Exodus 33:11 says the lord spoke to Moses face to face, yet in 33:20 God says Moses cannot see his face, as no one may see him and live. Isn't this a contradiction? Please explain.
Yes, it is a contradiction. On the surface, anyway. But surface contradictions are not the same thing as true contradictions. The problem in this case arises because often when the Bible describes God's interaction with man, it does so anthropomorphically. That is, it describes things in human terms (anthropos is Greek for human being). Exodus 33 (see also Numbers 12) says that Moses enjoyed a special relationship with the Lord.
In Exodus 33:11, "face-to-face" ("mouth-to-mouth," in the original Hebrew) is a figure of speech; it emphasizes the intimacy of Moses' relationship with God. In 33:20, however, "face" is referring to a full encounter with the Lord's presence--the overwhelming power and intensity of encountering the living God. This is what the apostle John is alluding to in John 1:18. We see that words and phrases draw their exact meaning not from a dictionary, but from their contexts. We must always try to get at the ideas behind the words.
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