She watched from the door of her tent as he walked beyond the edge of camp to the tent of meeting. The breeze carried the dust up into the air from each step he took before it spread and settled down again. She looked around at her family huddled around the doorways of their tents. Their eyes were wide following his every step and their lips moved silently in prayer. The gold jewelry that covered their arms and ears was gone, leaving their bodies as bare as their spirits.
The smell of smoke filled her nose. It didn’t burn in her nostrils like the smell of the sacrifices. It was sweet. As soon as the smell filled the air, she and the others knew Moses would make his way to the tent of meeting. These days his meetings seemed more important than all the rest.
Would they live? Or, would they die in the desert like the generation before them? Could their abominable transgression be forgiven? Could Moses quell the wrath of YWH?
She held onto the small, fragile shoulders of her son. His dark, thick hair sat piled atop his head. They had risen early, as soon as they smelled the smoke. As they watched Moses on his short journey to meet with YWH the sun rose above the sandy dunes around them.
She ruffled her son’s hair and whispered in his ear, “He will intercede for us. We have no reason to fear. He will rescue us.” She kissed the top of his head and repeated, “We have nothing to fear,” as if to convince herself as much as she wanted to convince him.
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In Exodus 33, Moses meets with God in the tent of meeting to intercede for the people following their worship of the golden calf in the preceding chapters. The tent was set up far outside of camp, no longer dwelling among the people.
Their worship of the golden calf violated the first of the ten commandments that Moses was delivering to them from the very mountain they thought he was lost on. This was their covenantal contract -- the boundaries, and form of their covenantal relationship with God. Moses agreed to it with the people and they broke it before he could even present them the final covenantal tablets.
Now again as their representative, he is compelled to intercede for their lives despite their blatant covenantal violation. He was the only one who could stand-in for the people before God. In the Israelites exodus from Egypt, God chose Moses to lead and acted through him in ways that might have caused the people to wonder where Moses’ power stopped and God’s started. The Lord even spoke “to Moses face to face as one speaks to a friend” (Exodus 33:10).
While this can be a heartwarming verse if read in isolation, I believe Moses’ friendship with God is not merely personal and assumes a great amount of responsibility upon Moses. This isn’t the only time we encounter a friendship between God and man. James writes, “the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend” (James 2:23). In John 15:14-15, Jesus calls His disciples and all who follow Him friends. The Lord’s covenantal relationship and friendship with Moses provides a strong framework for understanding the characteristics of friendship with God throughout the Old Testament, New Testament, and for us as we wait for Jesus to return.
In the next post, we’ll take a deeper look at the characteristics of the covenantal relationship and friendship between God and Moses as a model for Jesus’ call to friendship to all who follow Him.
Thank you for reading my blog!! It's been a while, but I'm back! I hope these essays encourage you to dive deeper into the Word and seek God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. Please comment with your thoughts and feedback as we go through this series on Friendship with God.
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