18), "written by the finger of God," but the second ones, you write for yourself. To what may the matter be compared? To a king who married a wife and wrote her a marriage document from his own hand. She did not behave properly, but ruined and disrupted things. Her groomsman came and appeased her to the king. The king said to him: I have been appeased only on your account; go and make another document. "Write down for yourself." On your merit I give them the Torah.

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Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Ki Tisa 15:4Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Ki Tisa

Translation of the source text.Midrash Tanchuma (Buber), Public Domain, on Sefaria · CC-BY-SA

(Exodus 33:8:) "And it came to pass, when Moses went out to the Tent", they would stand at the sides and honor him, saying: Blessed is she who bore Moses. What does he see in him? (Exodus 33:9:) "And it came to pass, when Moses entered the Tent, the pillar of cloud would descend", they knew that the Shekhinah was being revealed to Moses. (Exodus 33:10:) "And all the people rose." The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Moses, return to the camp. He said to Him: I will not return. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Know that Joshua is in the Tabernacle. To what is the matter comparable? To a matron who became angry with the king and went out from the palace, and she had been raising a certain orphan girl in the palace. The king sent after the matron and said to her: Return to the palace; but she did not seek to return. He said to her: I am telling you to return, but you do not wish to. Know that the orphan girl is placed in the palace. So (Exodus 33:11:) "And the LORD spoke to Moses face to face." What did He speak? Return to the camp. But he did not seek to return. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: I am telling you to return, but you do not seek to. By your life, Joshua is in the Tent of Meeting. Moses said to Him: Master of the Universe, was it not for Your sake that I was angry with them? See, You say to me (Exodus 33:12:) "Bring up this people." See, You cannot leave them. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: I have already told you, and I have sent an angel before you. Moses said: To an angel You deliver me? (Exodus 33:15:) "If Your Presence does not go, do not bring us up from here." (Exodus 33:13:) "And now, if I have found favor in Your eyes…"

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