Moses asked God, “you have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said’ ‘I know you by name and you have found favour with me.’ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favour with you.” (Ex 33.12-13). Moses knew that there was something more than the covenant that God had entered into with His people.
Moses saw beyond the transactional basis of the covenant (do this and you will live) to the potential of a real relationship with God.
And it seems that God did answer this request.
The Psalmist reports, “He made known His ways to Moses” (Ps 103.7). In fact, and before the request above, we read, “the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (Ex 33.11).
This language looks forward to the new covenant, through Jesus Christ. One reason why Jesus’ words were so revolutionary and why He was so opposed by the religious leaders of His day, were that He invited ordinary people to know Him. Outrageous!
The request to know God’s “ways” is something beyond knowledge of a set of rules, it is to know a way of life, like Paul speaks of (2 Tim 4.10).