And I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back: but my face shall not be seen.
All Commentaries on Exodus 33:23 Go To Exodus 33
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
See my back parts. The Lord, by his angel, usually spoke to Moses in the pillar of the cloud, so that he could not see the glory of Him that spoke familiarly with him. In the vision here mentioned, he was allowed to see something of Him, in an assumed corporeal form: not in the face, the rays of which were too bright for mortal eye to bear, but to view Him as it were behind, when his face was turned from him. (Challoner)
Thus our curiosity is repressed. (Du Hamel)
Servius observes, on Virgil, that the "gods mostly declare themselves by suddenly disappearing. They will not show their faces. "(Iliad. N. Grotius)
The rock was Christ, (Du Hamel) in whose sacred humanity we discern, at a distance, the majesty of God. (St. Augustine, q. 154.) Moses saw the hinder parts of God, or what should happen to Jesus Christ in the latter days of the synagogue. (Origen, hom. 12.) By this wonderful vision, God was pleased to declare that he was appeased. (Haydock)
