There are not many studies of the great cloud that protected the Hebrew people during the years of their desert wanderings. I think that is surprising, and for two reasons. It was a striking phenomenon. There has never been anything like it in history before or since. And not only was it striking, it’s mentioned many times in the Bible. There are fifty-eight references to it in the Bible, scattered across ten different books. It appears more often than place names like Bethlehem and Nazareth, or the names of Herod, Joseph, Mary, Cain, Abel and Satan. 

In this revelation, when God explains more fully to Moses what His name really means, He communicates what we call His communicable attributes, that is, the attributes of God the God can communicate or share with us because He has made us in His image. These are things like compassion, grace, slowness to anger, love, and faithfulness (Ex. 34:6), as well as goodness and mercy (Ex. 33:19).

The third way in which we use that word “know” is by experience. You can say, “I really know Philadelphia because I have lived there all my life.” You can talk about a person that way. You can say, “I really know so-and-so because we worked together for thirty years and I know how she functions.” That’s knowledge by experience, which is a far greater and far more important kind of knowledge than mere awareness. We talk about knowing God—that is certainly what we want to achieve—not merely to know there is a God or merely to be able to talk about God, however accurate we may be, but actually to know God by experience, that is, to experience God for ourselves. 

Earlier, we were talking about the ironies of the story. On the preceding day, before Moses had come down the mountain, God had made that great offer to him. He had said to Moses that He was going to destroy the people, save Moses, and make a new nation of him. Moses went down the mountain, and he met with the people. He realized that he still loved them in spite of their sin. Then, Moses goes back up the mountain, and makes a powerful intercession for the people. He asks God to save the people and destroy him. As far as you and I know, there’s never been a greater offer made by any human being in all of the course of history.

Moses began to plead for the people, and he had two very impressive arguments. First of all he said to God, “What will the Egyptians say if you destroy your people? What they’ll say is this, ‘It was with evil intent that you brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth.’ Therefore turn from your fierce anger, and relent and don’t bring this disaster on the people.” If God were to destroy the people, the Egyptians will win after all. No one wanted the Egyptians to win.