Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 351 · December 17
The Tent Outside
“And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.”
How much of what you ask for is safe to be given? Moses asked three things in this chapter, on the far side of the golden calf, with God saying he would send an angel and stay behind. Two were granted; the third was refused with a concession attached, and the refusal came from the mouth that had been speaking to him as a man speaks to his friend.
Pray it after him, then, and keep his order. Shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, because I have been told to move this crowd and not told who is coming. This nation is thy people, as you said, and not mine; I did not make them and I cannot carry them. If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence, and I would rather stay where I am with you than arrive anywhere without you. Then the one that went too far: I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. And the answer, which was no. Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. What he got was a cleft in a rock, a hand over him while the glory went past, and a look at the back of it.
One sentence was given him before he asked for anything he could not have. My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. That is the promise on the page, made to a man leading people who had just been dancing round a calf, with no condition attached about the quality of the crowd.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 351 is Mountains Around Jerusalem (Psalm 125:2).