The word of assurance given to Moses at Sinai echoes through eternity on the lips of the Savior, untroubling troubled souls with the good news that there is one who walks the paths of life with you, and soon he’s coming to bring you to himself.
I imagine there was a certain point when Moses’s eyes glazed over, and he began to feel overwhelmed, as the Lord of Glory conveyed his covenant laws to him. For the better part of three chapters, God prescribed in precise detail the way his people were meant to live, covering nearly every phase of Israelite life. How was Moses going to sensibly communicate all this? And how was anyone going to keep all this straight?
And as if the Lord knew what Moses was thinking and feeling — which he certainly did — he proceeds to reiterate an enormous promise, one that’d surely dispel anyone’s fears. “Behold,” God says to his wide-eyed servant, “I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared” (Exod. 23:20).
Emmanuel on the Move
Guiding and guarding them all along their long trek to the Land of Promise would be the Lord’s angel, a reality with which Israel was already familiar (Exod. 13:21–22). So far, God’s people had never been without the presence of the Lord with them and for them, and God seems to be reassuring them that they never would be. “I’ll never, ever leave you nor forsake you,” we might render his words (cf. Heb. 13:5). But be that as it may, there is something different about this promise.
Instead of showing up in a fiery or cloudy pillar, God was sending his "angel" to be with them and to go before them, driving out every last enemy that stood in their way (Exod. 23:23). In other words, something more powerful and more personal was happening here. Knowing what lay ahead for Moses and the multitude — the terrain, the treachery — he assures them not only of his presence, but also his protection. God was promising to fight for them (Exod. 23:23, 27–28), just as he had done on the banks of the Red Sea (Exod. 14:14).
It is this word of unflappable assurance that persists for all those who belong to the Lord. The one who was with the Israelite pilgrims is the one who is with you, “always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Emmanuel is in our midst (Matt. 1:23). Actually, it’s even better than that: “God with us” is in us (Col. 1:27; John 14:16–17; 16:13).
Threats or Promises?
But along with words of assurance came words of admonition, as Moses and the multitude were warned about the impending consequences for not listening (Exod. 23:20–22). It’s critical to understand what God is and isn’t conveying here. Our instinct is to treat texts like this as if God’s goodness and grace were the carrot dangling at the end of the stick of their ability to obey, comply, and/or perform. This, of course, is problematic since it makes God’s word of protection and preservation hinge on Israel’s ability to obey, which is lacking, to say the least.
I don’t mean to suggest that God isn’t serious about this admonition or all the devastating results that would arise if it were ignored. But we are inclined to always learn the wrong lesson, taking God’s words to mean that he will only be a God of guidance and grace if our end of the bargain is upheld. And that’s decidedly not what he’s saying.
The Father Who Clears Trails
Imagine a father wants to take his son on a difficult hike. This dad is an outdoorsman; he loves everything outdoors, and he wants to share this love with his son — a son he loves just as much — who happens to be seven. The trail the father has in mind is rugged and rough, with a river to cross and a ton of overgrowth to navigate. So the day before their scheduled hike, the dad gets up early and proceeds to spend the whole day clearing the trail, removing the brush, and fording the river, laying stones across it, doing everything that his son couldn’t do for himself. The next morning, he and his boy wake up and head out on their hike, and the dad says, “Stay with me; I know the way.”
Now, is that a threat or a promise?
With those words, the dad isn’t threatening his son with a bad time — “Stay with me or else” — he’s promising him a path of joy. The father who admonishes his son to pay careful attention to where he goes, where he plants his feet, and which bends in the path he takes, isn’t browbeating his boy. Rather, he’s showing him the way because he knows the way. He’s prepared the way.
If his son loses attention and starts going his own way, danger ensues because the uncleared path is full of thorns and snares, which aren’t evidence of the father’s anger. They’re just a consequence of going the wrong way. If the son attempts to forge his own path, he isn’t risking his status as a “son” so much as he’s risking the loss of the joy of following in his father’s footsteps.
Divine Initiative
The Lord had cleared, and was clearing, the way ahead so his people could revel in the rich fullness of his blessings (Exod. 23:23–31). With him is health, abundance, fulfillment, and total victory over their adversaries. All this he would do for them and give to them, of his own accord. (Note the tenfold repetition of “I will” in Exod. 23:20–33 — “I will bless,” “I will send,” “I will give” — a drumbeat of divine initiative spanning just nine verses.) Although Israel would be involved, they’d be as involved as a seven-year-old on a long hike.
From Egypt to Sinai to Canaan, and everywhere in between, Israel’s journey was held by the hands of the I Am — by the one who was for them and with them.
“You make known to me the path of life,” echoes the psalmist, “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). Turning aside or turning away from “the path of life” can only incur sorrow and suffering. And unfortunately, this is the exact road that Israel ends up choosing.
A Place Called Weeping
As the people of God are invited to follow his angel, they’re also called to be God’s instrument of judgment on the tribes who were already in the land (Exod. 23:23), fulfilling a four-hundred-year-old promise (Gen. 15:16). The iniquity of the “-ites,” I suppose, had finally reached the point of no return. Thus, as Israel occupied the Land of Promise, they did so as agents of Yahweh’s justice.
There was just one fairly large problem: they didn’t do as they were told. Not fully, at least.
The opening chapter of the Book of Judges serves as a horrid referendum on Israel’s commitment to follow the Lord, with the din of “did not drive them out” echoing as a judgment on God’s own people (Judg. 1:27–36). Like the son on the hike going astray, instead of driving out the “-ites,” they let them stick around, either enslaving them or making peace treaties with them, which, of course, was exactly the opposite of what God wanted them to do (Exod. 23:33).
Israel trudged forward right into the snare that God foresaw, which is why the same angel from Sinai shows up yet again, but this time with much more devastating words: “I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers . . . But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done?” (Judg. 2:1–2).
If the hiker-dad’s son got himself stuck in some brambles, or worse, he would surely be disappointed. He’d still be a son, but he’d have to endure the consequences of going off the path. God conveys a similar measure of disappointment — “What is this you have done?” — which prompts his people to weep bitterly. Although they were still the people of God — he was never going to sever his covenant with them — he was grieved that they’d forgo his words and forge their own way.
The Angel Incarnate
This isn’t just ancient history, though. This is us. Instead of “driving out” those deep-seated sins, we compromise with them. We let them stick around. Like Israel, we are the son who gets himself ensnared in thorns and thistles. The Lord’s grievous verdict of “What is this you have done” hangs just as heavily over us, leaving us with no answers or excuses to clear our names.
Who can help us? Who can save us? Who can solve our wretched case?
The solution for rebels like us is the same as it was for them. The answer is found in the Angel of the Lord, within whom resides the name of God himself (Exod. 23:21). This is no mere messenger. This is malak Yahweh, the Son of God, showing up for his people with the keys to pardon transgression in his hands. And the good news tells us that he is the same one who put on flesh to dwell with us (John 1:14). He not only comes to make a way or clear the way ahead; he comes to be the way (John 14:6).
The Angel who showed up to Moses with a word of assurance and appeared at Bochim with a word of judgment has taken on skin and bone to take the judgment reserved for us. Jesus walks the road we could never travel on our own. And in the power of his resurrection, he drives out our sin and blots out all our failures.
Whereas at Bochim, Israel weeps because of what they did, at Golgotha, Jesus is pierced because of what we did. He shoulders all our broken promises, all our idols, and every compromise we make with sin, and nails it all to the cross. And he does it all for us, leaving us with the promise that he is preparing a place for us (John 14:1–3; cf. Exod. 23:20). The word of assurance given to Moses at Sinai echoes through eternity on the lips of the Savior, untroubling troubled souls with the good news that there is one who walks the paths of life with you, and soon he’s coming to bring you to himself.
