Exodus — Chapter 33

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Depart, go up hence thou and thy people. The initial divine command to depart without God's immediate presence is reversed only by Moses's persistent intercession. Lapide draws the lesson: God sometimes initially grants less than He intends to give, in order to provoke the intensity of prayer that would be appropriate to the greater gift. He cites Chrysostom (Hom. in Mt. XV): \"God often delays to bestow on us what we pray for, not because He is hard of heart, but because He wants to see the strength of our desire.\"

I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee in the way. God threatens to send only an angel, not Himself, as guide. Lapide notes that this distinction is crucial: an angel can do everything God commands, but it cannot be God's own presence. Moses understands the difference and refuses to depart without God Himself. This teaches the difference between grace and God—the Christian does not seek merely the gifts of God but God Himself.

The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend. Lapide explains that \"face to face\" here does not mean the beatific vision, which was not granted to Moses in this life in its fullness, but an unusually direct and intimate intellectual locution—not through symbols or dreams (as to ordinary prophets) but through an interior illumination of the intellect by the divine presence. He cites Augustine (Epist. 112) and Gregory (Moral. XVIII) and Aquinas (II-II, q. 174, a. 4): Moses's prophetic gift was highest among the Old Testament prophets.

Moses asks: \"Shew me thy ways.\" Lapide interprets \"thy ways\" (vias tuas) as the divine attributes exercised in redemptive history: mercy, justice, wisdom, and power as manifested in the Exodus. God reveals His ways to the soul in proportion to her humility and her love: Moses asks not for himself alone but \"that I may find grace in thy sight, and consider that this is thy people\" (vers. 13)—he prays for others even in seeking his own vision of God. This is the mark of true contemplation, which does not withdraw the contemplative from charity but deepens it.

My face shall go before thee, and I will give thee rest. God grants Moses's request: His own Face (not merely an angel) will accompany Israel. Lapide notes that the Face of God in the Old Testament often signifies the pre-incarnate Logos: as Moses's face shone after speaking with God (34:29), so the eternal Face of God—Christ—will lead His Church. He cites Augustine (Tract. in Jn. 106): \"The Father has sent the Son as His own Face; whoever sees the Son sees the Father (Jn. 14:9).\"

And Moses said: Shew me thy glory. Moses, already the most privileged of prophets, asks for more: the direct vision of God. Lapide notes that this holy insatiability (sancta aviditas) is characteristic of all genuine lovers of God—the more they know God, the more they desire to know Him. He cites Gregory (Hom. in Ez. II) and Bernard (Serm. in Cant. XXXI): the knowledge of God increases desire rather than satisfying it, because God is infinite and every finite knowledge of the infinite only makes clearer how much remains unknowable.

Thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me and live. Lapide develops the theology of the divine incomprehensibility. No creature can see the divine essence as it is in itself while remaining in the natural state of mortal existence—the finite cannot contain the infinite. Yet in the beatific vision the saints do see God face to face (1 Cor. 13:12), elevated by the lumen gloriae. Lapide follows Aquinas (I, q. 12, aa. 1-4): the intellect is proportioned to vision of the divine essence by a supernatural light that raises it above its natural capacity. Moses on Sinai receives a foretaste but not the fullness.

And when my glory shall pass, I will set thee in a hole of the rock, and protect thee with my right hand, till I pass: And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts; but my face thou canst not see. Lapide's allegorical interpretation: the rock cleft is the wound in Christ's side (Jn. 19:34; Cant. 2:14: \"my dove in the clefts of the rock\"); the glory passing before the rock signifies the mystery of the Incarnation, in which the divine majesty was veiled in flesh; the \"back parts\" (posteriora mea) are the mysteries of the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection, which are visible to faith on this side of the veil, whereas the fullness of the divine essence (the \"face\") is reserved for the beatific vision. He cites Gregory (Hom. in Ez. II) and Augustine (Conf. VII, 1).

Lapide on the \"back parts\" of God (posteriora mea): this is not to be understood corporeally. He follows Gregory (Hom. in Ez. I, 5) and Augustine (Serm. 7 De VT): the back (posteriora) signifies the temporal effects and works of God, which we can perceive with our intellect from their results, as we know a man has passed through a room from the traces he has left. The divine essence is the Face, inaccessible in this life; the divine works of creation, providence, and redemption are the back parts, accessible to reason and faith.