“My Presence Shall Go with Thee, and I Will Give Thee Rest”
Exodus 33:14
14 And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.
George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjödahl wrote:
“In reading the scriptures about the various manifestations of Jehovah, it is important to remember that a messenger authorized to represent Jehovah always speaks or acts as if he were the divine Person he represents. He stands literally . . . in His stead. For instance:
“We remember the account in Exodus of the rebellion of Israel, in consequence of which the Lord decreed to send an angel to go before the people in His stead. The account is, briefly, this: The Lord instructed Moses to break camp and cause the people to proceed on their way to Canaan. But, He said, ‘I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee in the way’ (Exodus 33:3). ‘And I will send an angel before thee’ (v. 2). The Lord, however, would again be with the people when they should take possession of the land, for, He says, ‘I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, etc.’ Now Moses was anxious to know more about the angel who was to be their guide. So he said to the Lord: ‘See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people; and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me’ (v. 12). Then the Lord said, ‘My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest’ (v. 14). From Isaiah 63:9 we learn that ‘presence’ here stands for, ‘The angel of his presence.’ Isaiah says: ‘In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the Angel of his Presence saved them.’ That, then, was the name of the messenger who was to represent Jehovah. Of this messenger we read in Exodus 23:20–23: ‘Behold I send an angel before thee. . . . Beware of him, and obey his voice; provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies. . . . For mine angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites and the Hittites . . . and I will cut them off.’ Thus, the Angel of the Presence of the Lord occupied completely the position of the Lord Himself during the entire journey through the wilderness.”
(Commentary on the Pearl of Great Price [1965], 96.)
Randal S. Chase spent his childhood years in Nephi, Utah, where his father was a dry land wheat farmer and a businessman. In 1959 their family moved to Salt Lake City and settled in the Holladay area. He served a full-time mission in the Central British (England Central) Mission from 1968 to 1970. He returned home and married Deborah Johnsen in 1971. They are the parents of six children—two daughters and four sons—and an ever-expanding number of grandchildren.
He was called to serve as a bishop at the age of 27 in the Sandy Crescent South Stake area of the Salt Lake Valley. He served six years in that capacity, and has since served as a high councilor, a stake executive secretary and clerk, and in many other stake and ward callings. Regardless of whatever other callings he has received over the years, one was nearly constant: He has taught Gospel Doctrine classes in every ward he has ever lived in as an adult—a total of 35 years.
Dr. Chase was a well-known media personality on Salt Lake City radio stations in the 1970s. He left on-air broadcasting in 1978 to develop and market a computer-based management, sales, and music programming system to radio and television stations in the United States, Canada, South America, and Australia. After the business was sold in 1984, he supported his family as a media and business consultant in the Salt Lake City area.
Having a great desire to teach young people of college age, he determined in the late 1980s to pursue his doctorate, and received his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Utah in 1997. He has taught communication courses at that institution as well as at Salt Lake Community College and Dixie State University for 21 years. He served as Communication Department chair and is currently a full-time professor at Dixie State University in St. George, Utah.
Concurrently with his academic career, Brother Chase has served as a volunteer LDS Institute and Adult Education instructor in the CES system since 1994, both in Salt Lake City and St. George, where he currently teaches a weekly Adult Education class for three stakes in the Washington area. He has also conducted multiple Church History tours and seminars. During these years of gospel teaching, he has developed an extensive library of lesson plans and handouts which are the predecessors to these study guides.
Dr. Chase previously published a thirteen-volume series of study guides on the Book of Mormon, Church History, the Old Testament, and the New Testament. The series, titled Making Precious Things Plain, along with four smaller study guides on Isaiah, Jeremiah, the story of the Nativity, and the final week of our Lord’s atoning sacrifice, are designed to assist teachers and students of the gospel, as well as those who simply want to study on their own. Several of these books are also available in the Spanish language.
