Exodus chapter 24

9 Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up

10 and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself.

11 But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

Isn't is awesome how you can read verses in the bible and see something different each time? I've only just noticed that when Moses, Aaron and the others went up the mountain, they saw God and yet I've read this chapter many times. But just imagine that, they actually saw God and they lived to tell the tale which makes it all the more surprising that Aaron and the others went along with making the golden calf in chapter 32.

But going back to seeing God, what a difference from later on, when Isaiah saw God in Isaiah

Chapter 6:

Woe to me! I cried. I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.

Yet here, they are eating and drinking before the Lord! This is not some face to face encounter, with the elders talking to God, but it impressed on them that He was real, that He existed, and that He would be with them. It meant (or it should have meant) that they trusted in God, and that they would believe Moses when God spoke through him. Eating before God was to give them a sense of fellowship with God. I wonder whether God ate as well (does God eat? I mean, if He is spirit, then presumably He doesn't?).

I can't help wonder how come the men saw all this and then a short while later, made a golden calf because they thought Moses had abandoned them. But then I guess it's like Christians who later renounce their faith, and go on to become Muslims, Buddhists, atheists and so on. Walking with God is a daily thing, something you have to approach fresh each and every day and not let the cares and worries of this world distract you from spending time with God. Maybe the men went back down again and forgot all about this, maybe they told everyone, maybe they kept revisiting it in their minds, talking to God about it in prayer, or maybe they let the cares and worries of caring for the people of Israel overwhelm them.