INTIMACY WITH GOD

Throughout the Exodus story, God’s presence is described as a dense cloud. A cloud guides the Israelites through the desert toward the Promised Land. A cloud descends on Mount Sinai when God meets with Moses face-to-face.

Eventually God instructs Moses to build a tabernacle, which is translated from a Hebrew word meaning “tent.” In Moses’ ancient Near Eastern world, this was a revolutionary thought. The ancients imagined deities bound by location, like a sun god and moon god, the god of the stars or of the sea. A tabernacle meant Yahweh was strikingly personal—God walking with his people, staying with his people, among his people in their sleeping and waking, coming and going, grieving and celebrating.

The final verses of the Exodus story include this description: “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:34). The cloud—the visible presence of God leading the people—took up residence among the people and moved in to dwell with them. Later the scene repeats itself in the commissioning of Solomon’s temple—the glory of the Lord, in the form of a cloud, took up residence among God’s people (see 2 Chronicles 7). God’s presence is clearly among his people, and that’s wildly intimate. But there are still significant limits to the intimacy.

Moses could not enter the tabernacle he built when the cloud first filled it, because God’s glory was inapproachably powerful. As for the rest of the people, on one occasion when God was meeting with Moses on Mount Sinai, anyone who even set foot on the base of the mountain was to be put to death.

The same goes for Solomon’s temple. The priests couldn’t even perform the worship service when God showed up. Only the high priest could enter the portion of the temple known as the holy of holies, where the presence of God dwelt, and only once a year on the Day of Atonement, or what is commonly referred to today as Yom Kippur.

God’s presence with his people highlighted his fierce commitment to and pursuit of them, as well as the persistent distance between an “east of Eden” people and a holy God. The tabernacle and temple represent an era of presence without intimacy—good, but incomplete.

When have you experienced the power of God?