“But whenever he went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with the Lord, he would remove the veil until he came out again. Then he would give the people whatever instructions the Lord had given him, and the people of Israel would see the radiant glow of his face. So he would put the veil over his face until he returned to speak with the Lord” (Exodus 34:34-35, NLT).

When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai (for the second time) with God’s commandments etched on stone tablets, the skin on his face was radiant from God’s glory because he talked with God face to face.

At first the Israelites were afraid to come near him because of the radiance of his face, but he called them to himself and told them all that God had said to him on Mt. Sinai.

After Moses finished talking with the Israelites, he put a veil over his face and thereafter, whenever he would go into the Tent of Meeting to talk with God, he would remove the veil. When Moses came out from talking with God he would tell the Israelites what God had said and they could see his radiant face.

Moses would then wear a veil over his face until the next time he went in to the Tent of Meeting to talk with God.

The Apostle Paul explained this strange custom of Moses in 2 Corinthians 3:7: “For his face shone with the glory of God, even though the brightness was already fading away.”  Moses wanted to prevent the Israelites from observing the fading radiance of his face until the next time he talked face to face with God.

The Apostle Paul declared that if the glory of God under the Law irradiated Moses’ face even though it began to fade, then how much more glorious should our lives be under the new covenant in Christ mediated by the Holy Spirit, which is everlasting: “So if the old way, which has been replaced, was glorious, how much more glorious is the new, which remains forever” (2 Corinthians 3:11).

In Christ we bask in the glory of God that never fades because His Spirit dwells in us and continuously manifests God’s glory to us and through us!

“And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.” (2 Corinthians 3:18, NLT)