deity.65 Beyond this cultural-religious background, the narrative context also helps us discern the function of the establishment of the calf. Moses has functioned previously throughout the narrative as the mediator, that is, as representative of the unity of God and Israel before both. He has nonetheless disappeared and therefore Israel is in need of a new mediator, a “replacement” of Moses as Rolf Rendtorff describes the situation.66 Such a mediator must represent and mediate the presence of the deity to them. Hence, after having seen the luminous hypostatized glory of the Lord, they construct a golden calf, whose luminosity will imitate the divine kavod. They choose the image of the calf because their view of YHWH is very likely similar to that of the Canaanite’s view of El.67 Jethro states earlier in the narrative: “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods” (Exod 18:11, emphasis added). Statements like this suggest that they thought of YHWH as simply the highest God among the gods, much like El. Such a god would, like El, need a fitting mediatorial image that would reflect its power.
Trading an image for God himself makes sense in the logic of sinful Israel. As we have seen, Israel cannot stand the real presence of YHWH even when it is concealed. God proves uncontrollable to them when he speaks his law (19–20). Similarly, God’s unilateral self-giving by his descent into the cult (which as we will see serves as a medium for the giving of his holiness to Israel) also proves that God cannot be manipulated. Rather, he graciously gives himself without human cooperation or merit (40). An imitation god keeps God at a safe distance or reduces God to one object among others. As a result, Israel’s own conceit and self-justification can continue unabated.68
If we interpret the Israelites’ action in this manner, then it is easy to view the next few chapters as functioning to reestablish the sole mediatorship of Moses. After the apostasy has been suppressed and Moses again takes control of the community, we are told that the prophet again communes with YHWH. He asks YHWH for a means to confirm his promise of grace and Moses’s mediatorship: “Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” (Exod 33:16). YHWH insists that he will bless the people. Moses asks that he be given a direct vision of the divine kavod: “Please show me your glory” (Exod 33:18). God tells him that he cannot do this directly, but that his “Name” (that is, his glorious presence) will pass before him as he stands in a cleft of a rock (v. 22).69 Moses then sees (however indirectly) the divine kavod as YHWH proclaims his own glory. He is then instructed to chisel out the words of the law which he has previously destroyed and deliver them again to Israel. When he comes down from the mountain, he frightens the people because his face shines with the glory of the Lord (34:29–30). He must therefore cover his face as he reads the law to them. In contrast to the calf, Moses’s face contains the real presence of YHWH and not an image. Martin Noth notes that (particularly in Ancient Egypt) the assumption of a face-covering after communion with a deity was a usual practice of the priestly caste. It effectively meant that “the priest assumes the ‘face’ of his deity and identifies himself with him.”70 Thomas Dozeman observes that although the name Moses only technically means “son,” its use in other Egyptian names is typically integrated with a larger name of a god.71 Therefore implicitly the name might be construed as meaning “divine son.” This fact taken together with his luminous face suggests that Moses prefigures the glory incarnation of the true divine Son as manifested on the mountain of transfiguration (Matt 17:1–9, Mark 9:2–8, Luke 9:28–36).
Whereas the false mediator of the calf possessed a golden luminosity that imitated the divine kavod, Moses the true mediator possesses the true glory of God: “One might say that the transfigured Moses, representative of YHWH, symbolized the presence of YHWH himself among Israel.”72 This glory is hidden glory, since he must cover his face when reading the law. Furthermore, Moses’s action parallels the revelation of Exodus chapter 20 in that he conceals the divine glory in the same manner that YHWH did earlier. His mediation of the glorious presence is discerned by hearing and not by vision.
Lastly, it should be observed that Moses’s glorious appearance seems to be connected with the concept of humanity we find in Genesis 1–3 and Israel in Exodus 19. He is the true image of God, because he is a human being and not an animal. As Genesis 1 teaches, it is humans and not animals (in contradistinction to the cultures surrounding Israel) that are the image of the deity (1:27–28).73 He is also the true Israel because he has received the Word of the Lord. This is something that Israel ultimately could not do. If we also take the second connotation of kavod as meaning honor and personal glory, we can also observe that Moses fulfills the true liturgical vocation of Israel as a priestly nation to reflect the divine glory, as his doxology on the mountain demonstrates. His doxology is the giving of personal glory to YHWH in the form of praise. This interpretation is further bolstered by the fact that Moses is reported to have proclaimed cultic regulations and the pattern for the construction of the tabernacle in this state of luminosity, that is, regulations ordering the worship or the giving of honor to the true God (Exod 35–40).
Beyond being the representative of God and Israel before Israel, Moses also takes up the function of representing God and Israel before God. Returning again to the activity of Moses on Sinai before his reception of divine glory, we are told that YHWH informs Moses of the golden calf apostasy going on in the camp. God proposes to Moses that he annihilate the Israelites and make Moses into a great nation (32:10). Moses pleads with God to not destroy the Israelites and to “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self” (32:13, emphasis added). Here Moses stands before YHWH as both a representative of Israel, pleading with God concerning the sin of the people and as God before God by wielding God’s own Word of grace against his Word of judgment. In this, he becomes a type of Christ’s self-offering to and advocacy before the Father. After going down from the mountain and disrupting the apostasy, Moses again returns to the Lord and in a supreme act of mediation, offers his own life as a sin offering (32:31–32). This atoning mediation fails though because God declares in his anger that those who have sinned against him will pay with their own lives (v. 34). Moses shows himself to be inferior to Christ, whose self-offering was accepted by the Father. Neither is Moses himself ultimately saved from condemnation. According to Numbers, he is not allowed to enter the Promised Land because of an incident in which he abuses his role as mediator (Num 20:1–13). Much as the law cannot bring humanity into the rest of redemption (vita passive), Moses, the mediator of law, could not bring Israel into God’s rest (Heb 2:16–19).
In subsequent Israelite history, prophetic mediatorship was also unsuccessful. In spite of this, we find the promise of the eschatological fulfillment of prophetic mediatorship throughout the Old Testament. In the farewell address of Deuteronomy 18, Moses prophesies of the coming of a prophet like himself, in whose mouth God will place his words (18:18). The book of Deuteronomy and the so-called Deuteronomistic history emphasize that God is present in his Word and in his Name, and therefore the implication is that this prophet will mediate the divine presence.74 It also follows that this prophet must be greater than Moses and therefore must mediate the divine presence in an even greater manner than he did. If he were not greater, then Moses’s mediation would have sufficed. Taking this reasoning one step further, we must posit that the coming of this prophet represents the coming of God himself. If Moses spoke with God “face to face” (Exod 33:11) and a prophet is measured by his closeness to God and his ability to mediate the divine (Num 12:6–8), then the only possibility for a greater revelation of God would be the coming of God himself.
Isaiah understands this coming of a prophet like Moses to be
