The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 2 — Section 311

III. EvIL REPE~"TED OF. Notice :-1. The repentance '1'1'11.8 in direct answer to the lnterceesion (cf. vers. 12, 14.). God did RB MoseR begged thRt he would do. Had Moses been lee6 firm, God'e wrath would cortRinly have con~umed the people. Yet--2. God cannot change! No: but Moses kept his place [cf. the wall screening the snow]; and therefore the conditions "'ore never such RB they must have been for judgment to be executed. God's repentance was one with Mose,;' persistence. The evil threatened wae against the people, but the people apart from M06es. Moses identifying himself with them altered the charaoter of the total. Conc/m;icm.-What Moses did for his people that our Lord does for his Church (Rom. viii. 34; Hob. vii. 25). 'l'hat also we may do, ea.eh in his measure in behalf of others. It is the PhRrisee who thanks God that he is not e.s other men are I True men love rather to identify themselves with their race, thus, salt-like, saving ii from corruption giving it shel'6r by the intercession of their li?es.-G. Vers. 7-15.-The firv;t interr.e88W'n. 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 I it has altogether been well known to him (Ps. cxxxi.x. 4). It is God's way, however, to permi, matters to reach a crisis before he interposes. For a time he keeps silence. During the inception anll 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 hap- pened, and orden; him to repair at once to the scene of the apostasy (vers. ~-11). Mark the expression :--" Thy people, whioh thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves "-indicating tha\ they are no loD.ger God's, that the covenant is broken. Moses intercedes for Israel, urging various pleas why God should not destroy tbem (vers. 11-14). Consider- I. 'l'HE 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 inter- cession. But for Moses' intercession, Israel would actually have been destroyed. 2. Holy. Wrath against sin is a necessary part of God's charader. Not that we are to conceive of the thrice Holy One as swayed by hum.an 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. lt 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 cliere 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 resen1ment 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 ro sue for pardon. His pardon, could I obtain it, would have no moral value. Yet, 3. Bestrai-ned. The expression is peculiar-" Now, therefore, let me alone, that ,r,y wrath may ~ hot," etc. The meaning is, that God is self-determined in hiij wrath, even as in his love (cf. eh. :u:xii.i. 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 hi6 erring charge. ll. MosES' INTEBCEBSION (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; chs. xxxii.i. 12--18; xxxiv. 9). 'l'aken together, they wnstitute a Herculean effort of prayer. Each intercession gains a point not granted to tl..t preYious one. .l<'irst, the reveraal of the sentence of de~ll"llction (ver. 14); ned, the r11. nxtr. Hi-- ln.] THE BOOK OF EXODl:S.