Exodus 33:1-6

Command to Resume Travel

1 And Yahweh spoke to Moses, "Go, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land that I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to your offspring.'

2 And I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, and the Hittites and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites,

3 [Go] to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you, because you [are] a stiff-necked people, lest I destroy you on the way."

4 And the people heard this troubling word, and they mourned, and they each did not put their ornaments on themselves.

5 And Yahweh said to Moses, "Say to the {Israelites}, 'You [are] a stiff-necked people; [if] one moment I were to go up among you, I would destroy you. And now take down your ornaments from on you, and I will {decide} what I will do to you."

6 And the {Israelites} stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Horeb [onward].

Exodus 33:1-6 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 33

This chapter informs us, that the Lord refusing to go with the people, only sending an angel with them, they are filled with concern, and troubled, Ex 33:1-6. Moses upon this pitched the tabernacle without the camp, where everyone that sought the Lord went; Moses entered into it himself, and the Lord talked to him in a friendly manner in the cloudy pillar that stood at the door of it, and the people worshipped, every man at his own tent door; all which foreboded good, and tended to reconciliation, Ex 33:7-11. Moses improved the opportunity, and entreats the presence of God to go with them, which was granted, Ex 33:12-17 and that he might have a sight of the glory of God; and this is promised to pass before him, he being put into the cleft of the rock, Ex 33:18-23.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew "Canaanite"
• [b]. Hebrew "Amorite"
• [c]. Hebrew "Hittite"
• [d]. Hebrew "Perizzite"
• [e]. Hebrew "Hivite"
• [f]. Hebrew "Jebusite"
• [g]. Or "bad," "disastrous," "calamitous"
• [h]. Literally "sons/children of Israel"
• [i]. Literally "know"
• [j]. Literally "sons/children of Israel"