Exodus 33:20
Hebrew Bible
19 And the Lord said, “I will make all my goodness pass before your face, and I will proclaim the Lord by name before you; I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious; I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.” 20 But he added, “You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live.” 21 The Lord said, “Here is a place by me; you will station yourself on a rock.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
1 Enoch 14:20
Pseudepigrapha
18 And from underneath the throne came streams of flaming fire so that I could not look upon it. 19 And the Great Glory sat on it, and His garment shone more brightly than the sun and was whiter than any snow. 20 None of the angels could enter and could behold His face because of the magnificence and glory and no flesh could behold Him. 21 The flaming fire was all around Him, and a great fire stood before Him, and no one around could draw near Him: ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him, yet He needed no counselor.
Date: 200-50 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
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Notes and References
"... The description appears to intentionally take readers to the idea that no one could behold the unveiled, unfiltered presence of God. In Exodus 33:20, this privilege was denied to Moses. In Isaiah 6, the seraphim cover their faces in God’s presence (Isaiah 6:2). I say “unveiled, unfiltered” because God does appear to humans as a man in the Old Testament, most often as the Angel of Yahweh, where no indication is given that the conversations are not face to face (Genesis 18; 32:22–32; compare Genesis 48:15–16) ..."
Heiser, Michael S.
A Companion to the Book of Enoch: A Reader’s Commentary, Vol. 1
(p. 152) Defender Publishing, 2019
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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