In Exodus 33:1, God tells Israel to get up and go on - that He would send an angel; but He was not going to go with them. Well, this really shook Moses up, and Moses was really feeling down in the dumps regarding what had occurred. We are going to pick up the story here in verse 12.
He is telling Moses, I know you inside and out. I know you intimately. I'm not just acquainted with you, Moses. I know everything about you. And so Moses jumped at that.
God obliged to Moses' request; but how did He do it? How did He show Moses His glory? He preached him a sermon on His name! I might change that and say, He preached him a sermon on the third commandment. He expounded before Moses. And I say expounded here because I feel certain that all that we have is just the barest evidence of what God said - the notes, as it were, of what He talked about more fully. I am sure that He preached him a sermon on eleven names of God: Yhwh, El, the Merciful Being, the Gracious One, the Longsuffering One, the Mighty One, the Bountiful One, the True One, the Preserver of Bountifulness, He who bears away iniquity, and He who visits iniquity.
What He did before Moses was rehearse His nature. And that was so encouraging to Moses, because he knew then that they were not abandoned - that He would be with him - because of what He is (what God was, and what God is). Not because Israel deserved in any way, shape, or form for God to be with them, because every single one of them deserved to be dead! But because God is God, He would continue through with His purpose; and these names exemplified what He would be doing.
So God did not give Moses a vision of His majesty and power, but of His love, of His way of relating to His creation. The glory of God is the manifestation of His nature, of His character, of His way of relating to His creation - especially to His children. His names are signposts of His nature. They are reminders to you and me of what we can expect Him to do. That is why Moses was so encouraged.
