John Calvin Commentary Exodus 13:21

"And Jehovah went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light, that they might go by day and by night:" — Exodus 13:21 (ASV)

And the Lord went before them. Moses here proclaims another of God’s mercies: that, having redeemed His people, He was their constant leader and guide, as the Prophet also in the Psalms distinctly refers to both (Psalms 77:15 and Psalm 78:14). It was indeed a marvelous act of loving-kindness that, accommodating Himself to their ignorance, He familiarly presented Himself before their eyes. He could, indeed, have protected them in some other way from the heat of the sun and directed them in the darkness of the night. However, so that His power might be more manifest, He chose to add His visible presence also, to remove all room for doubt.

But although the words of Moses seem in some measure to include the Lord in the cloud, we must observe the sacramental mode of speaking, in which God transfers His name to visible figures. This is not to affix His essence to them or to circumscribe His infinity, but only to show that He does not deceitfully expose the signs of His presence to people’s eyes, but that the exhibition of the thing signified is at the same time truly conjoined with them. Therefore, although Moses states that God was in the cloud and in the pillar of fire, yet he does not wish to draw Him down from heaven, nor to subject His infinite glory to visible signs, with which His truth can consist without His local presence.¹⁵⁰

But execrable is the mad notion of Servetus, who pretended that this cloud was uncreated, as though it were the Deity of Christ, for he substituted this One Person for the Three, as if there had then been a corporeal Deity, which he calls the “figurative Son,” who was afterwards made flesh; not that He put on flesh, but because He appeared as man, compounded of three uncreated elements and of the seed of David.

Soon after, however, Moses calls this same being an Angel, to whom he now assigns the name of the eternal God. And this is with good reason, because our heavenly Father then led the Israelites only by the hand of His only-begotten Son. Now, since He is the eternal guardian of His Church, Christ is no less truly present with us now by His power than He was formerly manifest to the fathers. When, therefore, Isaiah prophesies His coming, he recounts among other things this divine blessing: that “the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night,” — that there might be

“a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge and for a covert from storm and from rain,”
(Isaiah 4:5–6)

as if he had said that He would really and substantially fulfill what then was seen under a figurative symbol. And surely that promise—

“The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night,” (Psalms 121:6)

refers not to a single day, but to all ages. The statement of Moses, then, that “He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night,” is a blessing which God extends to us, as well as to them, except only the visible symbol, which was temporary on account of the infirmity of the people. As to his saying that God always appeared to them so that they might march by night as well as by day, he does not mean that they went on continually without any rest (since he had just before mentioned that their first station was in Succoth, from where they encamped in Etham), but merely informs us that the flow of God’s grace was continual, since the token of His favor and protection shone forth no less amidst the darkness of the night than at midday itself.

¹⁵⁰ “Sans qu’il y soit requis une presence de lieu;” without a local presence being required. — Fr..