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Bible chapter guide
Exodus 33
God says he will send an angel but not go with Israel himself; the people mourn. In the tent of meeting outside the camp the LORD speaks with Moses face to face, Moses asks to see his glory, and God hides him in a cleft of the rock as he passes by.
Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.
What happens in this chapter
God tells Moses to lead the people on to Canaan with an angel ahead of them, but says he will not go among them himself, and the people mourn and strip off their ornaments. The chapter then describes a habit of Moses: he used to pitch a tent far outside the camp and call it the tent of meeting, and when he went in, the pillar of cloud came down at its door while the people watched from their own tent doors. There the LORD spoke with Moses face to face, and his young assistant Joshua stayed in the tent. Moses presses God to go with them and God agrees; when Moses asks to see his glory, God puts him in a cleft of the rock and lets him see his back but not his face.
What the lab shows, and where to look
The labs have little for this chapter, and it helps to be clear why. The Tabernacle lab's Pillar of Cloud and Camp of Israel show the finished tabernacle of chapter 40 standing in the middle of the tribes, as Numbers 2 lays them out; the tent in this chapter is the opposite picture, a tent pitched far outside the camp before the tabernacle existed. Use the camp view to picture that distance, with people standing at their own tent doors. The cloud there is the one of 40:34–38, and its column shape is marked artistic. The Hebrew Word Explorer opens at kābôd, 'glory', in verse 18.
- Pillar of Cloud and Fire · The Tabernacle
- Camp of Israel · The Tabernacle
- kābôd (glory) · Hebrew Word Explorer
Questions people ask
Is the tent of meeting in Exodus 33 the tabernacle?
The same name is used, but the tabernacle is not set up until chapter 40, and it stood in the middle of the camp, while this tent was pitched "afar off from the camp" and kept by Joshua rather than by priests (33:7–11). Many commentators take it as an earlier, simpler tent that Moses used before the tabernacle was made; others read the passage as describing a custom that went on alongside it. The text does not say which.
Did Moses see God's face?
The chapter says both things. Verse 11 says the LORD spoke with Moses "face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend", and verse 20 says "Thou canst not see my face". Many readers take face to face as describing how directly they spoke, as Numbers 12:8 has it, 'mouth to mouth'; what Moses was allowed to see in verse 23 was God's back as his glory passed by.
Why did the people take off their jewellery?
God told them to (33:5), and they did it in mourning, wearing none from Mount Horeb onward (33:6). It came straight after the calf, which had been made from their gold earrings. In chapter 35 the gold given for the tabernacle includes brooches, earrings, rings and armlets; the text does not say whether it was the same jewellery.
See it in the Labs
Also in this chapter
How sure can we be?
- Textually stated
Israel lived in tents in the wilderness camp.
The narratives speak of tents (Numbers 24:5; Exodus 33:8).