Inside the “tent of meeting,” located just outside the israelites’ wilderness camp, Exodus 33: 11 says the Lord spoke to Moses, face to face, as a man speaks to a friend. Yet, when Moses later asked to see God’s glory (vs. 18), the Lord answered in the negative, saying that no one can see His face and live (vs. 20).

So if Moses was face to face with God in one instance, why was He not allowed to see God’s face in another instance? I’m thinking that Moses never saw God’s actual face to begin with.

In the first encounter, I see God being present with Moses in one of two possible forms. I’ve previously written that among scholars, there is agreement that Jesus made several appearances on earth in a pre-incarnate form. These pre-incarnations are labeled by them as Christophanies. Perhaps the Son of God appeared in human form and spoke to Moses in the tent.

However, I favor the second possible form from which God spoke to Moses. It has to do with the pillar of cloud that descended to the ground. Verse 9 says that the cloud stood at the tent’s door, and that the Lord talked to Moses. I believe that the presence of the Lord was in this cloud, and that Moses interacted with it in the same way that he interacted with the Lord’s voice in the burning bush (Exodus 3: 4).

So Face to face, used in the Exodus passage, is a term that I believe to be a figure of speech. It couldn’t have been literal because God said to see His face is to die, as evidenced by God’s protective measures employed on Moses’ behalf during their later encounter in the chapter.

In that later encounter, Moses asked to see God in all His glory. Moses wanted to see Him as He really is. Though God is spirit, He obviously can manifest Himself to the physical eye if He wants to. He decided to do so for Moses, but to only reveal a portion of Himself in glory. So God took and set Moses in the cleft of a rock. God then covered him with His hand as His glory passed before Moses.

God removed His hand after His front had passed by. All Moses could fathom was the goodness aspect of God’s glory that emanated from God’s back (Exodus 33: 19). As a result, God’s face, as in the first instance, wasn’t seen in this encounter.

To see God’s face in all the power of His glory would be intolerable for any human on this side of life. We would die from the effort to gaze upon and internalize His fiery, consuming countenance (Hebrews 12: 29).