Good
Parents, According to the LORD God – Part 5
Ruy Miranda (He is not a religious person)
 Bible Quotes Science Info
Nowadays, there is a great deal of controversy surrounding the issue of
how to raise children. The article that follows, as well as others
found in the archive index of this site, arise from the
biblical concept of God as Father. As God can only be thought of as
being a good Father, His behavior toward His children should serve as a
model for those who wish to be good parents. It will show how God acted
and then extrapolate this conduct for human parents, without making
value judgments. It should be noted that this series of articles is
confined to Old Testament passages so as to reach both Jewish and
Christian readers.
Book of Exodus and Parents' Nakedness
Should parents show their genital
organs to their children? This is a controversial subject currently being debated in the areas of education and personality
development and the answer, according to a text in
the Book of Exodus, is no. 'No' even when the child
entreats the parents to do so, much the way Moses entreated
God in a greatly intimate situation, as told in chapter 33.
Moses and God: Prior Events
Moses had reached an agreement
with the Pharaoh of Egypt so that the descendants of Israel
would be free to leave the land where they had lived
as slaves. After crossing the Red Sea, when
the power of God caused the waters to part so that His chosen
people could pass and then to close again, killing the soldiers
of the Pharaoh's pursuing army, the Israelites endured
a long, hard journey through the desert as they traveled to
the Promised Land. Moses continued to lead them,
receiving very specific instructions from God, as had occurred
in Egypt.
There in the desert, Moses received guidelines on how to get
along with his people, instructions as to the construction
of sacred symbols and how to observe celebrations in the name
of the LORD God. Consequently, a strong and intense
level of contact developed between God and Moses.
This relationship reached a degree of such intimacy that one
day Moses made an unusual, even daring, request of
God. Later on, this request will be explained, but
for now, we're interested in only a part of the answer he
received.
Only the Back
God's lengthy answer to the
request ended with the information that Moses could only see
His back.
"Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back ..."
God is a Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and, as such, it isn't logical
to expect Him to dress like a person unless He expressly showed
Himself as a human being. On those occasions when God presented
Himself as such, this was explicitly stated, as when
He appeared
to Abraham the day before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,
when He even partook of food. But, in this passage
from the Book of Exodus, He let it be known that Moses saw
Him from the back and not from the front. The
text does not specifically use the word "front."
Rather, it refers to the LORD's face. The
cited verse (verse 23) reads as follows:
"Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back;
but My face shall not be seen."
It is important to observe that God made it clear that Moses
saw His back, which is to say, His back parts. He did not
refer to the nape of His neck or the back of His head, in
contraposition to His face. Thus, it is evident that He was
not speaking of face and nape or face and back of the head. He spoke of the front and the back parts.
As two friends - Moses had such easy access
to the LORD that, in the same chapter of Exodus,
in the previous verse (verse 11), the description of their
encounters was compared to the meeting between two friends.
"So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man
speaks to his friend ..."
The expression 'face to face' is found in
the four translations of the Book of Exodus that were consulted,
including the King James Version. There is not doubt
that Moses saw the face of God on those occasions,
even if He presented Himself as a man. Furthermore, each time
Moses walked away from these encounters, his own face was
radiant. Consequently, there is an apparent contradiction
between verses 11 and 23. In the latter, Moses could
not see the face of God, whereas in the former, he saw it
with considerable frequency.
Face or Front?
This contradiction is truly apparent
and begins to disappear upon a detailed examination
of a longer passage, from verse 18 to verse 23. This
passage begins with a request from Moses:
"And he said, 'Please, show me Your glory.'"
God gives a lengthy answer. He tells Moses
that He will bestow His goodness upon him, that He will bestow
His goodness and mercy upon those He judges worthy, and then
adds the following:
"You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and
live."
First, Moses and God speak 'face to face' and now
Moses is told that he cannot see the LORD's face. The
seeming discord begins to dissolve a little when one understands
that God is not refusing to show His face, but rather
His front. Still in response to the entreaty, the
LORD says that Moses will stand upon a rock so that he may
be close to Him. The answer then continues:
"So, it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will
put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with
My hand while I pass by."
"Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My
back; but My face shall not be seen."
To summarize:
--Moses and God talk to each other face to face.
--Moses asks to see the glory of the LORD.
--God answers that He may only be seen from the back.
The noun 'glory,' in the sense of greatness, splendor
and magnificence, is inadequate for understanding the text. Moses could have asked to see the splendor of God and
the LORD could have answered that only His back could be seen
after His splendor passes by. This doesn't make sense, does
it? However, if we consider that the original term
used in Hebrew means 'glory,' 'liver,' and 'entrails,'
he might have been referring to the genitalia or the frontal
parts.
If we replace 'glory' with the other two nouns, Moses'
question would look like this:
"And he said: 'Show me Your liver.'"
It still doesn't make sense, does it?
"And he said: 'Please show my Your entrails.'"
Still doesn't sound right, wouldn't you agree?
On the other hand, considering that Moses spoke face to face
with God on a regular basis, the 'face' in this part
of the dialogue makes sense if it's also considered as 'front'.
"Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back;
but My front shall not be seen."
Another Version of the Dialogue
We could put this intimacy
between Moses and the LORD into words that make sense in relation
to the text. The main verses would look like this:
"And he said, 'Please show me Your front.'"
"You cannot see My front; for no man shall
see Me, and live."
"So, it shall be, while My front passes
by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will
cover you with My hand while I pass by."
"Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back;
but My front shall not be seen."
(The words 'front,' 'liver,' and 'entrails' are shown in bold
letters to indicate that they are replacing words from the
Exodus text.)
Good Parents
With respect to the issue of raising
children and the controversy surrounding the degree of intimacy
that parents should allow, especially in terms of showing
their genital organs, the Exodus text clearly points to the
answer that was given at the beginning of this article. Parents
should not stand naked before their children, even when they
are asked to do so, such as when Moses asked God, the Father,
and his request was not granted.
February, 2005
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