Exodus 33:7-11

The tent referred to here cannot be the tabernacle since the Israelites had not yet built it. It must have been a smaller tent used as a meeting place for Moses, the people, and God over which the pillar of cloud stood. This tent served some of the functions of the tabernacle that later replaced it. Moses now moved this tent outside the camp to symbolize the removal of God’s presence from the people’s midst. [Note: See Henry Mowvley, "John 1:14-18 in the light of Exodus 33:7-34:35," The Expository Times 95:5 (February 1984):135-37.]

Moses’ personal communion with God was uncommonly intimate (Exodus 33:11; cf. Numbers 12:6-8). One writer believed that the cloud was Jesus. [Note: Ronald B. Allen, "The Pillar of the Cloud," Bibliotheca Sacra 153:612 (October-December 1996):393.] "Face to face" is an idiom that communicates intimacy, not a theophany. [Note: Durham, p. 443.]