Ki Tisa (Part 3) - Exodus 30:11-34:35

Exodus 33:18-23

Before I present my commentary, let's first look at the verses in whole. 

The context: At the beginning of this chapter, YHVH decides that he's fed up with the Israelites, and won't go with them to Israel. Moses argues with him, and YHVH tells Moses that He will send his face. Moses argues that if His face is not sent forth with the Israelites, then they won't go. YHVH agrees and announces that Moses has found favor in His eyes. It is at this point that Moses, seeing an opportunity, makes a request:

33:18 - And Moses said, "Please show me Your Glory!"

33:19 - And He replied, "I shall cause all of my goodness to pass before you and I will call out with the name "YHVH" before you; And I will show favor when I will will show favor and I will have mercy when I will have mercy."

33:20 - And [YHVH] said, "You will not be able to see My face, for no human can see my face and live!"

33:21 - And YHVH said, "Behold! There is a place with/by me, and you shall stand upon the rock (צור)...

33:22 - ...when My Glory passes by, I shall place you in the cleft of the rock (צור), and I will cover you with My palm until I have passed by...

 33:23 - ...And then I will remove My palm, and then you will see My back, but My face may not be seen."

Yahweh's Face

As I have pointed out in other posts, not only is the Torah an anthology of stories composed by many different anonymous authors, each with differing views on "What is God". Because of that, there will often be verses that will contradict other verses and will require a form of apologetics to reconcile them. 

And every once in awhile a gem like verses 33:18-23 of Exodus pops up with just so many issues that it requires ideological blinders to ignore the problems.

Before discussing those verses, let's review a few things.

First, many of the authors of the Torah had no problem with God having a face and having humans see it.

Whoever authored the portion where YHVH is still sulking about the Golden Calf (33:11) had no problem with it:

33:11 - YHVH would speak to Moses face-to-face, like a man would speak with his fellow/friend...

And the Deuteronomists had not problem either, not only proclaiming that Moses spoke with YHVH face-to-face (Deut. 34:10), but all of the people of Israel as well (Deut. 5:4). And if you want to say that "speaking face-to-face" is not the same as "seeing face-to-face" there are verses that include that variant as well (Num. 14:14, plus Genesis as explained below).

The authors of Genesis also had no problem with God showing his face to mortals:

We can find this throughout the Torah.

So what's the big deal here? Saying "you can see my back, but not my face" is no less of an anthropomorphism (not that the authors of that time had any problem with such an idea).

A Fragment of a Story

After YHVH says, "...then I will remove my palm and you will see my back", nothing more is mentioned.

The story suddenly just stops.

We don't know if YHVH did pick up Moses and insert him into the rock, or not. We don't know if this deal was acceptable to Moses.

The story suddenly just stops.

Now, look at verses 18-23 as to how they connect to the previous narrative.

You could remove them entirely and the story would still have ended on an upbeat note.

These verses are a new narrative, appended to another, where the author had the view that one could not see the face of a God and survive it, which contradicts the view of the author who wrote of Moses and YHVH being chummy and speaking face-to-face, as partners in this venture.

The author of this fragment likely wanted to present a view of the relationship between Moses and YHVH that was unique to him, and the compilers felt that this would have been a good place to put it. (In actuality, you could cut--and-paste these verses almost anywhere in the Book of Exodus and it would make just as much sense).

Conclusion

Since the other verses, before and after these, speak of God (both YHVH and Elohim) and seeing or speaking with him "face-to-face", then this verse was most likely composed by someone who had a different view of God; a God who is so beyond human comprehension that, to see Him, one would die.

Other contributors to the Torah narrative did not share this view.

I find such contradictory views to be fascinating.

It should be noted that apologists will commonly treat these specific verses as though God is speaking in code, and one cannot take these words literally, and must dwell upon their secret meanings.

It is as this point that Occam's Razor is especially useful!