---

If Israel has been forgetting God, God has not been forgetting Israel. His eye has been on all their doings. There has not been a thought in their heart, or a word on their tongue, but, lo! it has altogether been well known to him (Psalm 139:4). It is God's way, however, to permit matters to reach a crisis before he interposes. For a time he keeps silence. During the inception and early stages of the movement in Israel, he makes no discovery of it to Moses. He allows it to ripen to its full proportions. Then he tells his servant all that has happened, and orders him to repair at once to the scene of the apostasy (vers. 7-11). Mark the expression: - "Thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves" - indicating that they are no longer God's, that the covenant is broken. Moses intercedes for Israel, urging various pleas why God should not destroy them (vers. 11-14). Consider -

I. THE DIVINE WRATH. "Let me alone," says God, "that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them" (ver. 10). This wrath of God against the sin of Israel was -

1. Real. What we have in these verses is no mere drama, acted between God and Moses, but a most real wrath, averted by most real and earnest intercession. But for Moses' intercession, Israel would actually have been destroyed.

2. Holy. Wrath against sin is a necessary part of God's character. Not that we are to conceive of the thrice Holy One as swayed by human passions, or as needing to be soothed by human entreaty. But sin does awaken God's displeasure. He would not be God if it did not. "Resentment against sin is an element in the very life of God. It can no more be separated from God than heat from fire God is merciful. What does this mean? It means a willingness to lay aside resentment against those who have sinned. But it follows that the greater the resentment, the greater is the mercy; if there is very little resentment, there can be very little mercy; if there is no resentment at all, mercy is impossible. The difference between our religion, and the religion of other times, is this - that we do not believe that God has any very strong resentment against sin, or against those who are guilty of sin; and since his resentment has gone, his mercy has gone with it. We have not a God who is more merciful than the God of our fathers, but a God who is less righteous; and a God who is not righteous, a God who does not glow with fiery indignation against sin is no God at all." Put otherwise,-a God who cannot be angry with my sin, is one from whom it would be meaningless in me to sue for pardon. His pardon, could I obtain it, would have no moral value. Yet,

3. Restrained. The expression is peculiar - "Now, therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot," etc.. The meaning is, that God is self-determined in his wrath, even as in his love (cf. Exodus 33:19). He determines himself in the exercise of it. It does not carry him away. In the present instance he restrained it, that room might be left for intercession. The words were a direct encouragement to Moses to entreat for his erring charge.

II. MOSES' INTERCESSION (vers. 11-15). The last occasion on which we met with Moses as an intercessor was at the court of Egypt. We have now to listen to him in his pleadings for his own people. Four separate acts of intercession are recorded in three chapters (cf. vers. 31-35; Exodus 33:12-18; Exodus 34:9). Taken together, they constitute a Herculean effort of prayer. Each intercession gains a point not granted to the previous one. First, the reversal of the sentence of destruction (ver. 14); next, the consent of God to the people going up to Canaan, only, however, under the conduct of an angel (Exodus 33:1-4); third, the promise that his own presence would go with them (Exodus 33:14); finally, the perfect re-establishment of friendly relations, in the renewal of the covenant (Exodus 34:10). Like Jacob, Moses, as a prince, had power with God, and prevailed (Genesis 32:28). It is to be noted, also, that this advance in Power of prayer is connected with an advance in Moses' own experience. In the first intercession, the thought which chiefly fills his mind is the thought of the people's danger. He does not attempt to excuse or palliate their sin, but neither does he make direct confession of it. He sees only the nation's impending destruction, and is agonisingly earnest in his efforts to avert it. At this stage in his entreaty, Moses might almost seem to us more merciful than God. A higher stage is reached when Moses, having actually witnessed the transgression of the people, is brought to take sides with God in his wrath against it. His second intercession, accordingly, is pervaded by a much deeper realisation of the enormity of the sin for which forgiveness is sought. His sense of this is so awful, that it is now a moot question with him whether God possibly can forgive it (ver. 32). The third intercession, in like manner, is connected with a special mark of Jehovah's condescending favour to himself (Exodus 33:9), emboldening him to ask that God will restore his presence to the nation (ver. 15); while the fourth follows on the sight which is given him of Jehovah's glory, and on the revelation of the name (Exodus 34:5-8). Observe more particularly in regard to the intercession in the text -

1. The boon sought. It is that God will spare the people, that he will turn aside his fierce anger from them, and not consume them (ver. 12). Thus far, as above hinted, it might almost seem as if Moses were more merciful than God. God seeks to destroy; Moses pleads with him to spare. The wrath is in God; the pity in his servant. (Contrast with this the counter scene in Jonah 4.) The affinity of spirit between Jehovah and Moses, however, is evinced later, in the hot anger which Moses feels on actually witnessing the sin. God's mercy, on the other hand, is shown in giving Moses the opportunity to intercede. It was he who put the pity into his servant's heart, and there was that in his own heart which responded to it.

2. The spirit of the supplication.

(1) How absolutely disinterested. Moses sets aside, without even taking notice of it, the most glorious offer ever made to mortal man - "I will make of thee a great nation" (ver. 10). This was Moses' trial. It tested "whether he loved his own glory better than he loved the brethren who were under his charge." He endured it nobly.

(2) How intensely earnest. He seems to clasp the feet of God as one who could not, would not, leave, tilt he had obtained what he sought.

(3) How supremely concerned about God's glory. That is with Moses the consideration above all others.

3. The pleas urged. Moses in these pleas appeals to three principles in the Divine character, which really govern the Divine action

(1) To God's regard for his own work (ver. 11). The finishing of work he has begun (Philippians 1:6).

(2) To God's regard for his own honour (ver. 12). Moses cannot bear to think of God's action being compromised.

(3) To God's regard for his own servants (ver. 13). The love he bears to the fathers (cf. Deuteronomy 4:31; Deuteronomy 10:15). These are points in God's heart on which all intercession may lay hold.

4. The effect produced. God repented him of the evil he thought to do to Israel (ver. 14). Repented, i.e., turned back from a course which his displeasure moved him to pursue, and which, but for Moses' intercession, he would have pursued. It does not appear, however, that Moses was at this time informed of the acceptance of his intercession. Notice, also, that the actual remission was bestowed gradually. In this first act of intercession God sees, as it were, the point to which the whole series of intercessions tends, and in anticipation thereof, lays aside his anger. - J.O.

---

---

KJV: And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:

WEB: Yahweh spoke to Moses, "Go, get down; for your people, who you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves!