Future History
Then I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen. Exodus 33:23 NASB
My back – By now you realize that this translation must be incorrect. God is spirit. He is not corporeal. He does not have a “back.” This is a case where the Hebrew uses the root word ʾaḥar. But it’s not used as if it describes some body part. It’s a metaphorical idiom. It describes what comes afterward, what is left behind, and here, as an idiom, it is about Moses being able to see what God will do after, that is, in the future. When God passes by, Moses sees what is behind, and in Hebrew thought, it is the future that is behind us since, obviously, one cannot see it. TWOT notes:
But in no other place is the word used for the back of a person’s anatomy. This is gab or gaw or ʾōrep. The word ʾāḥôr means “back” in the sense of direction.[1]
As is clear from other derivatives, the general meaning of the root is after, later, behind, following. H. W. Wolff has likened the Hebrew conception of time to the view a man has when he is rowing a boat. He sees where he has been and backs into the future (lecture notes).[2]
Let’s apply the idea of the rowboat to the way we understand prophecy. The Hebraic idea of prophecy follows suit. We don’t know what it means until after it’s over. After the events have occurred, we can “see” them for what they are, and then we make the connection to any prophecy that might have occurred at an earlier date. It is prophetic in the rear view mirror (as Maimonides suggests). This explains why the men on the road to Emmaus knew all the Scriptures but failed to understand the connection to the Messiah. They needed the “after-the-fact” filter in order to read the text. This also explains why the fixation on eschatology, particularly exegesis of the book of Revelation, is so futile. The meaning of the text cannot be fully understood until after the events have happened. There is little if any point in trying to predict the future.
But isn’t this the same for history? We don’t know what any particular historical event means until it is reinterpreted for us. Combine the Hebrew idea of prophecy with the Hebrew idea of history. Isn’t history just as opaque as the future? Yes, we can list the events of the past. We can produce chronologies of facts. But do we really know what these events mean? How many times have we drawn conclusions from our analysis of the past only to discover later that we were wrong? Do we really know the consequences of any of our actions? Isn’t the true meaning of any event only understood in its full connection from past to future? And who is able to determine that? God alone, I suspect.
So we live in a murky world, a world where we aren’t quite sure what it all means unless someone with a far greater perspective tells us. We need to consult with the man who has a rear-view mirror. This is why the only real perspective must come from outside our box. If God doesn’t tell us what it all means, we can never find out. If every event is connected to every other event, and meaning is the sum product of all events, then we can’t know what it means until it is all over. And it isn’t over yet.
Does this leave you feeling lost in the vastness of eternity (a serious Greek problem)? Well, it would if you didn’t have a Hebraic worldview. In the Hebraic worldview, I am not lost because God has told me what to do now, and that’s about all I can do. If God chooses to let me see His “back,” and I get a glimpse of where He is going, then Mazel Tov. But if He doesn’t choose to let me in on the secrets of the universe, I still know what I need to do today. And then I have to trust Him. But that’s the point, isn’t it?
Maybe history is a lot more malleable than we thought.
Topical Index: history, prophecy, ʾaḥar, back, behind, Exodus 33:23
[1] Harris, R. L. (1999). 68 אָחַר. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament.
[2] Ibid.
I have always wondered at this verse. What it seems to be about is a request to know fully this God that Moses is questioning the sincerity of His attendance / guidance into where He is sending them. Moses questions twice whether God will go with them into the unknown.
Then comes the request to see this God’s ‘Glory’. To me the observance of the Creation, our surroundings where we stand and above in the heavens, has been the observance of God’s ‘Glory’. I see that as the evidence of and the handwork (another metaphor) of what I don’t see.
In Moses’s position I would want to know how this God ‘Created’ to know that He is the cause of everything I can see with knowledge of the past I have learned from the stories I have been raised with and what I can see physically around me…including me and the masses he leads.
Is it possible that the ‘Glory’ Moses observed was the origin of that ‘past’ observed while “rowing backwards”? Is it possible that here in these verses Moses requested and had revealed to him the distant historical horizon he is moving from in his present ‘boat’? Is it possible that when God removed his hand from the cleft Moses saw the ‘Glory’ of “Genesis”?
What would Moses have come away with having seen the swirling dark waters, the manifestation of light and darkness, the separation of the waters, the sun and moon hung in the heavens, the earth bringing forth animals, man arise out of dust?
Or would a world/life carried forth into an unrecognizable location, beyond the present as eternity, have meant more?
In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis writes:
‘…both good and evil, when they are full
grown, become retrospective. Not only this valley but all their
earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not
only the twilight in that town, but all their life on earth too, will
then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what
mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering,
“No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven,
once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony
into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say “Let me but
have this and I’ll take the consequences”: little dreaming how
damnation will spread back and back into their past and
contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even
before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his
forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of
Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and
is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all
things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to
blackness down there, the Blessed will say “We have never
lived anywhere except in Heaven”, and the Lost, “We were
always in Hell.” And both will speak truly.’
The Great Divorce always blew my Greek mind apart. Never mind it had the overtones of the paganism Lewis was steeped in; he still sought the larger truth beyond what he believed. This quote was always the heart of the book for me. I have pondered it for many years. I added to it Gloria Steinem’s comment “it’s never too late to have a happy childhood” (never mind what she was steeped in, either). I was encouraged to revisit my unhappy memories from a safer place as an adult and as a parent, and recreate my emotional and rational take on it. I rewrote my own history from a better perspective, and it changed my emotional memory. My past now does not trigger me the way it did.
This was a good TW.
If “my back’ is the future, – what is “my face” that cannot be seen?
Olga it seems to be the presence.
We can not look at it and understand it except when we reflect on it or plot the next move. I think God wanted Moses as He wants us to, to learn and understand what He can do if we permit. Then He offers us a covenant. What our role is will only be known when we look back on our tasks. Not the clearly explained outcome we commit to.
Nobodies covenant is the same, so even when accepting my covenant I can never measure others against it but only my self. That truth aspect of Yeshua which represents God as well as the armour we need to clothe in.
There is a destination. The path well that we have to work on. Three days, 40 days, 120 days, 40 years etc. God does not determine that length we do by how much we accept or permit God to be in control.
Just my 2cents…
I think “face” must be the present, too, Seeker. We only have access to the present (where all life is found) by faith; at least while we are mortal, anyway. Life in the here and now is by virtual proxy that Yeshua offers us through His resurrected life. We are breathing His air, so to speak. God is only found in the present, so His “face” is only going to be found there for sure; I think you are right. The reason we cannot see it except by faith is because we can only inhabit the present (where He is) by faith. One day when we “put on immortality” we will “see Him face to face”, which is to say, we will all be present (lol) and accounted for in real time, which is eternity. In eternity, there is no past or future, at least like we know them here. I don’t think eternity leaves past or future behind (sorry; having too much fun); it engulfs both in the dimensions beyond the third/fourth one we seem to be pretty much stuck in.
I think we experience the limitations of space/time because we are presently (well, perhaps virtually presently!) mortal. I am looking forward to space travel!
Thank you for this, Seeker. So…, another way of saying it would be: “I can show you where we are going, but not how we are going to get there”???
Hello Richard and Laurita,what you write and how you write has such a beautiful cadence like musical song.my comment is more a reality check. In the three years I have worked in the disability field ,20 employees(a revolving door) age 18-24 Only have interest in Eschatolgy.Its a billion dollar business of pure divination and it is really got a hold of their minds. I have believed what Skip wrote for a long time. I explain and tell them to spend time in the beginning. They tell me it’s boring and old not exciting enough!!! This is heart breaking as this is the next generation.
In considering these thoughts…”There is little if any point in trying to predict the future. How many times have we drawn conclusions from our analysis of the past only to discover later that we were wrong? Do we really know the consequences of any of our actions? Isn’t the true meaning of any event only understood in its full connection from past to future? And who is able to determine that? God alone, I suspect. ” I must conclude the best of life is to simply be in it, fully engaged and presently. The alternatives such as avoidance or isolation simply deny the call of Messiah “I came that they might have life and that more abundantly. ” It is way to easy to spend our time processing, planning or debating about life rather than simply living it. So much bad religion leads to avoiding life or isolating from it or worse yet condemning it; rather than simply living it.