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
Richard Challoner
AD 1781
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.