"And He said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Izhak, and the God of Jakob. And Mosheh covered his face; for he was afraid to look upon the height of the glory of the Shekhinah of the Lord."
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (3:6) introduces a word that will shape the next two thousand years of Jewish mysticism. Shekhinah — the indwelling presence of God, feminine in grammatical gender, luminous, near. The Aramaic carefully distinguishes between the Holy One in His transcendence and the Shekhinah in her immanence. Moses cannot look at the height of the glory — the radiance that fills the place.
And notice the sequence. God first identifies Himself as the God of thy father — personal, intimate, the God Amram prayed to. Then He expands outward: the God of the three patriarchs. A concentric theology. Start with what you know — your own father's God — and then be lifted into the lineage.
Moses covers his face. The sages praised him for this — and also noted its cost. Because he covered his face at this first encounter, the Midrash Rabbah teaches (Shemot Rabbah 3:1, compiled c. 1100 CE), he was later granted, uniquely among prophets, to "speak to God face to face, as a man speaks to his friend" (Exodus 33:11). The humility of the first hiding earned the intimacy of the later seeing.
But there is a sterner reading: because he covered his face here, he did not ask at this moment for the privilege he would beg for later and be denied — to see the full glory. The opportunity he hid from in fear could not be fully recovered.
Beloved, humility is sacred. But sometimes holy boldness is the price of the vision.