Does God Moon Moses? Reflections on Exodus 33:12-33, Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

by John C. Holbert on Thursday, July 16, 2026

         Now bear with me here! I understand that my choice of title for today could be seen as more prurient than provocative, but I think there may be a reason for it, as I hope to show. Today’s text is a very rich one, filled with interesting and complex ideas about God’s nature and human perceptions of that nature, along with a very human desire to know more about God than perhaps may ever be knowable. In fact, that may prove to be the reason for the text in the first place!

         Moses begins a fresh dialogue with his God by asking what may be termed a lengthy goading question: “Now look! You say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not made known to me whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name’;  also I have found favor in your eyes. Well, if I have really found favor in your eyes, let me know your ways, so that I may know you in order to find favor in your eyes, seeing that this nation is your people” (Ex.33:12-13). Moses hurls the basic demand back in God’s face, to “bring up this people,” but complains that YHWH has not revealed to him much at all about doing the deed, offering no evidence of a companion in the act, while announcing that Moses has found YHWH’s favor. Really, says Moses? If that is true, let’s see some proof of the claim! If I have found favor with you, then “show me your ways,” that is demonstrate exactly how you operate, so that I may believe I have found favor with you. Moses wants more real evidence of God’s presence with him, and demands that God come clean about God’s plans and desires. It seems a fairly reasonable demand; after all, Moses has been asked to do the near-impossible of leading these grumbling, recalcitrant people!

         YHWH’s reply is interesting, if not a little enigmatic: “My face (presence) will go, and I will grant you rest” (Ex.33:14). It might be said that this is an answer to Moses’s demands for “YHWH’s ways;” YHWH will go, because YHWH is always going, and YHWH will grant rest. However, what does YHWH’s giving of rest mean? Is YHWH saying that Moses’ burden of leading the people will be lightened by YHWH’s leading presence, or does the promise of rest mean something in the future, a protection against enemies, a common biblical idiom? Note, too, that YHWH’s statement of “going” does not include “going before Moses,” and the gift of rest is so vague as to force Moses to continue his questioning. At least for Moses, his questions have not been answered. 

         “If your presence will not go, do not take us up from here! How will it be known that I have found favor in your eyes, I and your people? Will it not be your going with us, that I and your people may be distinguished from every people on the face of the earth?” (Ex.33:16). YHWH simply must lead and go with us, cries Moses, in order that all may see that Moses has indeed found God’s favor, and that everyone will have no doubt about Israel’s unique relationship to the God of all the earth. Ok, says YHWH, “This thing you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my eyes, and I have known you by name” (Ex.33:17). But all that is still not enough for Moses, as he asks perhaps the most cheeky question ever asked of God. “Let me see your glory now!” (Ex.33:18)

         Exactly what Moses asks of God here is very likely unrecoverable from its ancient intentions. After all, the Hebrew word, kavod, may mean many things. Among them are: glory, honor, divine presence, along with its basic meaning of weightiness. However it may sound to ancient ears, it surely does mean that Moses, having seen God in the fiery bush, thinks he is now ready for full-scale epiphany, a complete revelation of the God who has heretofore appeared hidden in flame and cloud. But YHWH is having none of that!

         “I shall make all my goodness pass before your face, and I shall call out my name, YHWH, before your face. I will grant favor to whomever I grant favor, compassion to whomever I grant compassion. But you are not able to see my face, because no human may see my face and stay alive” (Ex.33:19-20). Instead of “glory,” YHWH offers Moses “goodness,” some presentation of a divine morality. But what that may be is decidedly difficult to discern, is it not? God’s “goodness” is hardly available to human prediction, calculation, or manipulation. Moses has received both favor and compassion from YHWH, but that had nothing to do with Moses, but was merely a sign of the free act of God. So it always is with this God. 

         And God is not quite through with a divine yet complex revelation to Moses. YHWH bids Moses to stand on a rock while covering Moses’ face with God’s “palm,” so that Moses will be protected by God’s strange and dangerous presence. YHWH will then “pass by,” and Moses will be allowed to see YHWH’s “back,” or perhaps YHWH’s “after,” but “my face will not be seen” (Ex.33:23). This is why I titled this essay in the way I did; more than a few wags have suggested that YHWH was in effect “mooning Moses,” allowing Moses to see only God’s hind parts. Now it should not be doubted that ancient Israel was hardly averse to imagining their God with body parts, but we ought not, as they did not, limit our theological conceptions to physical ones alone. What this wonderful and mysterious passage suggests is that the full nature of God is finally inaccessible, if not very dangerous to humanity, but something of God, God’s characteristics, may be known, if only in part. God’s “goodness,” God’s ways of acting, may be discerned, or at least reflected upon, argued about, debated. We cannot see God’s glory, God’s essence, but we can know something of God by staying alert to the signs and clues that God’s presence, God’s face, leaves for us. That may not be fully satisfactory to the deeply curious among us, but that is what is finally available about this amazing God we worship.