FACE — grammatically plural in form even for one face (like 'waters,' mayim), and one word doing three different jobs inside a single chapter. It names an intimate CONVERSATION at 'Jehovah spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend' (33:11) — the identical idiom Jacob uses of his own night at the Jabbok, 'I have seen God face to face' (Genesis 32:30, already on these pages), and one Paul still reaches for centuries later, 'now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face' (1 Corinthians 13:12, already on these pages). Three verses later the same word means PRESENCE — 'my panim will go with you' (33:14), rendered idiomatically rather than literally — and by the chapter's end it means the plain, physical impossibility it started by not meaning at all: 'you cannot see my panim, for man shall not see me and live' (33:20, 23). One noun, three escalating jobs, in twelve verses. ⚠ The word gets a fourth job one chapter later, and it is the strangest of all: Moses comes down from the mountain and 'the skin of his panim shone' (Exodus 34:29, already on these pages) — the very face no one may look at directly now radiates a borrowed version of that glory onto Moses' own, bright enough that Israel is afraid to come near him. The word takes on a fifth job not long after, turned toward the whole nation rather than one man: the priestly blessing asks that Jehovah's own panim shine on the worshiper and then be lifted TOWARD them (Numbers 6:25-26, already on these pages) — the same face that could not be looked at directly in this very chapter, now the thing the blessing itself asks to be turned, not away, but toward. → first discussed at Exod 33:11