Passage

Exodus 33.20

Book: Exodus · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

18. And he said, Show me, I pray thee, thy glory. 19. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and will proclaim the name of Jehovah before thee; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

20. And he said, Thou canst not see my face; for man shall not see me and live.

And Jehovah said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock: 22. and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand until I have passed by: (Exodus 33:18-22, ASV)

WEB

18. He said, “Please show me your glory.” 19. He said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim Yahweh’s name before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”

20. He said, “You cannot see my face, for man may not see me and live.”

Yahweh also said, “Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand on the rock. 22. It will happen, while my glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; (Exodus 33:18-22, WEB)

KJV

18. And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. 19. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.

20. And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.

And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: 22. And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: (Exodus 33:18-22, KJV)

YLT

18. And he saith, 'Shew me, I pray Thee, Thine honour;' 19. and He saith, 'I cause all My goodness to pass before thy face, and have called concerning the Name of Jehovah before thee, and favoured him whom I favour, and loved him whom I love.'

20. He saith also, 'Thou art unable to see My face, for man doth not see Me, and live;'

Jehovah also saith, 'Lo, a place [is] by Me, and thou hast stood on the rock, 22. and it hath come to pass, in the passing by of Mine honour, that I have set thee in a cleft of the rock, and spread out My hands over thee, until My passing by, (Exodus 33:18-22, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: the LORD, answering Moses' request to be shown His glory
Audience: Moses alone, at the tent of meeting outside the camp
Location: Sinai, in the cleft of the rock on the mountain
Time period: during the covenant renewal following the golden-calf apostasy, Exodus 32 to 34

Theological reading

The verse that sets the terms for every later claim about seeing God. Moses has asked to be shown the divine glory (kavod), and the answer grants part and refuses part: goodness will pass before him, the name will be proclaimed, but the face will not be seen, "for no man can see Me and live."

The refusal is not arbitrary and it is not about divine reticence. The stated reason is a statement about the creature: seeing is fatal, not forbidden. What follows in verses 21 to 23 is an accommodation, the cleft in the rock, the covering hand, the back rather than the face. God does not simply decline; He arranges a way for as much as can be borne to be borne.

The passage sits in tension with texts that appear to grant exactly what it withholds. Exodus 24:10 says the elders "saw the God of Israel." Exodus 33:11 says the LORD spoke to Moses "face to face, as a man speaks to his friend," nine verses before this refusal. Genesis 32:30 has Jacob say he has seen God face to face and his life has been preserved. The standard resolutions are that panim ("face") functions idiomatically for direct address in some of these, that the visions are mediated rather than unmediated, or that what is refused is the unveiled essence rather than any manifestation at all. The tension is real and the codex does not paper over it.

Where the New Testament takes it. John 1:18 restates the denial in its strongest form and then resolves it Christologically: no one has seen God at any time, and the only begotten has explained Him. The resolution is not that the prohibition was lifted but that the accommodation was completed. John 1:14 uses theaomai, sustained beholding, for what was seen in the incarnate Son, which is exactly the verb a writer picks when claiming that the thing Israel could not look at was looked at.

The eschatological reversal is promised rather than denied: Matthew 5:8 to the pure in heart, 1 Corinthians 13:12 face to face, Revelation 22:4 they shall see His face. The biblical arc runs from a fatal sight, through a mediated one, to a promised one.

Apologetic use, with a caution. The verse is often deployed against naive anthropomorphism, and it does that work well. It should not be deployed to prove divine incorporeality by itself, since the argument in context is about survivability rather than about whether God has a body. The stronger case for incorporeality runs through Divine Simplicity and the aniconic commands, not through this verse alone.

Key words

panim (H6440), face, presence. The word carries both "face" and "presence" across its range, which is why the same term can be denied here and granted at Exodus 33:11 without simple contradiction.
kavod (H3519), glory, weight. What Moses asked to see; see H3519 - kavod.
ra'ah (H7200), to see, the ordinary verb of visual perception, here in the negated form that governs the whole passage.
H0120 - adam, adam (Strong's H120). Also appears in: Genesis 1.26, Genesis 1.27, Genesis 2.7.

Cross-references

John 1:18, the New Testament restatement of the denial, and its Christological resolution
John 1:14, what was beheld in the incarnate Son
Matthew 5:8, the eschatological promise reversing the refusal
1 Corinthians 13:12, now dimly, then face to face
Revelation 22:4, the consummation of the promise
Isaiah 6:5, the prophets reaction on seeing the LORD, which assumes this verses logic
G3708 - horao, the Greek verb the Septuagint and the New Testament use across this theme

Quoted in

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Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.