29 Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. 30 So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him; and Moses talked with them. 32 Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them as commandments all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. 34 But whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with Him, he would take the veil off until he came out; and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded. 35 And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him. Exodus 34:29–35 (NKJV)
"Now it was so when..." - This is another of the several types of connecting phrases in the OT that join one part of the narrative to another. Here it indicates a temporal relationship (and a rather obvious one at that) between the prior section (the giving of the Law to Moses on the mountain of Sinai) and the display of the effect that that delivery of the Law had on Moses, and subsequently on the people of Israel as they beheld Moses as he came down off the mountain.
"Moses did not know" - It is interesting that the effect of the exposure to the Truth of was so immensely profound on Moses that changed his very physical presence, yet Moses was not personally aware of that effect. Thus we see, throughout the OT, Moses portrayed as the meekest man ever.
What a wonderful example of the manner of believers. A genuinely, even profoundly spiritual man, in real and profound contact with God, with one of the most profound and important thing to communicate to His people in the history (past and future), commissioned by God to do a great thing and yet completely UNAWARE of the grand and life-changing effect that this has had on him personally. He did not come down from the mountain, in his mind, as THE vessel of God to speak to the people. I can't tell you how very important this is. Humility is one of the foundational keys to effective leadership and to being to God's people all that He intends One to be.
The world calls on men to be self-assured and to have a healthy self-view. God, one the other hand calls them to be as Moses was - so completely consumed with Him that they do not even realize how vastly they have been changed by being in His presence. Better said, because of their humility and meekness, their sense of self forces them to minimize and downplay the tremendous effect that being in the presence of God has had on them. They do not strut, they do not prance, and they do not put themselves on display. What they do, is they "do not know".
The verb here is in the "Perfect" form which, generally speaking expresses a past fact. It means "to find out, namely., to acquire information and does not speak to the means by which that information was acquired. Moses uses it in Deuteronomy 13:4, for instance:
3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
The action of the verb is in the past, along with what made Moses' face shine, his encounter with God. The verb is negated, hence he "did NOT know." as a result of that encounter. So consumed was Moses with His communing with God that he was completely unaware of what effect that encounter was having on him!
That awareness, and this is our point here, extended even past the interview with God itself. Moses didn't emerge from that encounter and say, "Hey, I'm different, just wait until the I'm with the people - I've got something to say to them!"
Behold" - Here!, There!, Look!, Now! a marker used to liven narrative, change a scene, emphasize an idea, or to call attention to a detail. In Genesis 6:13 God used the word to call attention to what he was about to do to the world:
13 And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
These kinds of words are not used haphazardly. They are used deliberately to underscore something to which God wishes our attention drawn. In this case - that is two things:
- Moses face shone like the glory of God
- The people, including Aaron himself, were afraid to come near him because of it.
More next time…
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