Monday, 1 June 2020

Seeing God

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Exodus 24:10a, 11b "They saw the God of Israel ... So they beheld God, and ate and drank." Who saw God and what did they eat?

Answer: The Bible is specific about who saw God.

Rabbi Trail: I thought God said, Exodus 33:20 "But He (God) also said, 'You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live.'" This is a tough one. There are plenty of places in Scripture where God is seen. How can we see God without seeing God? Here is one possible spiritual explanation.

God can allow us to see His form without seeing His essence. He can appear as a representation of Who He truly is. I think this is what's happening here. However; we believe we should exegete (not eisegete) the Scripture. To exegete is to let the Scripture speak for itself. When we eisegete, we read into the text what is not spoken, but our own ideas of what it means. End RT.

Notwithstanding the RT above, there were 70 elders, Moses, Aaron, Aaron's two sons, Nadab and Abihu, and Joshua. They saw God. What did they eat and drink? Here is where I break my own rule. But before I do, we don't know what they ate and drank because the Bible doesn't say.

What if they ate and drank communion? Maybe they lifted up a piece of matzah and blessed God and then lifted up their cup and blessed the Lord.

Hard to imagine they saw God and ate with Him on the mountain only 40 days before they committed the most shameful sin in the history of Israel, the sin of the golden calf. By the time we get to chapter 32, the people get tired of waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain. Here is a word to the wise. Don't get tired of waiting.

Jacob 1:4 "And let endurance have its perfect work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."