How did Moses and others see God since He is pure spirit?

Dear Father Angelo,

Could you explain this passage from the Bible to me?

“ They beheld the God of Israel. Under his feet there appeared to be sapphire tilework, as clear as the sky itself. Yet he did not smite these chosen Israelites. After gazing on God, they could still eat and drink.” (Exodus 24:10).

Thank you!

Rosa

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Priest’s answer

Dear Rosa,

1. the passage you mentioned is introduced like this at the beginning of the 24th chapter of Exodus: “Moses himself was told, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, with Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel”. (Exodus 24:1).

In v.10 we read what you reported: “They beheld the God of Israel.…”.

How could they see him if God is pure spirit and since our physical eyes can only see material realities?

2. According to Sacred Scripture, the solution is quite simple: God showed himself in human form, just as God showed himself in human form to our ancestors when he was “moving about in the garden at the breezy time of the day,” (Gen 3:8).

“Moving about”: therefore in human form.

3. Marco Sales, commenting on the words of Exodus: “They saw the God of Israel” writes: “Scripture does not indicate in what form God showed himself, indeed in Deuteronomy 4:15 it is said that God did not show himself in any specific image.

Perhaps this happened so as not to give the people the opportunity to make images of Yahweh.

It may be that God presented himself as a great light, but this is uncertain.

Some, however, refer the words of Deuteronomy to the multitude and think that God appeared in human form”. T-N

4. We can conjecture that this apparition of God was of the same tenor as the apparition to Isaiah: “In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. Seraphim were stationed above” (Is 6:1-2).

Of this vision the same Father Sales writes: “It is the only vision properly speaking that is found in the book of Isaiah. The prophet is allowed to contemplate not the divine essence, the vision of which is not possible for any mortal (cf. Jn, 18: “No one has ever seen God”), but a sensible representation of God”.

With the addition in the case of Isaiah that God appeared “in the guise of an oriental monarch splendidly dressed, surrounded by his most intimate ministers in the act of receiving their homage”. T-N

5. Furthermore, in Isaiah it is clearly stated that God was seen “seated on a throne, high and lifted up”. This makes it clear, again according to Marco Sales, that it would have been a vision that occurred in the internal senses, in the imagination: “Evidently the prophet saw the glory of God not with the eyes of the body but in ecstasy, in a vision that strikes the internal senses”.

Likewise, John saw God in the Apocalypse (see Rev 4:2 ff).

Saint Augustine would say it was a vision of the second heaven.

6. While those who saw him in the Exodus presumably saw him with their eyes, therefore with a vision of the first heaven or first degree.

7. However, I believe that Marco Sales’ hypothesis is quite plausible: “It may be that God presented himself as a great light, but the thing is uncertain”.

Although it cannot be stated with certainty.

With the hope of being able to see God in the beatific vision, which is proper to heaven, I bless you and remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo

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