Exodus 33:2

33:1-6 Those whom God pardons, must be made to know what their sin deserved. Let them go forward as they are; this was very expressive of God's displeasure. Though he promises to make good his covenant with Abraham, in giving them Canaan, yet he denies them the tokens of his presence they had been blessed with. The people mourned for their sin. Of all the bitter fruits and consequences of sin, true penitents most lament, and dread most, God's departure from them. Canaan itself would be no pleasant land without the Lord's presence. Those who parted with ornaments to maintain sin, could do no less than lay aside ornaments, in token of sorrow and shame for it.

And I will send an angel before thee,.... Not the angel before promised, Exodus 23:20 the Angel of his presence, the eternal Word and Son of God, but a created angel; and so Aben Ezra observes, he does not say the Angel that was known, that his name was in him; though even this was to be looked upon as a favour, and showed that he had not utterly cast them off: and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; who were now the inhabitants of the land, and these he promises drive out, to make way for their possession of it; and that "by his hand", as the Targum of Jonathan interprets it, by the hand of the angel. Only six nations are mentioned, though there were seven; the Girgashite is omitted, but added in the Septuagint version.

(2) I will send an angel before thee. —“An angel” is ambiguous. It might designate the Angel of the Covenant, the Angel of God’s presence, as in Exodus 23:20 ; or it might mean a mere ordinary angel, on a par with those who presided over the destinies of other nations besides the Hebrews ( Daniel 10:13 ; Daniel 10:20 ). That here the expression is used in this latter sense is made manifest by the declaration of the next verse: “ I will not go up in the midst of thee.”

See Exodus 3:8 . For I will not go up in the midst of thee - The covenant on which the original promise Exodus 23:20-23 was based had been broken by the people. Yahweh now therefore declared that though His Angel should go before Moses, He would withhold His own favoring presence. The nation should be put on a level with other nations, to lose its character as the people in special covenant with Yahweh (see the note at Exodus 33:16). Thus were the people forcibly warned that His presence could prove a blessing to them only on condition of their keeping their part of the covenant Exodus 33:3. If they failed in this, His presence would be to them "a consuming fire" (Deuteronomy 4:24; compare Exodus 32:10).

Verse 2. - I will send an angel before thee. Note the change from " my angel" ( Exodus 32:34 ) to " an angel;" which, however, would still have been ambiguous, but for what follows in ver. 3. The angel of God's presence is "an angel" in Exodus 23:20 . I will drive out . The whole covenant had fallen with Israel's infraction of it, and it was for God to retract or renew his part of it as it pleased him. He here of his free grace renews the promise to drive out the Canaanitish nations. Compare Exodus 23:23-31 . Exodus 33:2

2 . an angel ] in the place of Jehovah, and exclusive of Him (see v. 3): not, therefore, as Exodus 23:20 , where Jehovah is in some sense present in the angel ( v. 21 ‘my name is in him’). As was remarked on Exodus 32:34 , this is not the usual idea of the ‘angel’: it can, however, be avoided here only by some such supposition as that the words ‘behold, mine angel shall go before thee’ in Exodus 32:34 , and v. 2 here, are later insertions in the text, made on the basis of Exodus 23:20 , without regard to the contradiction which, if ‘angel’ is used here as in Exodus 23:20 , they involve with v. 3b (‘I will not go up with thee’). There are independent reasons for thinking that v. 2 here may be a gloss: it interrupts the connexion between v. 1 and v. 3 (notice ‘ unto the land’ &c. at the beginning of v. 3); the list of nations is found elsewhere in passages that are probably secondary; and the verse seems inconsistent with v. 12 (where Moses apparently asks to be told what he has already been told here). I will drive out ] LXX. (codd. A, F, Luc.) he will drive out , which suits the context better: Jehovah does not personally go with the people into Canaan ( v. 3). the Canaanite , &c.] On the list of nations, see on Exodus 3:8 .

CHAPTER 33 Ex 33:1-23. The Lord Refuses to Go with the People. 1. the Lord said—rather "had" said unto Moses. The conference detailed in this chapter must be considered as having occurred prior to the pathetic intercession of Moses, recorded at the close of the preceding chapter; and the historian, having mentioned the fact of his earnest and painful anxiety, under the overwhelming pressure of which he poured forth that intercessory prayer for his apostate countrymen, now enters on a detailed account of the circumstances.

Moses' negotiations with the people, for the purpose of bringing them to sorrow and repentance, commenced with the announcement of what Jehovah had said. The words of Jehovah in Exodus 33:1-3 , which are only a still further expansion of the assurance contained in Exodus 32:34 , commence in a similar manner to the covenant promise in Exodus 23:20 , Exodus 23:23 ; but there is this great difference, that whereas the name, i.e., the presence of Jehovah Himself, was to have gone before the Israelites in the angel promised to the people as a leader in Exodus 23:20 , now, though Jehovah would still send an angel before Moses and Israel, He Himself would not go up to Canaan (a land flowing, etc., see at Exodus 3:8 ) in the midst of Israel, lest He should destroy the people by the way, because they were stiff-necked (אכלך for אכלך, see Ges. 27, 3, Anm. 2).

They read ‫מכל‬ miccol, out of all, instead of ‫בכל‬ bechol, in all, which makes no difference in the sense; and ‫צר‬ tsar they understand as ‫ציר‬ tsir. Και εγενετο αυτοις εις σωτηριαν εκ πασης θλιψεως αυτων· ου πρεσβυς, ουδε αγγελος·. "And he was salvation to them in all their tribulation; neither an ambassador nor an angel, but himself saved them." An angel of his presence means an angel of superior order, in immediate attendance upon God. So the angel of the Lord says to Zacharias, "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God," Luke 1:19. The presence of Jehovah, Exodus 33:14, Exodus 33:15, and the angel, Exodus 33:20, Exodus 33:21, is Jehovah himself; here an angel of his presence is opposed to Jehovah himself, as an angel is in the following passages of the same book of Exodus. After their idolatrous worshipping of the golden calf, "when God had said to Moses, I will send an angel before thee - I will not go up in the midst of thee - the people mourned," Exodus 33:2-4. God afterwards comforts Moses, by saying, "My presence (that is I myself in person, and not by an angel) will go with thee," Exodus 33:14. Αυτος προπορευσομαι σου, "I myself will go before thee, "as the Septuagint render it. The MSS. and editions are much divided between the two readings of the text and margin in the common copies, ‫לא‬ lo, not, and ‫לו‬ lo, to him.

[Reformed Biblical] them; when I shall punish them for their other sins, which I foresee they will commit, I will remember and punish this also. Exodus 32:35 This relates either to the destruction of three thousand of them by the Levites, or rather to the future plagues, in which God also reckoned with them for this sin. ## Because they made the calf ; they made it because they urged ## Aaron to make it, as Judas is said to purchase the field, Act_1:18, which was purchased by his money; and Aaron made it, by giving command to make it. The Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, and Samaritan render the words thus, ## they worshipped or sacrificed to the calf which Aaron made . And the word which signifies to make, is oft used for worshipping or sacrificing, as Exo_10:25 Jud_13:15 1Ki_18:26. ## Exodus 33:1 EXODUS CHAPTER 33 God refuseth to go with the people as formerly, Exo_33:1-3. The people mourn, Exo_33:4. God’s command what to say to the children of Israel, Exo_33:5. They mourn, and lay by their ornaments, Exo_33:6. Moses pitcheth the tabernacle without the camp, Exo_33:7; and going in, God speaks to him, Exo_33:8,9. A cloudy pillar descendeth on it, Exo_33:10. God speaks to Moses face to face, Exo_33:11. He prays for his guidance and presence, Exo_33:12-16. God promises him, Exo_33:14,17; proclaims his name, Exo_33:19. His face can be seen by no man, Exo_33:20-23. Exodus 33:2 Exodus 33:3 ## I will not go up in the midst of thee by my own special