The writers of the Bible often use the anatomy of God to describe aspects of His nature and character, e.g., when they speak about "the face of God," "the arm of the Lord," or the "hand of God," etc.

What exactly do these expressions mean?

In the past, I have written about the differences between the Hebrew mindset of the writers of the Bible and the Greek mindset that most of us have today because of our educational systems which were designed after the model of the ancient Greeks. Hebrew thought is more concerned with the "function" of an object, i.e., what does it do? Greek thought is more interested with the "form" of an object, i.e., what it is.

Therefore, when reading Scripture written by the hand of the Hebrews, we need to pop into their heads to extract the fuller meanings of words and concepts that were intended when they were written. To really get a grasp of Scripture, we need to be thinking like the writers.

In this Israel Teaching Letter, I want us to look at the "face of God," which is used in many passages throughout the Bible. To understand its meaning, we have to move away from the "what is it?" Greek-minded, literal meaning of one's face as simply the arrangement of one's eyes, nose and mouth. We need to consider the way one uses his face from the context of ancient history, considering "what does it do?" In other words, how was the face or facial expressions used to bless or reject a person at the time when the Bible was written? Then, we need to see how the writers of the Bible used this imagery to express the nature of God so that we can understand more about the Lord and our relationship to Him.

The Hebrew word for face is panim, which not only means "face," but is also used in the Bible for "presence." The shewbread of Exodus 25:30, called the Bread of Presence, is written as Lechem HaPanim, literally the Bread of the Face. In other words, this was the bread that stood in the Presence, or before the face of the Lord. In Israel, the Ministry of Interior is called the Misrad HaPanim, or Office of the Presence. Literally, this is the government office that keeps a record of all citizens and new immigrants, as well as tourists and those wanting to extend their visas, or their presence, in the Land of Israel.

"The Lord Make His Face Shine Upon You"

One of the most repeated Scriptures about the "face of God" is from the Aaronic Benediction, which is repeated often at the close of many church and synagogue services. In this blessing, the one giving the blessing invokes that God would make "His face" to shine upon those receiving the blessing.

This phrase, "the Lord make His face to shine upon you," is an interesting Hebraic concept. It means to turn, to turn towards you, to turn around, to turn back, to pay attention again.

But, why God's face and not another part of His anatomy?

Let's take a look at the biblical uses of this image, the FACE.

One's "face" identifies who a person is. When you see a face, you know exactly who it is. Sometimes you can tell who a person is by the back of their head, their hairline, the kind of clothes they wear or how they walk and so on. But you only truly know who someone is when they turn around and look at you. Otherwise you could make a mistake. Sometimes identical twins are a little tough to identify, even if you can see their faces. But even at those times, a careful study of their faces will tell you who it is, because it reflects what's inside. It reflects the person, it identifies the person.

Our face has something to do with who we are when it comes to our countenance. It reveals our emotions, our moods, our dispositions and a reflection of what is going on in inside of us. Proverbs says, "A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance" (15:13). Also, "Cain was very angry and his countenance fell" (Gen. 38:15). When you have a hard face, your kids and spouses will tell you, right? "You've got that face. Don't look at me like that. Don't stare at me like that," they will tell you.

So from our face, one can tell a lot about what is going on inside. A person's face can be shining when they are happy, or they can be shamefaced when they have done wrong. One can have an evil or flaming face, an angry face. Or, one can have a sweet face, revealing inner innocence and lack of guile. In Scripture, "lifting up one's face" (Job 11:15) indicates that one has nothing to hide and there is no shame nor guile in him.

On the other hand, the Bible also talks about "hiding one's face," which means to turn away from someone, either in shame (on the part of the sinner) or disgust (on the part of God who cannot be in the presence of sin). The psalmist, realizing his sin has alienated God, says, "Hide not Your face far from me: put not Your servant away in anger..."(Ps. 27:9). Meanwhile, feeling the pain of his oppressor, the psalmist pleads with God to intervene, when he says, "How long will You forget me O Lord? Forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?" (Ps. 13:1).

Then, in Psalms 10:11, it speaks of the wicked man who oppresses the poor and stupidly thinks that God is not watching him: "He has said in his heart, 'God has forgotten: He hides His face; He will never see it.'" To harden the face is to promise no appeal (Prov. 21:29). Determination was evident when Yeshua (Jesus) "set his face" to go to Jerusalem (Lk. 9:51). Calamity is assured when the face of God was set against a people (Jer. 44:11).

To raise your face is to look up. God often says to us, "Look up. Don't look down. Look Me square in the face." He tells Job, "Get up off the ground and look at Me now. You've been railing against Me. You've been bellyaching about talking to Me. So, now talk to Me." God says to Job, "Look at Me." Well, what is it that God wants to look at? God wants to see Job's face, as He wants to see each of our faces to see what is going on inside of us.

You may have said the same thing to your kids or a friend. You say, "Look me right in the eye," and they get all nervous if they have done something wrong and say, "I don't want to look you in the eye." Why don't they want to look at us? Because, as you look in someone's face, you see in their eyes, you see in their heart, and you just know.

Often when talking to a close friend, without revealing their innermost thoughts, you can discern the problem. Then, they may say, "How did you know?" And you answer, "Well, I looked at your face."

People can tell when we are worrying, thinking, or even lying by the look on our face. Once you learn someone's face, it is a dead giveaway of their emotions within. They can't hide it from you. You can tell when someone is happy, angry, guilty, or content just by looking at their facial expressions.

God did not want us to make any mistake about His intentions and wanted us to look right into His heart, so decided to show us "His face." He was not going to "hide" His face - His innermost being and thoughts - from us.

In the Aaronic Benediction, the Lord says to us, "The LORD make His face to shine on you. "Why do I want His face to shine on me? Well, the Bible says a lot about "shine." Shining has to do with becoming light, illuminating like daybreak when the brightness of the sun pierces the darkness. The word for shine used in this blessing has to do with luminescence, as when light glows through from within, as an inner light.

In the Bible, light is the essence of God's presence. When there is light, most of the time God is there; and when there is His brilliant radiance, everybody falls at His brightness. When the angels come, there is always light. When God reveals Himself, there is this light, because "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." (I Jn. 1:5). Now, it is hard to comprehend, because we know of light and darkness. But in God there is no darkness. He is always light. We may think, boy, He is awake all the time; He can never go to sleep! That's right. "He who watches over you will not sleep" (Ps. 121:3 ), because He is always aware, and He is always present.

We know also that if people truly come into His presence, they sometimes go away showing something supernatural has happened to them. Moses is a good example. The presence of God changed Moses' physical appearance so much that when he came down from the mountain, the people said, "Put a sack on your head because we can't look at you. Cover your face. Because you reflect so strongly the light of God, we don't want to even be in your presence, Moses." When you think about it, when we are in the presence of God, there is a sense of great light.

This idea of shining - "The LORD make His face to shine upon you" - also has something to do with divine approval. In His presence we have God's approval and He is pleased with who we are and what we are and what's been going on. That which is dross should burn away in His presence.

In Daniel 9, Daniel implores the Lord to lift up His face and shine on His sanctuary and reverse the desolate condition of Jerusalem. He says, "Lord, shine on Jerusalem again. Shine Your face on Jerusalem. Show Your face in the midst of this situation." So when you recite this Aaronic Benediction, "The LORD make His face to shine on you," you are asking God to come and bring His very presence, because where God is, there is light. Light symbolizes life and prosperity. To see the light is to be born - the light of life - to be alive.

"The LORD make His face to shine on you" - is also to light you up, to bring understanding. It is associated with life, salvation, with wisdom and understanding. Look up the word "light," and you will find numerous examples of this, e.g. God will give "light to the nations," "The LORD is my light and my salvation." Where there is light, there is the LORD.

"The Lord Lift Up His Face (countenance) Upon You."

Another phrase in the Aaronic Benediction is "the Lord lift up His face (countenance) upon you." The Lord lifting up His face or countenance on us is the image of Him lifting up His face or His presence upon us, and in this case, to give us His peace - His shalom.

Typically in Hebrew, to indicate a greater portion of something, a Hebrew word is often doubled for emphasis, e.g. gadol, gadol, which literally means, "big, big," as a way of saying "the biggest." So, in this Aaronic blessing, to reuse the imagery of God's face is to really make a emphatic point that His presence is with us - literally "in our face."

The literalness of this translation obscures the force of the Hebrew and fails to convey the imagery related to the court of a king. In biblical idiom, to seek the face is to desire an audience (Ps. 104:4). The king shows favor to his subjects by giving them an audience or access to "the light of his face," whereas his disfavor is expressed by his "hiding" his face from them (Ps. 13:1).

In ancient Egypt, subjects who were called into the audience of the Pharoah were not even to look into his face unless he verbally gave them permission to do so. Even then, the king who was on his throne would look down upon his subjects who were looking up to him, not the other way around. Therefore, we can know for certain that the phrase means something else. From other passages, we learn that the phrase actually means that the king "lifted his face" by the act of raising the features in a smile, the opposite of dropping them in a frown (Lo appil panai ba-khem); literally, "I will not drop my face against you," (Jer. 3:12; cf. Gen. 4:5-6; Job 29:24). This is an expression to say that the sovereign is extending his friendship to you. It is indeed a powerful mental image of our God smiling down upon us.

Up until now this whole letter has been about looking into the face of God, however, in what seems like a paradox, God is so holy that He told us no one can look directly into His face. Moses asked to see God's glory. God told him, "You cannot see My face, for no one may see My face and live. Then the Lord said, 'There is a place near Me where you may stand on a rock. When My glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then, I will remove My hand and you will see My back; but My face must not be seen'" (Ex. 33:20-23). Yet, Jacob said, "I have seen God face to face." This indicates the closeness and intimacy he felt he had with God. John said, "No one has ever seen God," (Jn. 1:18) face to face, but "the knowledge of the glory of God" is seen in the face of Yeshua HaMashiach, (Jesus Christ) (II Cor. 4:6).

Until we die a physical death, none of us will be holy enough to directly see the face of God. And, isn't it possible that God was being very positive when He said that no one who sees His face can live, meaning that if we were that close to Him, we would be transported into our heavenly abode to stay in His physical presence, never to return to this life. I know I would not want to come back to this world having been that close to the Father. However, like Moses and Jacob, we can be in His presence and have a deep level of intimacy and fellowship He desires to have with us and we should desire to have with Him.

Who Is This God Who Shines His Face Upon Us?

My good friend and protege, Dwight Pryor, has a wonderful message on "The Face of God," which blessed me. Therefore, I want to incorporate some of his observations with mine as we study to understand the meaning of this biblical phrase.

While there are all kinds of gods worshipped in the world today, we need to remember that the God of the Bible is the Lord God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is a faithful God, keeping His covenants and promises to a thousand generations. He is a holy God that is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is an all-consuming fire, yet knows when a sparrow falls and dies. He is the creator God who created the heavens and earth and brought order out of chaos. He is the self-existent God who is the "I am that I am." He is the Holy One of Israel who demands righteousness. Yet, He knows we are a frail creation, so He sent His son to be our Savior so that our sins can be forgiven. He chose to disclose Himself in the Bible, His Word, and then in His Living Word, Yeshua (John 1), so that we can know Him.

He created man for fellowship and He desires intimacy with His creation. He desires us to seek His face and be in His presence. What a glorious place to be. I have heard it said, "If you ever think that God moved, He didn't. We moved away from Him." He is always there awaiting fellowship with us, and all that keeps us away from Him is we, ourselves, when we choose to "hide our face" from Him. We do this when we sin or become indifferent to the things of God.

Why does God disclose Himself to us? Why should He care about little us who are so small and insignificant in relation to the vast, immeasurable universe that He created? It is because of His love, because God is love (Jn. 4:4). How awesome it is to consider the greatness of this love. If we really understood the greatness of His love for us, we would be face down before our God in humility and homage. Consider how God honors us with His love and His presence. Yet, how often do we dishonor Him by the way we lead our lives, or simply ignore Him with our indifference towards Him?

Dwight points out that we Christians often dwell on the sin and redemption motif of Scripture. However, before there was sin, there was covenant and blessing. Sin interrupted the blessing. We need to get beyond the sin-redemption experience, because God redeems us for more than just freeing us from sin. He created us to have fellowship and intimacy with Him and to know Him face to face. We need to move on into the covenant-blessing motif of Scripture, so we can bask in the presence of the Lord.

The entire Bible is the story of God wanting to be with His people. He chose Israel to be the channel of redemption for the world. However, He also chose Israel because He desired fellowship and wanted to dwell in the midst of His people. In the desert, God was always present to all the people - in a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. Also, the enemy could see the presence of God, and this brought them protection and peace. However, there was more to this manifestation on God's part.

In Exodus, God is talking to Moses about the Tent of Meeting, and He tells Moses why He brought the Children of Israel out of Egypt. He says, "There I will meet you and speak to you; there also I will meet with the Israelites, and the place will be consecrated by My glory... Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God" (Ex. 29:42b, 43, 45-46). The last verse is so important when He says that the reason He brought them out of Egypt was "to dwell among them," because He was "the Lord their God." He wants our fellowship.

Once in the land of Israel, God desired to dwell in His sanctuary in Jerusalem among His people who loved and worshipped Him. Ultimately, He sent His only begotten Son to dwell among men and give us all access to the face (presence) of God. John tells us, "And the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (Jn. 1:14).

Now, through the salvation experience that provides forgiveness of sin, we don't have to go to a temple in Jerusalem to worship the Lord. His Shekinah is no longer resting there, for the Spirit of God now dwells within us. Paul declares, "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" (I Cor. 3:16). Wow, what an awesome thing to consider that God desires to dwell within us! His Spirit (ruach) is His breath that gives us life. His Spirit is His presence that is so near it draws us close to Him. Just as with the Children of Israel, the visible presence of God appeared over the heads of the disciples when the Holy Spirit came upon them and it appeared as "tongues of fire" (Acts 2:1-4).

The word "Shekinah," comes from the Hebrew root for "dwelling" or "resting." It is a word that is not in the Bible, but was derived by the rabbis to refer to the presence of God as He dwells among us. It is the personification of God's presence. It is usually associated with the awesome glory and majesty of God. The earth shook before the face of God. But typically, the Shekinah refers to God's comforting sustaining presence. It represents peace, protection, and God's nearness - a divine intimacy.

Dwight declares that to have intimacy with a holy God, we need to be a holy people. Sin and disobedience does not abrogate the covenant, but it does alienate the presence of God. We may be as fickle as Israel was in our relationship to God. Yet, as with Israel, it will not break the covenant, because God is faithful and not fickle. But, we are missing out on His presence and being in the place of intimacy, the place of ultimate glory and blessing. Sin and sanctity cannot cohabit. God wants a spotless bride, a holy nation, so He can fellowship with us. This is important to Him.

Consider that the creation account takes two chapters of Genesis. However, the instructions on how to build the tabernacle, where He would dwell among His people, is found in thirteen chapters. Dwelling with His people is a priority to God. He is saying, "I love you. Love Me back. I will be your God. You will be My people." This is the nature of God of Israel, who is a God of blessing, love, intimacy, presence and glory. He is not an onerous lawgiver with merciless justice and rigid demands. He is a God who so loves His people that He comes down from heaven to present Himself in His glory to man. Don't get caught up in seeking an experience with God. Seek God. He is looking for a covenant marriage, not in giving us a cheap thrill. Seek His face. Remember, salvation is a gift. Discipleship is a process. To gain it, we need to forsake the mediocrity of the world and seek holiness so that we can be in the glorious presence (face) of the Lord.

Dwight concludes that we need to practice being in the presence of God. John Wesley wrote, "The body and soul make a man, but the spirit and discipline make a Christian." The spirit is God-given, but discipline requires self-control. Discipleship is costly, but non-discipleship is far costlier. We pay a far greater price to be out of fellowship with God than we do to be consecrated for His presence. Without His presence, we miss out on God's righteousness, peace, joy, and the other fruits of the Spirit. When we are out of His presence, we don't feel His touch, His closeness nor His loving affirmation, "Well done, My good and faithful servant." We may be saved, but are we intimate? Yeshua told us to go out and make disciples, not just get people saved from their sin. We too are called to be disciples, not just to be saved from hell. This takes work, and to do this, we must abide or dwell in the presence of the Lord. We must know Him through His Word, which takes study of the Bible and the practice of it.

Dwight points out that truth is not information, but relation. Yeshua said, "For where two or three come together in My Name, there I am in the midst of them" (Mt. 18:20b). In the Mishna, in the Tractate Avot, there is a similar statement: "For when two or three sit at table and study Torah, there the Shekinah dwells in their midst." Yeshua was not talking about just getting together, but for His disciples to get together to study His Word, and then the Spirit of Messiah would dwell in their midst. We must practice the presence of God. The sages say that the Shekinah resists liars and slanderers, the proud, the rebellious, the stubborn, the sinful, and the lazy. If nothing else, most of us are just lazy and don't take time to become disciples (Hag. 16a; Shab. 30b; Sot. 42a). We miss out on many of God's blessings, not because He is stingy, but because we are out of fellowship with Him. Remember Mary and Martha? Just being busy for God is not the same as being in His presence. Being busy for God is important, but it is not intimacy, which can only happen when we sit at His feet in His presence.

James says, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (Jas. 4:7) But, before this in the same verse, James says, "Submit yourselves, then to God." After this, he says, "Draw near to God and He will come near to you" (Jas. 4:8). It is in the presence of God where we are safe in His arms. While I know spiritual warfare is necessary and important, nevertheless, too many Christians spend too much time rebuking the devil. We need to give more honor to the Lord. We need to draw close to God, to run into the holy of holies - the presence of God, where Satan and his demons cannot enter. There, we will be safe in the protective canopy of the presence of God.

Psalm 42:1-2 says, "As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?" Living here in the land of Israel, it never ceases to amaze me when I see the ibex antelope on the craggy cliffs of the parched Judean desert. Recently, my family and I were rappelling down the cliffs overlooking the salty Dead Sea near the spring of Ein Gedi. Hanging from the dry, rocky cliffs 1000 feet (307 meters) above the level of the sea, we saw an ibex enjoying the same view. In the blistering heat of the desert, it is easy to imagine this ibex longing for the sweet, cool water of the springs of Ein Gedi. The rocky path to his destination is not easy, but the journey is worth it. We should be just as anxious to get into the presence of God. Sometimes, the path is not easy, but it is always worth it.

Psalms 105:4 declares, "... seek His face always." Psalms 16:11 says "You will fill me with joy in Your presence." It is only in His presence that there is true contentment and satisfaction, for He is our Creator who delights in fellowship and intimacy with His created.

We sing a modern hymn with the chorus that declares to God, "In Your Presence, that's where I am strong. In Your Presence, O Lord my God. In Your Presence, that's where I belong - seeking Your face, touching Your grace - in the cleft of the rock, in Your Presence, O God."

To this, I say, Amen! "... Seek His face always!" (Psalms105:4).

P.S. Some of the material for this Israel Teaching Letter came from "The Priestly Blessing," Israel Teaching Letter - October, 1997, and from "The Face of God," by Dwight Pryor, Director, the Center for Judaic-Christian Studies. To order this tape, or others by Dwight Pryor write to: Center for Judaic-Christian Studies and request a catalog.

With appreciation from: