We are in moving into chapter twenty-four of Exodus with our word for today. נָגַשׁ set forward, approach, draw near, turn towards, advance, bring in close. It is used 125 times in the Old Testament. Our words is used in the sense to move towards or near. A good example is when Jacob was pretending to be Esau to trick his father Isaac. Genesis 27:21-22, 26-27 Then Isaac said to Jacob, גְּשָׁה “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.” Jacob וַיִּגַּ֧שׁ went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” … Then his father Isaac said to him, גְּשָׁה “Come here, my son, and kiss me.” So he וַיִּגַּשׁ֙ went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him. This context shows us how close in proximity they are to each other so his father can kiss him. We also see our word used in the sense of being near or far to God in a relational sense. This is how our word is used in our chapter today. Exodus 24:1-2 Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. Moses alone shall וְנִגַּ֨שׁ come near to the Lord, but the others shall not יִגָּ֑שׁוּ come near, and the people shall not come up with him.” Notice that in the Old Testament time period not everyone was able to come into God’s presence in a special way. We see that Moses alone was able to come near but the others that would be Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu and the seventy elders were to worship from afar. So they were not able to be as close as Moses was able to be. Then we see the people were not even able to come up on the mount Sinai. So they were even further away from God showing his presence in a special way at that time. That is how it was before Christ who would change everything. Here are a couple more examples of our word used as being near or far to God relationally. Isaiah 29:13 The Lord says: “These people נִגַּשׁ֙ come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught. God knows our heats whether or not we are really near to him or just pretending to be so. And because God knows our hearts we see the priests who were supposed to be the leaders of God’s people, in the sense of helping them be near God, often fail at this. Ezekiel 44:12-13 But because they served them in the presence of their idols and made the people of Israel fall into sin, therefore I have sworn with uplifted hand that they must bear the consequences of their sin, declares the Sovereign Lord. They are not to יִגְּשׁ֤וּ come near to serve me as priests or come near any of my holy things or my most holy offerings; they must bear the shame of their detestable practices. Their sin separated them from being near to God. This was not just the leader’s problem but every one of us. The good news is that because God sent his son into the world to save us from our sins and bring us near to him. And not only that he brings us near to each other. Ephesians 2:13-18 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ ... His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. I’ll close with this great passage that sums all of this up perfectly. 1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
