In last week’s Shabbat Chol Hamoed (חול המועד) Torah reading (Exodus 33:12–34:26), Moses asks about the guidance God will provide to the Jewish people through the wilderness. “You have not made known to me,” he says, “whom You will send with me” (Ex. 33:12).
God replies: “פני [my face or presence] shall go” (Ex. 33:14).
Next, Moses asks God to show him God’s כבד (glory).
God demurs and replies that instead His טוב (goodness) will pass in front of Moses.
When there is no response from the speechless Moses, God adds: “You shall not be able to see My face [פני], for no human can see me and live…. You will see My back [אחרי], but My face [פני] will not be seen” (Ex. 33:23).
Later, however, God tells Moses that on the three biblical pilgrimage festivals—Pesach, Sukkot, and Shavuot—all the men will see God’s face or appear in God’s presence (Ex. 34:23):
שָׁלֹשׁ פְּעָמִים, בַּשָּׁנָה--יֵרָאֶה, כָּל-זְכוּרְךָ, אֶת-פְּנֵי הָאָדֹן יְהוָה, אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
The 1917 and 1962 Jewish Publication Society (JPS) translations of this verse say “appear before the Lord God” or “appear before the Sovereign Lord,” omitting the reference in Hebrew to God’s face or presence. My grandmother’s 1960 Menorah Press translation of the Hebrew Bible similarly omits this reference. But Robert Alter translates the passage more fully and accurately: “Three times in the year all your males shall appear in the presence [פְּנֵי] of the Master, the Lord God of Israel.”
God adds (Ex. 34:24):
וְלֹא-יַחְמֹד אִישׁ, אֶת-אַרְצְךָ, בַּעֲלֹתְךָ לֵרָאוֹת אֶת-פְּנֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, שָׁלֹשׁ פְּעָמִים בַּשָּׁנָה.
Again, the JPS translations of this verse omit the reference to God’s face or presence. Robert Alter’s translation: “And no man will covet your land when you go up to appear in the presence [פְּנֵי] of the Lord three times in the year.”
These verses reiterate God’s instructions to Moses in Exodus 23:15 and 17. Robert Alter comments on these verses that “the original form of the Hebrew indicated ‘see My face [or presence],’ but the Masoretes revocalized the verb as a passive, ‘to be seen’ or ‘to appear,’ in order to avoid what looked like excessive anthropomorphism.” The Masoretes were the Jewish scribes and scholars who, from the sixth to the tenth centuries of the Common Era, compiled the recognized text of the Hebrew Bible.
So, we have a puzzle here: God says that Moses cannot see God’s face, because “no human can see me and live.” Yet God also instructs the people (at least the men among them) to see God’s face on the three biblical pilgrimage festivals. How do we explain this seeming inconsistency? And a further question: What is the relationship between God’s face (or presence), goodness, and glory?
A postscript on God’s face or presence: As I note elsewhere, it is possible to read the second of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2) literally as “you will not have other gods to my Face” (לא–יהיה לך ... על–פני).
