Exodus 33:1-6

GOD'S THREAT OF WITHDRAWAL OF HIS PRESENCE

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, Depart, go up hence, thou and the people that thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land of which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it; and I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: unto a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people; lest I consume thee in the way. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned: and no man did put on his ornaments. And Jehovah said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiffnecked people; if I go up into the midst of thee, I shall consume thee: therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from mount Horeb onward."

Clements, and others, seeking a way to link this chapter with their imaginary "source `D,' take note of certain phrases indicating, they say, a time subsequent to the days of Moses, but the real connection here is with the action of Jacob at Bethel who required his family to bury all of their personal "gods" under the oak tree; and that was not later than Moses, but centuries earlier! That there was indeed a connection between these incidents is seen in the finding of Clements who wrote: "We should remember that ornaments often took the form of amulets, designed to ward off evil spirits, and so could possess a decidedly pagan character."[4] See Genesis 35:4.

Yet another objection is that God in Exodus 33:5 commanded Israel to do something they had already done in Exodus 33:4. This is easily understood by the discernment that Exodus 33:5 may be parenthetical to show why Israel had put off their ornaments. Also, it is even more likely that God in Exodus 33:5-6 commanded the people not to "strip" but to "remain stripped" of their ornaments. The true rendition of the text here, according to Orlinsky, is "remained stripped," instead of "stripped."[5] Thus, we read in what the people actually did the nature of the commandment they obeyed. Keil discerned this and so rendered Exodus 33:5 as, "Throw thine ornament away from thee, and I shall know by that what to do to thee."[6] Thus, where the people had merely taken off their ornaments in Exodus 33:4, God commanded them to get rid of them altogether in Exodus 33:5-6.

The sorrow of Israel was profound when the full import of their shameful apostasy began to be fully realized by them. Indeed, God had spared the nation upon the intercession of Moses, but here he proposed that he would not accompany them to Canaan. "God's purpose was made plain. The people had shown themselves unfit for his near presence, and he would withdraw himself."[7] Instead of being with them personally and actually talking with the elders of the people, as in their ratification of the covenant, God proposed that henceforth an angel would accompany the people, something of far less desirability. No wonder the people were full of grief and mourning. Their response in stripping themselves of their ornaments and returning to them no more was a mark of genuine repentance (Exodus 33:6), and this was part of the basis upon which God consented, upon the insistent intercession of Moses, to renew in full the broken covenant.

However, Exodus 33:5 showed that God's final decision on whether or not to renew the Covenant was still held in abeyance. "That I may know what to do unto thee" shows that the matter was not yet decided. There was thus, at the end of this paragraph a whole new situation with Israel. Construction of the Tabernacle so elaborately planned and shown to Moses was cancelled for the time then being. No priests would be consecrated until the matter was resolved. Furthermore, God would not be "in the midst of the people" at all, but would appear only to Moses, and even that was not to be while Moses was in the midst of the people, but it would happen "outside the camp," in a place especially prepared as a provisional means of communication during the period when the covenant was abrogated. Despite there being no mention of it, it is axiomatic that God instructed Moses specifically as to these temporary and provisional arrangements.