Loading Exodus 34:6…
God is the one living Creator who made everything and depends on nothing, and Scripture answers this question mainly by telling us his character rather than by defining his substance. When God described himself to Moses he said he is merciful and , slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness and truth, and yet will by no means clear the guilty. The New Testament adds that this God is finally known in Jesus Christ, who has made him known.
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God's answer first
Scripture does not begin with a definition of God assembled by people. It begins with God speaking about himself. Read his own words before any explanation of them.
The passage that answers this
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This is God's own answer to the question, spoken about himself. Mercy is named first and at length, and justice is named without apology in the same breath, which means neither can be dropped from any true account of him.
Read these with it
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Israel's daily confession. God is one, not one option among many gods, which is why loyalty to him is whole rather than partial.
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God cannot be inspected by us, so the question is answered by revelation. The Son has made him known, which is why a Christian answer to who God is always ends up at Jesus.
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Why we ask this
Almost everyone carries an inherited picture of God, gathered from family, church, films or grief, and the picture is often a mixture of true and untrue things. Asking the question again lets Scripture correct the picture rather than confirm it.
Most of the practical struggles of faith trace back to this question. Whether you can pray honestly, whether you can bear suffering, whether you can face your own sin all depend on who you think is listening.
There is also a fair intellectual question underneath it. If God cannot be examined in a laboratory, how could anyone know anything about him at all? Scripture's answer is that God speaks and finally comes, so knowledge of him is received rather than achieved.
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Historical context
- Written by
- Moses is presented in Exodus as the one who received and recorded these words at Sinai
- Written to
- Israel, recently rescued from Egypt and newly guilty of making a golden calf
- Written because
- Exodus 34 follows the calf of Exodus 32 and Moses' intercession in Exodus 33. God renews the covenant and, before doing so, tells Moses who he is
The setting matters enormously. This self description is not given to a faithful nation as a reward. It is given to a nation that had just broken the first two commandments while Moses was still on the receiving them.
Israel had lived among Egyptian gods who were tied to the Nile, the sun and the pharaoh's house. Against that background the words spoken here are striking: no image is offered, no location is claimed, and the emphasis falls on moral character rather than on power over nature.
These words became a confession Israel repeated for centuries. They are quoted or echoed in Numbers 14:18, Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 86:15, Psalm 103:8, Joel 2:13 and Jonah 4:2, which is one of the clearest examples in the Bible of Scripture interpreting Scripture across many generations.
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Verse by verse
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God descends and God proclaims. Both verbs belong to him. Moses is present as a witness, not as an investigator, and the knowledge of God moves downward rather than upward.
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The name is repeated, then filled with content. Mercy and come first, then patience, then loving kindness and truth together. Truth and kindness are not rivals in him, which rules out both a sentimental God and a merely severe one.
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Three words for wrongdoing are named and forgiveness is offered for all three. Then comes the sentence people find hardest: he will by no means clear the guilty. Scripture holds both, and is where the tension is finally resolved rather than dissolved.
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The first response recorded to a true description of God is worship, not note taking. Notice also that Moses hurries. This is the reaction of someone who has heard something almost too good to stand still under.
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The oneness of God is not an abstract number claim. It grounds the command that follows in verse 5, that love for him is to be whole, because a divided heart makes sense only if there are rival gods to divide it between.
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Jesus rules out the idea that God can be located or handled. Because God is spirit, worship is not secured by a place or a building, and it cannot be faked by attending one.
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God is love is a statement about his nature, and John immediately defines it by an event in verses 9 and 10, the sending of the Son as the atoning . Scripture never lets the sentence float free of .
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What Scripture says
He is the maker who depends on nothing
Paul says God made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made with hands and is not served by human hands as though he needed anything. God has no needs we meet. Whatever we bring him is response, never supply. This is also why Scripture treats idolatry as absurd rather than merely forbidden.
He is one, and there is no other
Besides me, there is no God. Isaiah presses further than most readers expect, saying God forms light and creates darkness, makes peace and creates calamity. The verse is not making God the author of evil, since Scripture elsewhere insists he is light and in him is no darkness at all, 1 John 1:5. It is denying that any rival power runs the dark side of history. Nothing happens in a province God does not govern.
He is eternal, and we are not
Before the were born, before you had formed the earth and the world, even from to everlasting, you are God. The psalm goes on to ask God to teach us to number our days. Knowing that God has no beginning is not a piece of trivia. It changes how you hold your own short life.
He is spirit, so he is not confined
Jesus tells a Samaritan woman that the argument about the right for worship is being overtaken. Because God is spirit, the Father seeks worshipers rather than sites. Note what he does not say. He does not say worship is now casual, but that it must be in spirit and in truth.
He is love, proved by an action
John's proof is not the beauty of the world or a feeling of being loved. It is that God sent his one and only Son as the atoning for our sins. Love here is defined by cost and initiative, not that we loved God, but that he loved us.
He wants to be known, and says knowing him is what to boast in
Let not the wise, the mighty or the rich glory in what they have. Let the one who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows God, who exercises loving kindness, justice and in the earth. Knowing God is presented as available and as the highest good, and again the emphasis falls on his character rather than on his power.
He is known most clearly in Jesus
God spoke in many ways through the prophets, and has now spoken by his Son. The earlier speech was true, and the Son is the fullest word. This is why the Christian answer to who God is cannot stop at general statements about a supreme being.
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The words behind the question
chesed
The word translated loving kindness in Exodus 34:6 carries the sense of committed loyalty rather than warm feeling. Standard lexicons treat it as faithfulness shown in action. That is why English needs two words to translate one, and why the phrase abundant in loving kindness reads as a promise of durability rather than of mood.
Yahweh
Most English Bibles print this name as LORD in capitals. The World English Bible prints Yahweh. Either way the name is personal rather than descriptive, which is itself part of the answer to this question: God gives a name, not a category.
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Cross references
God tells us who he is
The name given at the burning bush, tied to God's own being.
The fullest self description in the Old Testament.
The Exodus words sung back to God, with the added note that he remembers we are dust.
Jonah quotes Exodus 34 as his reason for running. God's mercy was the problem for him.
One God, no rivals
The confession and the command that follows from it.
No god was formed before him and none after.
Paul keeps Israel's confession and includes Jesus inside it.
What God is like in himself
He knows and is present everywhere, in language of comfort rather than surveillance.
He does not change, which is why his promises can be relied on.
Eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God.
God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
God made known in Christ
Glory, and truth seen in a person.
Whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father.
The image of the invisible God, in whom the fullness dwells.
The radiance of God's glory and the very image of his substance.
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Common misunderstandings
God is a force or an energy behind everything
Scripture never speaks this way. God speaks, forgives, is grieved, makes promises and keeps them. A force cannot be merciful, and Exodus 34 is entirely about mercy. A force also cannot be prayed to, only used.
God is love, and that is all that needs to be said
The sentence is biblical, 1 John 4:8, but it is half of a sentence in Exodus 34. The same self description that says abundant in loving kindness says he will by no means clear the guilty. A God who overlooked evil would not be loving toward its victims.
God is angry and has to be won over
This picture usually comes from experience of human authority rather than from the text. In Exodus 34 God is the one who initiates, descends and proclaims mercy to a nation that has just betrayed him. The Old Testament calls him slow to anger, and it is God, not Moses, who proposes the renewal of the .
All religions describe the same God in different words
Scripture is respectful of honest seeking, Acts 17:27, but it does not say this. Paul in Athens acknowledges the search and then corrects the content, naming a Creator who needs nothing, a fixed day of judgment and a man. Kindness toward people of other faiths does not require pretending the descriptions agree.
Nobody can know anything about God
If God were silent this would follow. Scripture's claim is that he has spoken, in creation, in the prophets and finally in his Son, Hebrews 1:1-2. The question then changes from whether knowledge is possible to whether the testimony is trustworthy.
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Things most readers miss
God's self description is given to people who had just failed badly
Exodus 34 follows the golden calf. The most generous words about God's character in the Old Testament were spoken over a nation in disgrace. That timing is part of the revelation.
Mercy is described at length and judgment briefly, but both are there
Count the words. Loving kindness for thousands, forgiveness for three categories of sin, then one clause on not clearing the guilty. The proportion is deliberate and it is not the proportion most people assume.
Scripture answers who God is with a name, not a definition
At the bush and on the God gives his name. Names are for relationship. A reader hunting for a philosophical definition is offered an introduction instead.
The clause about visiting iniquity on later generations is later qualified
Ezekiel 18:20 says the son will not bear the father's iniquity. Read together, Exodus 34 describes how sin's consequences run through families, while Ezekiel denies that guilt itself is inherited. readers hold both rather than choosing one.
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Someone in Scripture faced this too
Scripture answers this question through people who met God rather than through people who theorised about him.
Moses, asking to see God's glory
What he or she went through
Moses asked to see God's glory. He was told no one could see God's face and live, and was placed in a cleft of rock while God passed by and spoke his own name.
How God responded
God revealed himself in words about his character, then let Moses see only the afterglow. Moses hurried, bowed his head and worshiped.
What we learn
God gives us his character rather than his measurements. Knowing him is closer to knowing a person than to solving a problem, and it ends in worship rather than mastery.
How it points to Christ
John 1:14-18 deliberately echoes this scene: glory, and truth, seen this time in a face rather than from behind a rock.
Elijah at Horeb
What he or she went through
Exhausted and afraid after Carmel, Elijah waited on the same and watched wind, earthquake and fire pass by.
How God responded
God was not in the spectacle. He came in a still small voice and asked Elijah a question, then fed him, corrected him and gave him work and a companion.
What we learn
God's power is real but he is not defined by displays of it. He deals with a frightened man gently and specifically.
Paul in Athens
What he or she went through
Paul stood in a city crowded with images of gods, including an to an unknown god.
How God responded
Paul described the God who made the world, needs nothing from us, is not far from any of us, and has fixed a day of judgment with a man as judge.
What we learn
God is not one item in a religious market. He is the maker of the people shopping, and knowing him is possible because he has come near.
How it points to Christ
Paul's answer to who God is ends with the . The clearest evidence of God's character on offer is a man raised from the dead.
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Christ and this question
The invisible God with a face
John 1:18 states the problem and the answer in one verse. No one has seen God at any time, and the one and only Son has declared him. The word translated declared carries the sense of leading out into the open. Jesus does not merely teach about God, he exhibits him.
The connection is stronger than a general one. John 1:14-17 uses the vocabulary of Exodus 33 and 34, glory, dwelling, and truth, and then says grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Moses heard the words from inside a cleft of rock. The disciples watched them walk around.
This is also where the hardest clause of Exodus 34 is resolved. God forgives iniquity and will by no means clear the guilty. At both hold together, because guilt is not waved away but borne, Romans 3:25-26. Any answer to who God is that leaves out has left out how he manages to be both merciful and just.
Jesus said whoever has seen him has seen the Father, John 14:9. That is why a person wanting to know who God is should read a Gospel rather than begin with abstractions. Watch how he treats the sick, the ashamed and the arrogant, and you are watching the character of God.
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What to do with this
Read God's own words about himself slowly
Read Exodus 34:5-8 several times this week, then Psalm 103. Write down which phrase is hardest for you to , and which is easiest, and notice what that tells you about the picture of God you inherited.
Read a Gospel with this question in mind
Read Mark or John, asking of each scene what it shows about God's character. This is the method Scripture itself recommends, since the Son has declared him.
Let the answer change how you pray
If God is merciful, and slow to anger, then honest prayer is safe. Bring the thing you have been keeping back, and pray it in the words of Psalm 51 if your own words fail.
Test what you believe about God against Scripture, not against feeling
When a thought about God arrives, ask where in Scripture it is taught. Feelings about God rise and fall with sleep, health and news. His self description does not move.
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Study the question further
Can anyone actually know God, or only know about him?
Scripture speaks of knowing God personally and treats it as the highest good, while also saying he cannot be inspected or exhausted by us.
Jeremiah 9:23-24
Knowing God is what a person should boast in, above wisdom, strength and wealth.
John 17:3
Jesus defines eternal life as knowing the only true God and the one he sent.
Philippians 3:8-10
Paul, decades into faith, still describes knowing Christ as something he is pressing toward.
How to apply this today
- Do I relate to God as someone I know, or as a subject I have opinions about?
- What would change this week if knowing him were treated as the highest good?
God, you say you can be known. Teach me to know you rather than only to think about you.
What does it mean that God is three and one?
Scripture holds two things together: God is one, and Father, Son and Spirit are each named as God and are distinguished from one another. The word Trinity is not in the Bible; the material that led the church to the word is.
The oneness is never given up
Deuteronomy 6:4 and 1 Corinthians 8:6 both insist there is one God. The New Testament writers were Jews who kept that confession.
The Son and the Spirit are treated as God
John 1:1 and John 20:28 speak of the Son this way, and in Acts 5:3-4 lying to the is called lying to God.
The three are distinguished, not merged
At the baptism of Jesus, Matthew 3:16-17, the Son is in the water, the Spirit descends and the Father speaks. Matthew 28:19 gives one name held by three.
How to apply this today
- Am I willing to hold what Scripture says even where I cannot picture it?
- Where have I quietly reduced God to something easier to imagine?
Father, Son and Spirit, one God, keep me honest where your word goes beyond my understanding.
If God is good, why is the world like this?
Scripture never treats this as a foolish question. It gives real answers, including human rebellion and a creation subjected to decay, while also refusing to explain every particular case.
Genesis 3:17-19
The world's disorder is tied to human rebellion rather than to God's design.
Romans 8:20-23
Creation was subjected to futility and groans, waiting for redemption, so the present state is not the final one.
Job 38:1-4
God answers Job with questions rather than explanations, and Job is satisfied by God's presence rather than by information.
How to apply this today
- Am I asking for an explanation, or for God himself?
- What has God already told me that I have not yet trusted?
Lord, where you have not explained, help me to trust the character you have revealed.
Is the God of the Old Testament the same as the God of the New?
Yes, and the New Testament writers argue this on purpose. They quote the Old Testament's descriptions of God and apply them to the same God they worship.
Psalm 103:8
The Exodus 34 description repeated in Israel's worship centuries later.
James 5:11
James calls the Lord full of compassion and mercy, using Old Testament language for the God of the church.
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, written to readers steeped in the older Scriptures.
How to apply this today
- Have I absorbed the idea that God softened over time?
- Where do I find mercy in the Old Testament and severity in the New?
God, you do not change. Correct my picture of you where I have divided you in two.
Where should I start if I want to know God and know almost nothing?
Start with a Gospel, because the Son has declared the Father, and read a psalm alongside it so that you are learning to speak to God as well as learning about him.
John 20:30-31
John says he wrote so that readers may believe and have life. The book was made for a beginner.
Luke 1:1-4
Luke wrote an ordered account so that a reader could know the certainty of what he had been taught.
How to apply this today
- What is the smallest amount of reading I could actually keep up daily?
God, if you are there and you speak, meet me as I read. I am willing to be shown.
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Reflection
- Which phrase in Exodus 34:6-7 is hardest for me to believe about God, and why?
- Where did my working picture of God come from, and how much of it can I find in Scripture?
- If God is merciful, gracious and slow to anger, what have I been afraid to say to him?
- How would this week look different if knowing God were treated as the highest thing in it?
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Prayer
God, you proclaimed your own name before Moses. I have not seen you, and I would not survive it, but you have spoken and you have come near in your Son.
You say you are merciful and , slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness and truth. Where I have something smaller or harsher, correct me from your word.
You also say you will by no means clear the guilty. I thank you that in Christ my guilt was not overlooked but carried. Let me live in that mercy rather than presume on it.
Teach me to know you and not only to hold opinions about you. Amen.
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Further reading
Exodus 33:12-34:9
The whole scene the Bible's clearest self description sits inside.
Psalm 103
Exodus 34 turned into worship, with the reminder that he remembers we are dust.
Isaiah 40
The greatness of God written to comfort exhausted people rather than to overwhelm them.
John 1:1-18
The invisible God made known in the Son.
Acts 17:22-31
How to speak about God to people who do not share the Scriptures.
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Explore the passage
These are questions the text can actually answer. Take one, go back to the passage with it, and read until Scripture answers rather than until you have an explanation you like. Each question names where this study, or another passage, does the answering.
What this reveals about God
Start here, because every passage of Scripture is first about God before it is about us. Read for what He does, what He says, and what He is called.
What does these passages teach about God?
Underline every verb God is the subject of. What He does tells you who He is.
What does these passages reveal about God's character?
Look for the words the text itself uses of Him: holy, merciful, faithful, jealous, patient. Take the text's own vocabulary rather than your own.
What this reveals about us
Scripture is honest about people. Read for what it says of human need, human failure, and the kind of response it calls for.
What does these passages teach about humanity?
Watch what the people in the text want, fear, and trust. Scripture rarely flatters them.
What does these passages reveal about faith?
Faith in Scripture is always faith in someone, about something specific. Ask what exactly is being believed here, and on what word.
Where this arrives in Christ
Jesus said the Scriptures testify of Him. Follow the line the Bible itself draws rather than inventing one.
What does these passages reveal about Jesus Christ?
Look for what the New Testament does with this text. A connection Scripture makes is a connection you can stand on.
What does these passages reveal about salvation?
Ask who does the saving, who is saved, from what, and by what means. Let the text answer each part.
The world behind the words
The first readers knew things we have to learn. Recovering what they knew is study, not speculation.
How would the original audience have understood these passages?
Ask what they had already been told, what they were living through, and what this would have cost them to believe.
What historical or cultural background helps explain these passages?
Look at the work, the worship, the law and the customs the text assumes you already understand.
What do these words carry in the original: chesed, Yahweh?
Take the word to its root, its first appearance, and its range of use. Then let the context choose the meaning.
How this connects to the rest of Scripture
Scripture is its own best commentary. The clearest answers usually come from another passage rather than from a scholar.
Which Old and New Testament passages help explain these passages?
Prefer passages that quote or clearly echo this text. Those links are the Bible's own, not ours.
What biblical themes are developed in these passages, and where do they begin?
Trace one theme backwards to where Scripture first raises it, then forwards to where it lands.
What this asks of you
Application is the last step, never the first, and it must come out of the passage rather than out of general advice.
What does these passages teach believers to do today?
Say it as one sentence you could obey this week, and be able to point at the verse it came from.
Where faithful readers differ
Some questions here are genuinely open. Where Bible believing Christians read this differently, the readings are set out with the passages behind each one, and what Scripture states plainly is kept separate from what is interpretation.
Which parts of these passages does Scripture state plainly, and which parts are interpretation?
Write two lists. Anything you cannot put in the first list, hold loosely and say so when you teach it.
Questions Audela will not answer
Where Scripture does not answer a question, Audela says so plainly rather than filling the silence. An honest “the Bible does not tell us” is more faithful than a confident guess, and it keeps the reader’s trust in God’s Word rather than in our reasoning.
The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever.
- Ask instead: What does the passage say God did, and what does that reveal about His character?
- Ask instead: What has God told us about His purpose here, in this text or elsewhere in Scripture?
- Ask instead: What does Scripture say about how God acts, and where does it say it?
- Ask instead: What happened, and what does the rest of Scripture make of it?
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