Vision of God of Exodus 24:10-11

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December 2, 2022

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What is the meaning of Exodus 24:10-11 – that Moses and the elders saw God when He descended upon Mount Sinai, and He had a sapphire brickwork under His feet? The next verse then states that the great ones of Israel stared at God while eating and drinking. If God has no physical form, how could the people possibly have seen Him?

The Aish Rabbi Replies

Thank you for raising the profound issue. The verses you cited are indeed packed with meaning and symbolism. They also raise many fundamental issues – many of which we will try to address below. First, let me quote the verses in full (Exodus 24:9-11; ArtScroll Stone Chumash translation):

Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel ascended. They saw the God of Israel, and under His feet was the likeness of sapphire brickwork, and it was like the essence of the heaven in purity. Against the great men of the Children of Israel, He did not stretch out His hand – they gazed at God, yet they ate and drank.

This occurred at the Revelation at Mount Sinai. Most of the nation was forbidden to come too close and saw only fire, clouds and smoke (see Exodus 19:16-19) – as well as hearing God’s voice directly. The honorable people mentioned here, however, were permitted to ascend closer to God and experienced the vision here described.

The first question these verses raise is what does it mean to see God? One of Judaism’s most fundamental beliefs is that God is incorporeal – He has no physical form. (This is the third of Maimonides’ 13 Principles of Faith.) If so, how could the elders have “seen” God – as some sort of humanlike being, under whose feet lay a sapphire brickwork?

Many of the commentators explain that what the elders saw was a prophetic vision. God does not truly have a physical form, but He revealed to the elders a mystical image, a visual representation of His Divinity. Additionally, the elders were not actually “seeing” this depiction, using their physical eyes. The experience was entirely spiritual and prophetic, occurring through a faculty beyond the five senses we use to interact with the physical world. (See Ibn Ezra, Ramban, Chizkuni. See also Talmud Brachos 17a and Rambam, Teshuva 6:2 which relate their experience to the rapturous spiritual connection man will have with God in the World to Come. See alternatively Onkelos, Targum Yonasan, Rabbeinu Bachya who explain that the elders saw God’s “glory” – not God directly, but a degree of His radiance. See similarly Ramban and Rashbam.)

With this in mind, it should be noted that although God has no true physical form, we do find in the Torah that whenever He presents a likeness of Himself to the prophets, He always appears in human form. See for example Ezekiel 1:26, where the prophet describes God as “a likeness like the appearance of a man” sitting upon “the likeness of a throne” (see also I Kings 22:19, Amos 9:1). In some sense the human form is the idealized form of life, and the nearest representation of God which could be depicted in the mind of man. In fact, part of the notion that man is created in the “image of God” is that his form is – on the physical level – the parallel of God’s divine essence (see Rashi to Genesis 1:27).

Yet we must not take such verses to mean this is what God actually looks like – or that a human being could actually see God at all. Indeed, as God Himself says to Moses “for no human can see Me and live” (Exodus 33:20). Seeing God, the Infinite Source, is not physically possible for finite humans, even if there were theoretically something for them to see.

The Midrash further sees significance in every aspect of the vision the elders were granted. Under God’s “feet” was a sapphire brickwork. Hashem placed this before Him during the bondage in Egypt, as a reminder of Israel’s difficult servitude (as much of their work involved making bricks; Vayikra Rabbah 23:8, Yerushalmi Sukkah 4:3, Targum Yonasan). The elders also saw “the essence of the heaven in purity.” This heavenly lucidity alludes to the absolute, unmitigated joy which pervaded the Heavens at the time of the Exodus. The elders were thus granted a small degree of understanding of the deep and inherent bond between God and the Jewish people.

The final major issue discussed by the commentators is whether or not the elders acted appropriately. The Torah describes them as gazing at God together with eating and drinking. It certainly seems out of place for human beings to stare at God (even at the indirect vision of Him they were granted), even eating and drinking while doing so. In fact, the verse makes a point of saying God did not “stretch out His hand” at them (a phrase usually used in the context of punishing or attacking) when they did so. They might have deserved divine punishment, but God seemingly refrained.

Two primary approaches are found in the commentators. The first is that they in fact did act inappropriately in staring at God. (Compare to Moshe, who when he received his first vision of God at the burning bush, hid his face out of fear (Exodus 3:6).) They further did so out of familiarity, eating and drinking while in God’s presence (or, in the language in the Midrash, acting casually as one does while eating). By rights, God should have “stretched His hand” against them to destroy them at that very moment, but He did not – so as not to mar the intense joy of the Revelation. Instead, He waited till later, slaying Nadab and Abihu when they offered the “strange fire” to God in the Tabernacle (see Leviticus 10:1-2) and the elders at a later event (see Numbers 11:1 with Rashi). (Sources: Tanchuma, Beha’aloscha 16; Targum Yonasan; Vayikra Rabbah 20:10; Shemos Rabbah 3:1; Rashi.)

Others, however, understand that the elders’ behavior was proper, even laudatory. God did not stretch out His hand against them because they did no wrong. Rather, due to the majesty of the day and the covenant then formed, they were granted an especially direct union with God, being able to peer more directly at Him than normally possible and permissible for human beings. Similarly, the eating and drinking the elders did was a part of the ecstasy of the experience. Some explain that they enjoyed a festive meal in celebration of the spiritual heights they had just achieved – possibly partaking of the sacrifices the lads of Israel had just offered (Exodus 24:5; Ibn Ezra, Ramban, Rashbam, R’ Bachya, Seforno, Chizkuni), while others explain that they rejoiced that God had accepted them or their sacrifices, and that their rapturous joy was akin to the physical pleasure of eating and drinking (Onkelos, Targum Yonasan). Or to state it deeper, their souls were fed and energized from closeness to God in the same sense physical food nourishes the body (R’ Bachya based on Vayikra Rabbah 20:10, Kli Yakar).

(Some alternatively explain that the elders’ eating was indication of an inferior prophetic experience. Unlike Moses, who subsisted for forty days and nights without food and drink while on Mount Sinai, the elders required physical sustenance to sustain them. Their spiritual sides had been perfected, but they still retained the physical aspects of their existence. See Ibn Ezra in name of R’ Yehuda HaLevi, R’ Bachya alternate exp., Chizkuni, Kli Yakar, Ha’amek Davar.)

Whether or not the elders acted in line, one final fascinating message emerges from these passages. The Torah compares the pleasure the elders received to the physical pleasure of eating and drinking. Now we would think the two are entirely incomparable. Eating is a lowly enjoyment of the body while connection with God is the highest possible spiritual pleasure. The two could not be further apart. And in a sense this is true. Maimonides writes that the pleasure of the World to Come (which too is the pleasure of closeness to God) has no physical counterpart, and all physical descriptions the Sages give for it are no more than allegory, not to be understood literally (Hil’ Teshuva 8:2). And he likewise has harsh words for those who imagine they would prefer (or profess to believe in) a “world to come” of physical delights (8:6).

Yet even so, there is something to be said for the Torah’s comparison – one which provides us with an important insight into heavenly reward. Although allegorically comparing closeness to God with physical pleasure utterly cheapens it, it does convey one thing – that closeness to God is an actual pleasure – one which can be felt – indeed, which completely immerses the righteous soul in rapturous pleasure. The reward for good is not some sort of moral maxim that virtue is its own reward – some hazy self-satisfied good feeling we’ll have for having been good little boys and girls. It is rather a concrete experience – an intense state of euphoria. We will be bathed in the Divine Presence, the ultimate pleasurable feeling penetrating our beings to their very core. Thus, although physical descriptions cannot possible do it justice, they do convey that the afterlife is no mere emotional attitude, some smug sense of self-satisfaction. It is rather the ultimate experience of existence: closeness to God. And it will be bliss.

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