Unveiling God's ShineSample

The experience of living illuminated by the shining face of the Lord is the climax and heart of the blessing of Numbers 6:22-27. When I say the blessing aloud, I find I always linger on the verb shine. Whether I pronounce the blessing in a full-throated authoritative tone, or barely whisper it under my breath, the emphasis naturally falls on the words, “May His face shine on you.” On first read, the phrase may seem a poetic pleasantry, but we shouldn’t let the beauty of the phrase mask its explosive power.

The shine referred to in this blessing is not the shimmer of a flickering candle flame; it is the blaze of the sun at noon in the desert. This shine is so intense it is blinding. It is the shine of the glory of Yahweh’s presence. This is the shine of the God who split a sea wide open, the shine of the One who humbled the most powerful leader of the most powerful nation in the ancient world, the shine of the One who lead his people through the wilderness with a pillar of fire and cloud. It is the shine that radiated out through the linen curtains and goatskin cover of the tabernacle like a lantern burning in the wilderness. This is the shine that lit up Mount Sinai and that lingered on Moses’ face when he hiked down from the peak of the mountain after God had given him the Law. His skin radiated with such intensity that the people couldn’t stand to look him in the eye. If they winced in the face of reflected shine, how would they ever stand directly in the shining face of God himself? 

If Moses’ blindingly bright face had been a one-off occurrence confined to the slopes of Sinai, it would have been memorable, no doubt. It would have been a singular moment—a beautiful, bright blip on the spiritual radar that no one would expect to recur. It would have been an exception, not an expectation. But the radiance wasn’t a fleeting flash like fireworks that explode and dazzle and sizzle and fade. Reading in Exodus 34:34 we find that whenever Moses went into the tabernacle to speak with the Lord, he was flooded with the shine. 

In deference to the people who couldn’t bear the intensity, Moses veiled his face, obscuring the glory and shielding them from the shine they weren’t yet prepared to face. Since the people squinted in the light of lingering glory, it seems audacious to ask the Lord to shine directly on them. But that is precisely what the blessing of Numbers 6 asks: May His face shine on you. May the shine that you see refracted on Moses’ face light you up. May you experience directly the presence that you can now barely stand to glimpse indirectly. May the transcendent God, who dwells in unapproachable light, approach you in his full radiant glory. If I don’t sense a shock of terror at these words, then I have missed the meaning of the blessing. 

The blessing makes it brilliantly clear that God’s desire is for all his people to see and experience His shine. At Sinai only Moses was invited to be so near to the radiance. Only Moses experienced unmediated light. Only Moses was embraced by God’s glory. Only Moses spoke directly with God (Exodus 33:11). Then Moses mediated God’s light and word to the people. He stood between God and the nation, a bridge between the peak and the valley. But the blessing of Numbers 6 clearly communicates God’s desire for all of his people to relate to Him with the same familiarity that Moses enjoyed. 

The blessing anticipates an intimacy with God manifested in face-to-face relationship. This blessing leans forward, reaching ahead into a future grace not yet fully realized. God gives his people a glimpse of a horizon where they will encounter his shine directly. The blessing leans toward a day when the transcendent glory of God would be seen in the face of a man.