Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 32:7
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]:
7. thy people ] not mine; Jehovah dissociates Himself from His sinful nation.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
7, 8. Jehovah makes known to Moses the people’s sin. The verses are not necessarily by a different hand (R JE [218] ) from v. 18 f. Moses’ anger may naturally have been kindled by the spectacle of the doings in the camp, the full character of which he did not before realize.
[218] E See pp. xi, xii.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The faithfulness of Moses in the office that had been entrusted to him was now to be put to the test. It was to be made manifest whether he loved his own glory better than he loved the brethren who were under his charge; whether he would prefer that he should himself become the founder of a great nation, or that the Lords promise should be fulfilled in the whole people of Israel. This may have been especially needful for Moses, in consequence of his natural disposition. See Num 12:3; and compare Exo 3:11. With this trial of Moses repeated in a very similar manner Num 14:11-23, may be compared the trial of Abraham Gen. 22 and of our Saviour Mat 4:8-10.
Exo 32:8
These be thy gods … have brought – This is thy god, O Israel, who has brought …
Exo 32:10
Let me alone – But Moses did not let the Lord alone; he wrestled, as Jacob had done, until, like Jacob, he obtained the blessing Gen 32:24-29.
Exo 32:14
This states a fact which was not revealed to Moses until after his second intercession when he had come down from the mountain and witnessed the sin of the people Exo 32:30-34. He was then assured that the Lords love to His ancient people would prevail God is said, in the language of Scripture, to repent, when His forgiving love is seen by man to blot out the letter of His judgments against sin (2Sa 24:16; Joe 2:13; Jon 3:10, etc.); or when the sin of man seems to human sight to have disappointed the purposes of grace (Gen 6:6; 1Sa 15:35, etc.). The awakened conscience is said to repent, when, having felt its sin, it feels also the divine forgiveness: it is at this crisis that God, according to the language of Scripture, repents toward the sinner. Thus, the repentance of God made known in and through the One true Mediator reciprocates the repentance of the returning sinner, and reveals to him atonement.
Exo 32:17-18
Moses does not tell Joshua of the divine communication that had been made to him respecting the apostasy of the people, but only corrects his impression by calling his attention to the kind of noise which they are making.
Exo 32:19
Though Moses had been prepared by the revelation on the Mount, his righteous indignation was stirred up beyond control when the abomination was before his eyes.
Exo 32:20
See Deu 9:21. What is related in this verse must have occupied some time and may have followed the rebuke of Aaron. The act was symbolic, of course. The idol was brought to nothing and the people were made to swallow their own sin (compare Mic 7:13-14).
Exo 32:22
Aarons reference to the character of the people, and his manner of stating what he had done Exo. 5:24, are very characteristic of the deprecating language of a weak mind.
Exo 32:23
Make us gods – Make us a god.
Exo 32:25
Naked – Rather unruly, or licentious.
Shame among their enemies – Compare Psa 44:13; Psa 79:4; Deu 28:37.
Exo 32:26-29
The tribe of Levi, Moses own tribe, now distinguished itself by immediately returning to its allegiance and obeying the call to fight on the side of Yahweh. We need not doubt that the 3,000 who were slain were those who persisted in resisting Moses. The spirit of the narrative forbids us to conceive that the act of the Levites was anything like an indiscriminate massacre. An amnesty had first been offered to all by the words: Who is on the Lords side? Those who were forward to draw the sword were directed not to spare their closest relations or friends; but this must plainly have been with an understood qualification as regards the conduct of those who were to be slain. Had it not been so, they who were on the Lords side would have had to destroy each other. We need not stumble at the bold, simple way in which the statement is made.
Exo 32:29
Consecrate yourselves to day to the Lord … – The margin contains the literal rendering. Our version gives the most probable meaning of the Hebrew, and is supported by the best authority. The Levites were to prove themselves in a special way the servants of Yahweh, in anticipation of their formal consecration as ministers of the sanctuary (compare Deu 10:8), by manifesting a self-sacrificing zeal in carrying out the divine command, even upon their nearest relatives.
Exo 32:31
Returned unto the Lord – i. e. again he ascended the mountain.
Gods of gold – a god of gold.
Exo 32:32
For a similar form of expression, in which the conclusion is left to be supplied by the mind of the reader, see Dan 3:15; Luk 13:9; Luk 19:42; Joh 6:62; Rom 9:22. For the same thought, see Rom 9:3. It is for such as Moses and Paul to realize, and to dare to utter, their readiness to be wholly sacrificed for the sake of those whom God has entrusted to their love. This expresses the perfected idea of the whole burnt-offering.
Thy book – The figure is taken from the enrolment of the names of citizens. This is its first occurrence in the Scriptures. See the marginal references. and Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1; Luk 10:20; Phi 4:3; Rev 3:5, etc.
Exo 32:33, Exo 32:34
Each offender was to suffer for his own sin. Compare Exo 20:5; Eze 18:4, Eze 18:20. Moses was not to be taken at his word. He was to fulfill his appointed mission of leading on the people toward the land of promise.
Exo 32:34
Mine Angel shall go before thee – See the marginal references and Gen 12:7.
In the day when I visit … – Compare Num 14:22-24. But though the Lord chastized the individuals, He did not take His blessing from the nation.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 7. Thy people – have corrupted themselves] They had not only got into the spirit of idolatry, but they had become abominable in their conduct, so that God disowns them to be his: THY people have broken the covenant, and are no longer entitled to my protection and love.
This is one pretence that the Roman Catholics have for the idolatry in their image worship. Their high priest, the pope, collects the ornaments of the people, and makes an image, a crucifix, a madonna, c. The people worship it but the pope says it is only to keep God in remembrance. But of the whole God says, Thy people have corrupted themselves; and thus as they continue in their idolatry, they have forfeited the blessings of the Lord’s covenant. They are not God’s people, they are the pope’s people, and he is called “our holy father the pope.”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
No longer my people, as God had called them hitherto, Exo 3:7; 5:1, &c.; they have forsaken me, and I do hereby renounce them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7-14. the Lord said unto Moses, Go,get thee downIntelligence of the idolatrous scene enacted atthe foot of the mount was communicated to Moses in language borrowedfrom human passions and feelings, and the judgment of a justlyoffended God was pronounced in terms of just indignation against thegross violation of the so recently promulgated laws.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the Lord said unto Moses, go, get thee down,…. In De 9:12 it is added, “quickly”, and so the Septuagint version here: this was said after the Lord had finished his discourse with him, and had given him the two tables of stone, and he was about to depart, but the above affair happening he hastens his departure; indeed the idolatry began the day before, and he could have acquainted him with it, if it had been his pleasure, but he suffered the people to go the greatest length before a stop was put to their impiety:
for thy people which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves; their works, as the Targum of Jonathan supplies it, their ways and their manners; their minds, the imaginations of their hearts, were first corrupted, and this led on to a corruption of actions, by which they corrupted and defiled themselves yet more and more, and made themselves abominable in the sight of God, as corrupt persons and things must needs be; and what can be a greater corruption and abomination than idolatry? the Lord calls these people not his people, being displeased with them, though they had been, and were, and still continued; for, notwithstanding this idolatry, he did not cast them off from being his people, or write a “Loammi” on them; but he calls them Moses’s people, as having broken the law delivered to them by him, they had promised to obey, and so were liable to the condemnation and curse of it; and because they had been committed to his care and charge, and he had been the instrument of their deliverance, and therefore it was great ingratitude to him to act the part they had done, as well as impiety to God; wherefore, though it was the Lord that brought them out of Egypt, it is ascribed to Moses as the instrument, to make the evil appear the greater. Jarchi very wrongly makes these people to be the mixed multitude he supposes Moses had proselyted, and therefore called his people.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Before Moses left the mountain, God told him of the apostasy of the people (Exo 32:7, Exo 32:8). “ Thy people, which thou hast brought out of Egypt: ” God says this not in the sense of an “ obliqua exprobratio , ” or “ Mosen quodammodo vocare in partem criminis quo examinetur ejus tolerantia et plus etiam maeroris ex rei indignitate concipiat ” ( Calvin), or even because the Israelites, who had broken the covenant, were no longer the people of Jehovah; but the transgression of the people concerned Moses as the mediator of the covenant.
Exo 32:8 “ They have turned aside quickly (lit., hurriedly):” this had increased their guilt, and made their ingratitude to Jehovah, their Redeemer, all the more glaring.
Exo 32:9-10 “ Behold, it is a stiff-necked people (a people with a hard neck, that will not bend to the commandment of God; cf. Exo 33:3, Exo 33:5; Exo 34:9; Deu 9:6, etc.): now therefore suffer Me, that My wrath may burn against them, and I may consume them, and I will make of thee a great nation.” Jehovah, as the unchangeably true and faithful God, would not, and could not, retract the promises which He had given to the patriarchs, or leave them unfulfilled; and therefore if in His wrath He should destroy the nation, which had shown the obduracy of its nature in its speedy apostasy, He would still fulfil His promise in the person of Moses, and make of him a great nation, as He had promised Abraham in Gen 12:2. When God says to Moses, “ Leave Me, allow Me, that My wrath may burn, ” this is only done, as Gregory the Great expresses it, deprecandi ansam praebere . God puts the fate of the nation into the hand of Moses, that he may remember his mediatorial office, and show himself worthy of his calling. This condescension on the part of God, which placed the preservation or destruction of Israel in the hands of Moses, coupled with a promise, which left the fullest freedom to his decision, viz., that after the destruction of the people he should himself be made a great nation, constituted a great test for Moses, whether he would be willing to give up his own people, laden as they were with guilt, as the price of his own exaltation. And Moses stood the test. The preservation of Israel was dearer to him than the honour of becoming the head and founder of a new kingdom of God. True to his calling as mediator, he entered the breach before God, to turn away His wrath, that He might not destroy the sinful nation (Psa 106:23). – But what if Moses had not stood the test, had not offered his soul for the preservation of his people, as he is said to have done in Exo 32:32? Would God in that case have thought him fit to make into a great nation? Unquestionably, if this had occurred, he would not have proved himself fit or worthy of such a call; but as God does not call those who are fit and worthy in themselves, for the accomplishment of His purposes of salvation, but chooses rather the unworthy, and makes them fit for His purposes (2Co 3:5-6), He might have made even Moses into a great nation. The possibility of such a thing, however, is altogether an abstract thought: the case supposed could not possibly have occurred, since God knows the hearts of His servants, and foresees what they will do, though, notwithstanding His omniscience, He gives to human freedom room enough for self-determination, that He may test the fidelity of His servants. No human speculation, however, can fully explain the conflict between divine providence and human freedom. This promise is referred to by Moses in Deu 9:14, when he adds the words which God made use of on a subsequent occasion of a similar kind (Num 14:12), “I will make of thee a nation stronger and more numerous than this.”
Exo 32:11-13 “ And Moses besought the Lord his God.” , lit., to stroke the face of Jehovah, for the purpose of appeasing His anger, i.e., to entreat His mercy, either by means of sacrifices (1Sa 13:12) or by intercession. He pleaded His acts towards Israel (Exo 32:11), His honour in the sight of the Egyptians (Exo 32:12), and the promises He had made to the patriarchs (Exo 32:13), and prayed that for His own sake, and the sake of His honour among the heathen, He would show mercy instead of justice. (Exo 32:12) does not mean , or callide (Vulg.), but “ for their hurt, ” – the preposition denoting the manner in which, or according to which, anything took place.
Exo 32:14 “ And Jehovah repented of the evil, etc.” – On the repentance of God, see at Gen 6:6. Augustine is substantially correct in saying that “an unexpected change in the things which God has put in His own power is called repentance” ( contra adv. leg. 1, 20), but he has failed to grasp the deep spiritual idea of the repentance of God, as an anthropopathic description of the pain which is caused to the love of God by the destruction of His creatures. – Exo 32:14 contains a remark which anticipates the development of the history, and in which the historian mentions the result of the intercession of Moses, even before Moses had received the assurance of forgiveness, for the purpose of bringing the account of his first negotiations with Jehovah to a close. God let Moses depart without any such assurance, that He might display before the people the full severity of the divine wrath.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Intercession of Moses. | B. C. 1491. |
7 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: 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 9 And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. 11 And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? 12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. 14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
Here, I. God acquaints Moses with what was doing in the camp while he was absent, Exo 32:7; Exo 32:8. He could have told him sooner, as soon as the first step was taken towards it, and have hastened him down to prevent it; but he suffered it to come to this height, for wise and holy ends, and then sent him down to punish it. Note, It is no reproach to the holiness of God that he suffers sin to be committed, since he knows, not only how to restrain it when he pleases, but how to make it serviceable to the designs of his own glory. Observe what God here says to Moses concerning this sin. 1. That they had corrupted themselves. Sin is the corruption or depravation of the sinner, and it is a self-corruption; every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lust. 2. That they had turned aside out of the way. Sin is a deviation from the way of our duty into a by-path. When they promised to do all that God should command them, they set out as fair as could be; but now they missed their way, and turned aside. 3. That they had turned aside quickly, quickly after the law was given them and they had promised to obey it, quickly after God had done such great things for them and declared his kind intentions to do greater. They soon forgot his works. To fall into sin quickly after we have renewed our covenants with God, or received special mercy from him, is very provoking. 4. He tells him particularly what they had done: They have made a calf, and worshipped it. Note, Those sins which are concealed from our governors are naked and open before God. He sees that which they cannot discover, nor is any of the wickedness in the world hidden from him. We could not bear to see the thousandth part of that provocation which God sees every day and yet keeps silence. 5. He seems to disown them, in saying to Moses, They are thy people whom thou broughtest up out of the land of Egypt; as if he had said, “I will not own any relation to them, or concern for them; let it never be said that they are my people, or that I brought them out of Egypt.” Note, Those that corrupt themselves not only shame themselves, but even make God himself ashamed of them and of his kindness to them. 6. He sends him down to them with all speed: Go, get thee down. He must break off even his communion with God to go and do his duty as a magistrate among the people; so must Joshua, ch. vii. 10. Every thing is beautiful in its season.
II. He expresses his displeasure against Israel for this sin, and the determination of his justice to cut them off, Exo 32:9; Exo 32:10. 1. He gives this people their true character: “It is a stiff-necked people, unapt to come under the yoke of the divine law, and governed as it were by a spirit of contradiction, averse to all good and prone to evil, obstinate against the methods employed for their cure.” Note, The righteous God sees, not only what we do, but what we are, not only the actions of our lives, but the dispositions of our spirits, and has an eye to them in all his proceedings. 2. He declares what was their just desert–that his wrath should wax hot against them, so as to consume them at once, and blot out their name from under heaven (Deut. ix. 14); not only cast them out of covenant, but chase them out of the world. Note, Sin exposes us to the wrath of God; and that wrath, if it be not allayed by divine mercy, will burn us up as stubble. It were just with God to let the law have its course against sinners, and to cut them off immediately in the very act of sin; and, if he should do so, it would be neither loss nor dishonour to him. 3. He holds out inducements to Moses not to intercede for them: Therefore, let me alone. What did Moses, or what could he do, to hinder God from consuming them? When God resolves to abandon a people, and the decree of ruin has gone forth, no intercession can prevent it, Eze 14:14; Eze 15:1. But God would thus express the greatness of his just displeasure against them, after the manner of men, who would have none to intercede for those they resolve to be severe with. Thus also he would put an honour upon prayer, intimating that nothing but the intercession of Moses could save them from ruin, that he might be a type of Christ, by whose mediation alone God would reconcile the world unto himself. That the intercession of Moses might appear the more illustrious, God fairly offers him that, if he would not interpose in this matter, he would make of him a great nation, that either, in process of time, he would raise up a people out of his loins, or that he would immediately, by some means or other, bring another great nation under his government and conduct, so that he should be no loser by their ruin. Had Moses been of a narrow selfish spirit, he would have closed with this offer; but he prefers the salvation of Israel before the advancement of his own family. Here was a man fit to be a governor.
III. Moses earnestly intercedes with God on their behalf (v. 11-13): he besought the Lord his God. If God would not be called the God of Israel, yet he hoped he might address him as his own God. What interest we have at the throne of grace we should improve for the church of God, and for our friends. Now Moses is standing in the gap to turn away the wrath of God, Ps. cvi. 23. He wisely took the hint which God gave him when he said, Let me alone, which, though it seemed to forbid his interceding, did really encourage it, by showing what power the prayer of faith has with God. In such a case, God wonders if there be no intercessor, Isa. lix. 16. Observe, 1. His prayer (v. 12): Turn from thy fierce wrath; not as if he thought God was not justly angry, but he begs that he would not be so greatly angry as to consume them. “Let mercy rejoice against judgment; repent of this evil; change the sentence of destruction into that of correction.” 2. His pleas. He fills his mouth with arguments, not to move God, but to express his own faith and to excite his own fervency in prayer. He urges, (1.) God’s interest in them, the great things he had already done for them, and the vast expense of favours and miracles he had been at upon them, v. 11. God had said to Moses (v. 7), They are thy people, whom thou broughtest up out of Egypt; but Moses humbly turns them back upon God again: “They are thy people, thou art their Lord and owner; I am but their servant. Thou broughtest them forth out of Egypt; I was but the instrument in thy hand; that was done in order to their deliverance which thou only couldest do.” Though their being his people was a reason why he should be angry with them for setting up another god, yet it was a reason why he should not be so angry with them as to consume them. Nothing is more natural than for a father to correct his son, but nothing more unnatural than for a father to slay his son. And as the relation is a good plea (“they are thy people“), so is the experience they had had of his kindness to them: “Thou broughtest them out of Egypt, though they were unworthy, and had there served the gods of the Egyptians, Josh. xxiv. 15. If thou didst that for them, notwithstanding their sins in Egypt, wilt thou undo it for their sins of the same nature in the wilderness?” (2.) He pleads the concern of God’s glory (v. 12): Wherefore should the Egyptians say, For mischief did he bring them out? Israel is dear to Moses as his kindred, as his charge; but it is the glory of God that he is most concerned for; this lies nearer his heart than any thing else. If Israel could perish without any reproach to God’s name, Moses could persuade himself to sit down contented; but he cannot bear to hear God reflected on, and therefore this he insists upon, Lord, what will the Egyptians say? Their eyes, and the eyes of all the neighbouring nations, were now upon Israel; from the wondrous beginnings of that people, they raised their expectations of something great in their latter end; but, if a people so strangely saved should be suddenly ruined, what would the world say of it, especially the Egyptians, who have such an implacable hatred both to Israel and to the God of Israel? They would say, “God was either weak, and could not, or fickle, and would not, complete the salvation he began; he brought them forth to that mountain, not to sacrifice (as was pretended), but to be sacrificed.” They will not consider the provocation given by Israel, to justify the proceeding, but will think it cause enough for triumph that God and his people could not agree, but that their God had done that which they (the Egyptians) wished to see done. Note, The glorifying of God’s name, as it ought to be our first petition (it is so in the Lord’s prayer), so it ought to be our great plea, Ps. lxxix. 9, Do not disgrace the throne of thy glory, Jer. xiv. 21; and see Jer 33:8; Jer 33:9. And, if we would with comfort plead this with God as a reason why he should not destroy us, we ought to plead it with ourselves as a reason why we should not offend him: What will the Egyptians say? We ought always to be careful that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed through us. (3.) He pleads God’s promise to the patriarchs that he would multiply their seed, and give them the land of Canaan for an inheritance, and this promise confirmed by an oath, an oath by himself, since he could swear by no greater, v. 13. God’s promises are to be our pleas in prayer; for what he has promised he is able to perform, and the honour of this truth is engaged for the performance of it. “Lord, if Israel be cut off, what will become of the promise? Shall their unbelief make that of no effect? God forbid.” Thus we must take our encouragement in prayer from God only.
IV. God graciously abated the rigour of the sentence, and repented of the evil he thought to do (v. 14); though he designed to punish them, yet he would not ruin them. See here, 1. The power of prayer; God suffers himself to be prevailed with by the humble believing importunity of intercessors. 2. The compassion of God towards poor sinners, and how ready he is to forgive. Thus he has given other proofs besides his own oath that he has no pleasure in the death of those that die; for he not only pardons upon the repentance of sinners, but spares and reprieves upon the intercession of others for them.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verses 7-14:
Moses was unaware of what was taking place in Israel’s camp, until God declared it to him.
“Go, get thee down,” lit., “make haste to descend.”
“Thy people,” a reference to the tender relationship between Moses and Israel.
“Corrupted,” shachath. The term occurs also in Ge 6:2; Ho 9:9; Jg 2:19.
“Turned aside quickly.” Only a few weeks had elapsed since their solemn pledge of full obedience and loyalty to Jehovah (Ex 19:8; 24:3). This illustrates the weakness of the flesh nature, and man’s tendency to rebel against God.
God announced to Moses His intention to destroy rebellious Israel. He offered to make of Moses a mighty nation to replace them.
“Stiff necked,” qusheh oreph, “hard of neck.” The term does not denote “obstinate” so much as it does “perverse,” as when a horse stiffens his neck against the driver’s reins, to go his own way instead of at the bidding of the driver.
“Let me alone,” not a command, but a simple indicative statement. It was like the angel’s command to Jacob, Ge 32:26.
Moses quickly interceded with God on behalf of Israel.
“Besought,” chalah panim, “to smooth the face of.” This likely alludes to the smoothing away of frowns of displeasure.
Moses’ appeal was threefold:
1. Israel is the people of Jehovah.
2. If Jehovah were to destroy Israel, then Egypt and her false gods would triumph.
3. God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
This appeal reveals a fervent concern for the reputation of Jehovah. If He destroyed Israel, it would bring reproach upon His Name, in the eyes of the heathen. This should be the basis of the Christian’s intercession today.
“The Lord repented.” This is the language of accommodation, in which human emotions and characteristics are attributed to Jehovah. “He is not a man, that he should repent” (1Sa 15:29). See also Ex 2:24, 25; 3:7, 8; 31:17.
God heeded Moses’ intercession, and turned from His announced intention to destroy Israel. This illustrates the power of intercessory prayer, see Jas 5:16.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
7. And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down. This was a violent temptation to shake the faith of Moses. He thought that his own and the people’s happiness was absolutely complete, when God’s covenant was engraven on the tables to secure its perpetuity; whereas now he hears that this covenant was violated, and almost annihilated by the perfidy and rebellion of the people, whilst its abolition involved the loss of salvation and all other blessings. Moreover, that God might more sorely wound the mind of the holy man, He addresses him exactly as if part of the ignominy fell upon himself; for there is an indirect reproach implied in the words, “thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt.” Yet Moses had only taken this charge upon him by God’s command, and, indeed, unwillingly; how, then, is this deliverance thrown in his teeth, wherein he had only obeyed God? and why is his devotedness spoken of in mockery, as if he had bestowed his labor amiss, when no part of the blame attaches to him? I have already said that God sometimes thus pierces the hearts of the godly to the quick, in order to prove their patience, as if their well-directed zeal had been the cause of the evils which occur. Some (335) give too subtle an exposition to this, viz., that they are called the people of Moses, because they had ceased to be the people of God; and suppose that there is an antithesis here, as if it were said, — your people, and not mine; but I fear this is not well founded; for, since they had broken the covenant, they were not more alienated from God than from Moses the minister of the Law. I do not deny that it is an implied renunciation of them; but we must bear in mind that design of God, to which I have already adverted, that Moses was in a manner implicated in their crime, in order that his patience might be tried, and also that he might be more grieved at its enormity. Meanwhile, it is obvious that God refers to His recent grace, because it was a monstrous and incredible thing that those who had been lately delivered by this amazing power, and with whom He had just renewed His covenant, should be so suddenly drawn away into rebellion. He adds also, in aggravation of their crime, that they had immediately turned aside from the way which was pointed out to them. Forty days had not yet elapsed since Moses left them, when they were impelled by their depravity to such madness as this. A little time ago they had manifested a wonderful zeal for God’s service, by abundantly contributing what was required; the glory of the tabernacle was presented to their eyes to restrain them; and yet they burst through all these barriers, and rush impetuously after their own lust, when scarcely six months had passed since the promulgation of the Law. The verb שחת shicheth, being in the Pihel conjugation, is active; and yet is employed without being intensive; I have, therefore, rendered it, corrupted themselves, though it might be appropriately taken passively, viz., that the people had been corrupted.
(335) This seems to be a very general opinion of the Commentators, from Jerome downwards. “Though Calvin mislikes this sense, yet it is warranted by that place, Deu 32:5. They have corrupted themselves, not being his children.” — Junius in Willet.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Exo. 32:7-15
INTERCESSION
Consider
I. The sin and peril of Israel. Their sin was the more grievous because it came after such wonderful manifestations of Gods power and love. Thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves, Exo. 32:7. Here was the sting. After they had seen all the wonders that God had showed them.
2. Their sin was the darker because it was committed so early. They have turned aside quickly out of the way, Exo. 32:8. So little patience and faith had they.
3. Their sin was in itself a capital offence. They have made a molten calf, &c., Exo. 32:8. We reckon a lack of belief in God as a mere speculative error; we reckon a godless life as far more innocent than a life of passion; but to lose sight of Godto cease to love Himis regarded in the Word of God as the cardinal, all-comprehending sin. And this sin on the part of Israel provoked the anger of God. Gods wrath waxed hot against them, Exo. 32:11. In these modern days a certain school chose to represent God as looking down coldly and calmly on sin, and dealing with it in quite an unimpassioned manner, but Revelation does not thus reveal God. He hates sin; He waxes hot against sinners; He is grieved at His heart. Is not this whole picture of the apostasy of Israel suggestive of our own age and nation? God has not dealt with any nation as He has with us, and yet the spirit and philosophy of our day is strangely godless. The golden calf is in the marketplace and in the schools.
II. The intercession by which the impending calamity was averted. Moses entirely forgets himself in the welfare of the people, Exo. 32:10. His own glory and the glory of his house are ignored.
1. He pleads with God for Israel on the ground of Gods past mercies, Exo. 32:11. Thou hast been good and graciousbe gracious still.
2. He pleads with God on the grounds of sympathy with the divine glory, Exo. 32:12. He was jealous for Gods character in the eyes of the world.
3. He pleads with God on the ground of the divine promise, Exo. 32:13.
Thus let us plead with God when we behold the unrighteousness of the age. Men often plead with God for mans sakefor the sake of human sufferings, &c.let us plead for Gods sake. Let us plead for man out of sympathy with God. And if we thus plead, God will hear and bless, Exo. 32:14.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Idol-Idiosyncrasy. Exo. 32:1-35.
(1.) Material idolatry has passed away among civilised nations in its literal import. As Macmillan says, the old worship of stocks and stones is now impossible among a professedly Christian people. But although the outward mode has passed away, the essence of the temptation remains the same. Human society is changed, but human nature is unchanged. The impulse which led Israel to seek the golden calf is as strong as ever, and images are set up and worshipped now as fantastic as any pagan fetish or joss. For what is idolatry! Is it not in its essence the lowering of the idea of God and of Gods nature, and the exaltation of a dead image above a mans own living spirit! Is not an idol whatever is loved more than God, whatever is depended upon for happiness and help independent of God?
(2.) Sooner or later, as Moses pounded the calf and gave the Israelites the dust to drink in punishment of their idolatry, will all such moral idolaters have to drink the dust of their idols. Our sin will become our punishment, our idols our scourges. God is a jealous God, and every soul that turns aside from His love to the lying vanities of the world must drink the bitter water of jealousy, filled with the dust of the bruised and mutilated idols of spiritual idolatry: This shall ye have at My hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow.
Thou art the man within whose hearts deep cell
All evil sleeping lies;
Lust, in a dark hour waking, breaks the spell,
And straightway there arise
Monsters of evil thoughts and base desire.
Greok.
Divine Omniscience! Exo. 32:7-8. Israel lost sight of the fact that though Moses could not see, God could. Creeping down stairs at night towards the orchard, the little boy forgot that while his fathers eyes were locked in slumbers deep, yet there was One whose eye neither slumbers nor sleeps. But when he stood beneath the favourite apple-treewhen he stretched forth his hand to the branchwhen he lifted up his eye to the tempting, coveted, rosy-cheeked fruit; lo! a star twinkled its ray upon him, and seemed to say, God sees. And the little fellow shrank backretreated from the gardenbetook himself upstairs, repeating to himself the Scripture words Thou God seest. Ah! had Israel only remembered this, the sin had not been committed, and the dire mischief had not been wrought.
Though all the doors are sure, and all our servants
As sure bound with their sleeps, yet there is ONE
That wakes above, whose eye no sleep can blind;
He sees through doors, and darkness, and our thoughts.
Chapman.
Idol Illustrations! Exo. 32:8. It was a curious feature of the ancient Egyptian worship that each large city bad its own triad or assemblage of three gods, whom it more particularly adored. The triad of Memphis were Ptah, Buhastis, Apis. The ruins of the temple at Memphis sacred to calf-worship were discovered in 1850. Close at hand stood the Apeum, or sanctuary of the sacred bull, where he was carefully tended, as well as the cow from which he had sprung. As each bull died his mummy was stored away in one of the corridors extending underground for a considerable distance, and known as the Mummy-pita of Apis. No fewer than 1200 of these tombstone-tablets have been traced, and the most important of them were removed to the Louvre at Paris.
Ideal images in sculptured forms,
Thoughts hewn in columns, or in caverned hill,
In honour of their deities and their dead.
Montgomery.
Sin-Steps! Exo. 32:8.
(1.) Facilis decensus Averni. The first step in the primval world was to worship God under natural symbols. The second step was to worship the creature along with or beside Jehovah. The third step was to worship the objects of nature more than the Being who made them. The fourth step was to worship these works of nature to the exclusion of God. Lower was the surging sea of all ungodliness, whose end is DEATH.
(2.) Goulburn well says that idolatryi.e., the surrounding the creature with the attributes of the Creatoris the original, fundamental sin of man, the point of departure from which man started on the downward course, until he reached the lowest depths of wickedness.
Polluted most, yet wallowing in the mire;
Most mad, yet drinking frenzys giddy cup;
Depth ever deepening, darkness darkening still.
Pollck.
Wrath and Mercy! Exo. 32:10-14.
(1.) If we look with the naked eye, says Macmillan, at the star Rigel, which forms the right foot of the constellation of Orion, we observe a star of first beauty and brightness. But the telescope shows us that it is a double star. This is a binary arrangement which prevails to a great extent throughout the heavens. These binary stars revolve round each other, or round a common centre. They thus exhibit the extraordinary spectacle, not of planet revolving round sun, but of sun moving round sun. Their lights blend before they reach us, so that they present to the naked eye the appearance of one star.
(2.) Kurtz says that wrath and mercy were both united in the eternal counsel of salvation, which was the combined product of the two; for in that counsel wrath was appeased by mercy, and mercy sanctified by wrath. Wrath and mercy were made one in the counsel of salvation, but they were not extinguished. Their lights blended together in this incident on HorebJehovah saying, Let Me alone; Moses, prompted by the Spirit, saying, Spare Thy people, O Lord.
Had not the milder hand of Mercy broke
The furious violence of that fatal stroke
Offended Justice struck, we had been quite
Lost in the shadows of eternal night.
Quarles.
Mosaic Meditation! Exo. 32:12. We find the law of intervention in every department of human lifeeach and all of its phases serving to indicate more or less clearly the spiritual law. As Ragg remarks, is not that man a mediator who, in the hour of danger, interposes with his strong arm for the protection of the weak? Is not that woman a mediator who, with noiseless step, paces the sick room where the once stalwart man is laid prostrate, anticipating his every want and desire as she stands between him and the fell disease with which he is grappling? Is not that mother a mediator who, with simple and eloquent words, and tears more eloquent, pleads with the father for the child whose wrongdoing has incurred parental censure and rebuke? Is not that nobleman a mediator who, with earnest words, undertakes to induce his sovereign to pardon the rebel-peer, and restore him to his confiscated title and possessions? Is not the Jewish maiden a mediator who, with consciousness of the great risk she runs, ventures into the royal presence to implore the revocation of the imperial decree dooming a whole exiled race to death?
Praying for His children
In that blessed place,
Calling them to glory,
Sending them His grace;
His bright home preparing,
Faithful ones, for you;
Jesus ever liveth,
Ever prayeth too.
Havergal.
Retribution! Exo. 32:2-8.
(1.) Yes, they were rebels taken red-handed in revolt against their king. Not only had they taken up arms against their liege lord, and entered into negotiations with his relentless foe, but they had endeavoured to induce many of their fellow-countrymen to join them in their rebellious and lawless course. To spare them from punishment would be to leave them opportunity of bringing wider ruin upon all and sundry. For the sake of the people, and especially the weak, it was necessary that retribution should overtake these red-handed communistic leaders.
(2.) Daniel Defoe, in his far-famed Life of Robinson Crusoe, and John Bunyan, in his widely-known allegory of the Holy War, have shown how this apparently severe treatment was in reality true charity and compassion. And is it not from the same cause that the lost angels and men are to be for ever shut up in darkness, and precluded from entering amongst the redeemed? It is often the greatest mercy to exercise strictest justice. Severity to one may save the many from temptation, nay, from ultimate destruction. Pity!
I share it most of all when I share justice,
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismissd offence would after gall?
And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another.
Shakespeare.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
GODS OFFER TO MOSES.
(7) The Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down.Moses was, of course, wholly ignorant of all that had occurred in the camp. The thick cloud which covered the top of Sinai had prevented his seeing what occurred in the plain below (Exo. 24:18). The phrase, Go, get thee down, is emphatic, and implies urgency.
Thy people.Thine, not any longer mine, since they have broken the covenant that united us; yet still thine, however much they sin. The tie of blood-relationship cannot be broken.
Have corrupted themselves.The form of the verb used (shikhth) is active. We must supply their way, or some similar phrase, after it. (Comp. Gen. 6:12 : All flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
INTERCESSION AND PUNISHMENT, Exo 32:7-35.
7. Thy people, which thou broughtest out Language of trial for Moses . He is made to feel that he is identified with Israel, and must bear the burden of them on his heart . He is informed of the calf worship to which they have so quickly turned aside, and corrupted themselves, and is made to see that this great sin deserves the consuming judgment of Jehovah . This opens the way for Moses’s first intercession, (Exo 32:11-13,) which is notably effectual . Then follows another trial, as Moses sees the extent of the people’s sin, (Exo 32:15-25,) which in turn leads both to punishment and further intercession, (Exo 32:26-32. ) Compare the intercessions of Moses in Num 11:10-15; Num 14:11-24.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Yahweh Informs Moses Of What Is Happening Below ( Exo 32:7-14 ).
a
b They have turned aside from His commandments (His covenant) and made themselves a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt’ (Exo 32:8).
c Yahweh said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold it is a stiffnecked people” (Exo 32:9).
d “Now therefore leave me alone that my wrath might wax hot against them, and that I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation” (Exo 32:10).
d Moses pleads with Yahweh because He is angry with the people whom He has delivered with great power and with a mighty hand (Exo 32:11).
c Moses expresses his concern about Yahweh’s reputation, “For what reason should the Egyptians speak saying, He brought them forth with evil intent to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth?” (Exo 32:12).
b He calls on Him to turn from His wrath and repent of this evil against His people, and to remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, His servants, to whom He swore by His own self and said to them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your seed, and they will inherit it for ever” (Exo 32:13).
a And Yahweh repented of the evil which he had said he would do to his people (Exo 32:14).
Note that in ‘a’ Yahweh passes His judgment and tells Moses that the people have corrupted themselves, and in the parallel ‘changes His mind’ about what He will do to them. In ‘b’ he declares their wholehearted rebellion and idolatry and that they have turned aside from the covenant commandments, and in the parallel is countered with a reminder that He should remember His irreversible covenant. In ‘c’ Yahweh passes His verdict on the people, and in the parallel Moses seeks to save Yahweh having a verdict past against Him. In ‘d’ Yahweh asks that Moses leave Him alone so that He can express His anger (abhorrence of sin) and consume them with the intention of producing a great nation from him. In the parallel Moses seeks that He turn away His anger and reminds Him of the effort He has already put in on their behalf.
Exo 32:7-8
‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses, “Go, get yourself down, for your people whom you brought up out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your God (literally ‘these are your gods’, but it is clearly a plural of intensity), O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’ ” ’
Yahweh, aware of all that was going on, for contrary to the people’s thoughts He had not taken His eye off them, now urged Moses to go down to his erring people. There was an irony in this. They had thought themselves overlooked. But He was perfectly aware of what was happening. Note the ‘your people.’ They were no longer to be seen as Yahweh’s people, for they had so quickly forsaken the covenant which forbade molten images.
“ Go, get yourself down.” This contrasts with the ‘Up’ in the words addressed to Aaron (Exo 32:1). Both contained a sense of urgency.
“ Your people whom you brought up out of Egypt.” Yahweh’s words are designed to appeal to Moses’ sense of responsibility. He had brought them, offering them certain promises, and he had been successful. Would he now turn his back on them?
“ Have corrupted themselves.” This is Yahweh’s verdict on them. What they had done had come from their own inner yearnings. They had no one else to blame for leading themselves astray into false worship. They had become what they were from their own attitudes.
“ They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.” Only a month and yet they had so quickly pushed to the back of their minds that covenant that they had entered into so enthusiastically. They have forgotten His covenant. They would have argued that they were still worshipping Yahweh. But they were overlooking the fact that they had ignored the first two commandments. They had deliberately disobeyed Him.
“ They have made themselves a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed to it.” That is, they have disobeyed the first two commandments. Notice Yahweh’s contemptuous ‘a molten calf’. They had asked Aaron to ‘make us a god’, but all he had produced was an infused metal image. They would have argued that it was Yahweh that they were worshipping but their behaviour demonstrated that this was not true Yahweh worship, for worship does not consist of using the correct name, but of how we see the object of worship. He was the gracious but demanding God of the covenant, and they now saw Him as just another nature and fertility god, malleable and well under control. They were at last on familiar, welcome ground. But God’s anger is patent. They have worshipped and sacrificed to this thing that they have made instead of worshipping and sacrificing to Him.
“ This is your God (literally ‘these are your gods”, but it is often translated as a plural of intensity), O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’ The people would see the molten calf as a god, and probably as representing Yahweh. Yahweh sees it as a bunch of earrings belonging to superstitious people. So the plural is probably used to bring out the same double point as in Exo 32:4. Firstly it can be seen as a plural of intensity expressing the multiplicity of the divine power (the name for God in the Old Testament, Elohim, is nearly always plural). But secondly it can be seen as having in mind the religiously infused earrings, with their connections with occult practises and with the gods who were seen as lying behind them. They see their molten image, Yahweh sees their earrings. All their image really represented was their old failing gods.
Exo 32:9-10
‘And Yahweh said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold it is a stiffnecked people. Now therefore leave me alone that my wrath might wax hot against them, and that I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” ’
The way that Yahweh speaks passes judgment on the people but gives the hint to Moses that it is up to Moses what happens. ‘Leave me alone’ is basically saying, ‘if you wish to prevent me you can’. It is not Yahweh’s intention at this stage to destroy this people (note the contemptuous ‘this people’) but to test Moses to see what he will do, and to see whether he has the heart for the task that lies ahead.
So He tells him that He has observed the behaviour of this people and has found them wanting. Indeed has found them to be stubborn and rigid in their thinking, and even perverse. They are stiffnecked. They want their own way and not His. So He suggests that Moses lets Him exercise His anger against them so that He can consume them and then raise up a new nation from Moses’ seed. But His very words were an indirect reminder of what He had promised to Abraham’s seed (‘I will make of you a great nation’). That was indeed the basis of Moses’ call. It was the descendants of Abraham that God had sent him to deliver (Exo 2:24; Exo 3:6-7; Exo 6:5-8). The question is will Moses prove faithful to his calling, and to Abraham, or will he opt for his own glory?
“ And I will make of you a great nation.” This was God’s constant promise to the fathers as Moses would well know (Gen 12:2; Gen 21:18; Gen 46:3). But now Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be supplanted, and Moses will take their place. Is this what he wants? It is designed by Yahweh to strike a cord in Moses’ heart.
Exo 32:11-13
‘And Moses pleaded with Yahweh his God, and said, “Yahweh, why does your wrath wax hot against your people which you have brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? For what reason should the Egyptians speak saying, He brought them forth with evil intent to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth. Turn from your fierce wrath and repent of this evil against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self and said to them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your seed, and they will inherit it for ever.” ’
How God’s heart must have rejoiced to hear the faithful words of His servant. There was in Moses no desire for gain and advantage for his own heirs. His only concern was that Yahweh might be seen in a good light, and that Yahweh might be found faithful to His promises. He was concerned only for the good name of Yahweh.
“ And Moses pleaded with Yahweh his God.” What remarkable words these are. We can compare them with those of Abraham before Sodom (Gen 18:23). And yet it was a response to the chink of hope that Yahweh had left him. Moses the servant was pleading with his King for the sake of his King’s reputation, because his King had intimated that he had His permission to do so.
Moses did not realise that it was a test. His honest heart was filled with a determination that men should honour the God he loved, and so he pleaded with Him. Had He not delivered ‘His people’ (note, not ‘this’ people any more, but His people) ‘with great power and with a mighty hand’. Aaron might have forgotten and blurred what had happened, the people also might have done so, but he himself would never forget the reality. It was firmly implanted in his mind.
So his first plea was on the basis of what a sad thing it would be if such exertion of God’s almighty power, resulting from His compassion for His people, should go to waste. How sad if Yahweh’s love for them did not receive its reward. It is based on the idea that a sovereign God could surely not possibly have so acted without finally bringing about His ends.
And then, secondly, he thinks with horror of what the Egyptians might say as the rumours spread back to Egypt, and he cannot bear it. Smarting from their own wounds they would jeer and point out what kind of a God Yahweh was. They would say that He had delivered only to destroy. Powerful He may be, they would say, but He was also abundantly cruel. It is clear that His whole purpose in leading the people from Egypt had been in order to lead them into the mountains and destroy them. It was not true of course. And Moses knew that Yahweh was not like that. But he cannot bear to think of the Egyptians being able to say it. It would humiliate the One he loves. And so he pleads with Yahweh to ‘rethink’. He acknowledges that He has a right to be angry but pleads that He will assuage His anger for the sake of His own reputation and good name.
And finally he thinks of his ancestors. He thinks of Abraham, that faithful man of God. He thinks of Isaac and Jacob (Moses uses ‘Israel’ for Jacob’s name because he is pleading for the children of Israel). And he thinks of what Yahweh promised them. Why He had even sworn by Himself (Gen 22:16), and he cannot bear to think that Yahweh will withdraw from what He has promised, and thus prove dishonourable. The people may have forgotten the covenant, but Yahweh cannot do so. So let Yahweh think again. Let Him remember His covenant. He had promised them the land. He had promised the survival of their seed. He had promised that they would be a great nation. How then could He possibly renege on it so that men could scoff at His failure to keep His promises and fulfil His covenants. What a great man was Moses. In it all he was genuinely concerned only for the glory of God.
Exo 32:14
‘And Yahweh repented of the evil which he had said he would do to his people.’
This is an anthropomorphism. It really means ‘for all outward purposes He appeared to have changed His mind for He would not now do what He had said He would do’. The stress here is on the fact that Yahweh responded to Moses. The actual physical evidence of the fact would come later. In other words Yahweh would not actually do what He had said He would do. He would not destroy what are now again described, not as ‘this people’, but as ‘His people’. It is but looking from a human point of view. Humanly speaking this was how it appeared. He appeared to have changed His mind.
But it was only outward appearance, He had not really done so. His threats had in fact only been words. He had not intended to do what He had said at all, for he had known what Moses would do. All He had wanted to do was to discover whether Moses’ heart was right for the work he still had to do, and to express His great displeasure at the behaviour of the people. It expresses how He wants the world to see things.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Moses Intercedes for the People
v. 7. 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. v. 8. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them, v. 9. And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, v. 10. Now, therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them v. 11. And Moses besought the Lord, his God, v. 12. Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say, For mischief did He bring them out, v. 13. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Thy servants, to whom Thou swarest by Thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit; it forever. v. 14. And the Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
THE INTERCESSION OF MOSES. Moses, in Sinai, was so far removed from the camp, and the cloud so shut out his vision of it, that he had neither seen nor heard anything unusual, and was wholly ignorant of what had happened, until God declared it to him (Exo 32:7, Exo 32:8). After declaring it, God announced his intention of destroying the people for their apostasy, and fulfilling his promise to Abraham by raising up a “great nation” out of the seed of Moses (Exo 32:10). No doubt this constituted a great trial of the prophet’s character. He might, without sin, have acquiesced in the punishment of the people as deserved, and have accepted the promise made to himself as a fresh instance of God’s goodness to him. There would have been nothing wrong in this; but it would have shown that he fell short of the heroic type, belonged to the ordinary run of mortals, was of the common “delf,” not of “the precious porcelain of human clay.” God’s trial of him gave him an opportunity of rising above this; and he responded to it. From the time that he reached full manhood (Exo 2:11) he had cast in his lot with his nation; he had been appointed their leader (Exo 3:10); they had accepted him as such (Exo 4:31); he had led them out of Egypt and brought them to Sinai; if he had looked coldly on them now, and readily separated his fate from theirs, he would have been false to his past, and wanting in tenderness towards those who were at once his wards and his countrymen. His own glory naturally drew him one way, his affection for Israel the other. It is to his eternal honour that he chose the better part; declined to be put in Abraham’s place, and generously interceded for his nation (Exo 32:11-13). He thereby placed himself among the heroes of humanity, and gave additional strength and dignity to his own character.
Exo 32:7
Go, descendi.e; “make haste to descenddo not tarrythere is need of thy immediate presence.” Thy people, which thou broughtest, etc. Words calculated to awaken the tenderness between which and self-love the coming struggle was to be.
Exo 32:8
They have turned aside quickly. A few weeks have sufficed to make them forget their solemn pledges (Exo 19:8; Exo 24:3), and fly in the face of a plain unmistakable commandment. A molten calf. In the contemptuous language of Holy Scripture when speaking of idols, such an emblematic figure as the Babylonion man-bull would be a mere “calf.” That the figure made by Aaron is called always “a molten calf”literally, “a calf of fusion”disposes of the theory of Keil, that it was of carved wood covered with gold plates hammered on to it. These be thy gods, which have brought thee. Rather, “This is thy god, which has brought thee.” The plural must be regarded as merely one of dignity.
Exo 32:9
A stiffnecked people. This epithet, which becomes epitheton usitatum, is here used for the first time. It does not so much mean “obstinate” as “perverse” like a horse that stiffens the neck when the driver pulls the right or left rein, and will not go the way he is wanted to go. (Compare Exo 33:3, Exo 33:5; Exo 34:9; Deu 9:6, Deu 9:13; Deu 31:27; etc.)
Exo 32:10
Now, therefore, let me alone. This was not a command, but rather a suggestion; or, at any rate, it was a command not intended to compel obediencelike that of the angel to Jacob”Let me go, for the day breaketh” (Gen 32:26). Moses was not intended to take the command as absolute. He did not do sohe “wrestled with God,” like Jacob, and prevailed. That my wrath may wax hot. Literally, “and my wrath will wax hot.” I will make of thee a great nation. (Compare Num 14:12.) God could, of course, have multiplied the seed of Moses, as he had that of Abraham; but in that case all that had been as yet done would have gone for nought, and his purposes with respect to his “peculiar people” would have been put back six hundred years and more.
Exo 32:11-13
Moses has three pleas wherewith he “wrestles with God:”
1. Israel is God’s people, for whom he has done so much that surely he will not now destroy them, and so undo his own work.
2. Egypt will be triumphant if Israel is swept away, and will misapprehend the Divine action.
3. The promises made to Abraham (Gen 15:5; Gen 17:2-6; etc.), IsaActs (Gen 26:4), and Jacob (Gen 28:14; Gen 35:11), which had received a partial fulfilment, would seem to be revoked and withdrawn if the nation already formed were destroyed and a fresh start made.
Exo 32:14
The Lord repented of the evil. Changes of purpose are, of course, attributed to God by an “economy,” or accommodation of the truth to human modes of speech and conception. “God is not a man that he should repent.” He “knows the end from the beginning.” When he threatened to destroy Israel, he knew that he would spare; but, as he communicated to Moses, first, his anger, and then, at a later period, his intention to spare, he is said to have “repented.” The expression is an anthropomorphic one, like so many others, on which we have already commented. (See the comment on Exo 2:24, Exo 2:25; Exo 3:7, Exo 3:8; Exo 31:17; etc.)
HOMILETICS.
Exo 32:7-10
The anger of God.
God may well be angry when his people apostatise; and having recently professed entire submission to his will (Exo 19:8; Exo 24:3), rebel suddenly, and cast his words behind their backs. God’s anger against Israel was at this time intensified
I. BY THEIR EXTREME INGRATITUDE. He had just delivered them by a series of stupendous miracles from a cruel bondage. He had brought them out of Egypthe had divided the Red Sea before them, and led them through ithe had given them a complete victory over the Amalekites. He was supporting them day after day by a miraculous supply of food. He had condescended to enter into covenant with them, and to make them his “peculiar treasure””a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exo 19:5, Exo 19:6). He was further engaged in giving them a law which would place them tar in advance of other nations, and render them the main source of life and light in a world of moral darkness and deadness. There had been no moment in their history when they were more bound by every consideration of duty, honour, and thankfulness to cling to Jehovahyet, spite of all, they had rebelled and rushed into idolatry.
II. BY THE SUDDENNESS OF THEIR APOSTASY. “They have turned aside quickly out of the way,” said the Almighty to Moses (Exo 32:8). A few weeks only had gone by since they had declared themselves God’s willing servantshad entered into covenant with him, and promised to keep all his commandments. What had caused the sudden and complete change? There was nothing to account for it but the absence of Moses. But surely it might have been expected that their convictions would have had sufficient root to outlive the disappearance of Moses for as long as six weeks. The fact, however, was otherwise. They were of those who had “no root in themselves”and as soon as temptation came, they fell away. The remembrance of their old idolatries came upon them with a force that they had not strength to resistand it happened unto them according to the true proverb: “The dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire” (2Pe 2:22).
III. BY THEIR SINNING AGAINST ABUNDANT LIGHT. Until the delivery of the second commandment at Sinai, it might perhaps have been a doubtful point whether the worship of God under a material form was, or was not, offensive to him. But after that delivery, all doubt was removed. The bowing down to an image had been then and there declared an “iniquity,” an offence to a “jealous God,” which he would visit unto the third and fourth generation. Nor was this all. An express prohibition of the very act that Israel had now committed, had been put in the forefront of the “Book of the Covenant”which opens thus”Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heavenye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold” (Exo 20:22, Exo 20:23). It was impossible therefore that they should plead ignorance. Knowingly and wilfully they had transgressed a plain command of the Great God, whose power and glory had so lately been revealed to them. They had sinned in the full light of day. Christians in their manifold idolatriesof covetousness, lust, fashion-worship, etc.are more ungrateful than even the Israelites, since they sin against One who has died to redeem them, and they sin against a still clearer lightthe double light of a full revelation of God’s will, and of a conscience enlightened by the Holy Ghost. God’s wrath may well “wax hot against them, to consume them from the face of the earth.”
Exo 32:11-15
The intercession of Moses.
This intercession should be studied and laid to heart by all Christians, especially by Christian ministers, whose duty it is to “watch for the souls” of others, as “they that must give account.” It was
I. EARNEST AND IMPASSIONED. No feeble voice, no lukewarm, timid utterance, was heard in the words whereby the leader sought to save his people. Prayer, expostulation, almost reproach, sound in them. God is besought, urged, importuned, to grant the boon begged of him. The tone of Jacob’s answer rings in them,”I will not let thee go, except thou bless me” (Gen 32:26).
II. UNSELFISH, OR RATHER SELF–RENOUNCING. The promise, “I will make of thee a great nation,” has evidently taken no hold of the unselfish nature of the prophet. He declines to give it a thought. God must keep his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacobnot make a new promise, as if everything was now to begin afresh. The offer, which might have tempted any man, is simply set aside, as if it had not been made, or at any rate could not have been seriously meant; and the whole energy of the speaker concentrated on inducing God to spare his people.
III. WELL–REASONED. Three arguments are used, and each of them has real weight.
(1) Israel is God’s peoplehas been chosen, called, taken into covenant, protected and defended after a marvellous fashion. All this Divine effort would have been simply thrown away, if the announced purpose were carried out and Israel destroyed. God does not usually allow his plans to be baulked, his designs to remain unaccomplished. If he “has begun a good work,” he (commonly) wills to “bring it to good effect.” Will he not do so in this case?
(2) Are the enemies of God to be allowed a triumph? Israel’s destruction would afford to the Egyptians an ample field for scoffs, ridicule, self-glorification. Would God suffer this?
(3) Promises had been made, with great solemnity (” Thou swarest by thine own self,” Exo 32:13), to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that the “Peculiar people” should spring from them. These might be kept in the letter, but would they be kept in the spirit, if all their descendants were now destroyed, except some three, and a new nation was created out of the descendants of Moses?
IV. EFFECTUAL. “The Lord repented of the evil, which he thought to do unto his people” (Exo 32:14). The intercession of Moses prevailedthe announced purpose was given up. God spared his People, though his anger against them continued; and they were punished in a different way (Exo 32:33-35).
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Exo 32:7-14
The wrath of Jehovah and the intercession of Moses.
I. JEHOVAH DESCRIBES TO MOSES THE APOSTASY OF ISRAEL. Jehovah is omniscient; even while spreading before Moses, with all elaboration, the patterns in the mount, his all-observant eye is equally on the doings of the people below. And now, just when Moses is expecting to be dismissed with his instructions for the people, he is fated to learn that they have proved themselves utterly unworthy of Jehovah’s great designs. The thing described is an utter, shameless, and precipitate apostasy from Jehovah. Previous outbreaks of the sinful heart were as nothing compared to this. If it had only been the sin of a few, some half-secret departure from Jehovah confined to a corner of the camp; if there had been a prompt repudiation of it and punishment of it on the part of the great majority: then, indeed, Jehovah might have found cause even for rejoicing that the apostasy of the few had been occasion to prove the fidelity of the many. But alas! the transgression is general; there is a public adoption of the golden calf with worship and sacrifice. The idolatrous spirit has been shown in the completest and most demonstrative way. Idolatry, with its awful degradations and its fatal influences, must always be an abomination to God; but how peculiarly abominable when it rose in the midst of a people with whom God had been dealing with the tenderest compassion and the sublimest power! It is to be noticed that God calls special attention to the quickness of this apostasy. “They have turned aside quickly, out of the way.” The fact of course was that they had also been turned quickly into that way, and kept in it by a kind of external force. They might promise, and while they promised mean to keep the promise, but nature was too much for them; and as soon as the Divine constraint was in any way relaxed they returned to the old path. The impression Jehovah would make on the mind of his servant is that nothing can be expected from them.
II. Jehovah indicates to Moses THE RIGHTEOUS SEVERITY WITH WHICH HE PROPOSES TO TREAT ISRAEL (Exo 32:9, Exo 32:10). We have to think here not only of the words of Jehovah, but also of the attitude of Moses, which seems to be indicated by these words. Even before Moses puts in his earnest intercession, we have a hint of what is in his heart. Jehovah says, “Let me alone;” as one man, about to strike another, might speak to some third person stepping between to intercept the blow In the speaking of Jehovah’s words there must have been an indication of wrath, such as of course cannot be conveyed by the mere words themselves. And what, indeed, could Jehovah do, but give an unmistakable expression of his wrath with such an outbreak of human unrighteousness as is found in idolatry? No doubt there is great difficulty in understanding such expressions as those of Jehovah here. When we remember the low estate of the Israelites spiritually, and the infecting circumstances in which they had grown up, it seems hardly just to reproach them for their lapse into idolatry. But then we must bear in mind that the great object of the narrative here is to show how Jehovah cannot bear sin. The thing to be considered first of all is, not how these Israelites became idolaters, but the sad and stubborn fact that they seemed inveterate idolaters. Such a decided manifestation of idolatry as the one here revealed, when it came to the knowledge of Jehovah, was like a spark falling into the midst of gunpowder. It matters not how such a spark may be kindled; it produces an explosion the moment it touches the powder. The wrath of God must be revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Yet doubt not that the God who spoke here in such wrath and threatening loved these Israelites in the midst of their apostasy. But it was not possible in one and the same moment, and from one and the same voice, to make equally evident love for the benighted apostate himself, and wrath because of the evil that was so intimately mixed with his nature. On such an occasion it became God to give a direct and emphatic expression of wrath from his own lips, leaving his love and pity to be known indirectly through the intercession of his servant Moses. When Jehovah is angry, it is then we need most of all to remember that love is the great power in his nature.
III. Jehovah further indicates A CERTAIN TEMPTING POSSIBILITY TO MOSES. “I will make of thee a great nation.” Thus we see how the word of Jehovah is made to serve two purposes. It both expresses the fulness of wrath with an apostate people, and at the same time puts a cherished servant upon a most effectual trial of his magnanimity and mediatorial unselfishness. Thus this proposition of Jehovah comes in most beautifully to emphasise the simplicity and purity of the feeling of Moses in his subsequent mediation. And though Moses makes no reference to this proposition, it is well to be enabled to see how little hold any self-seeking thoughts took of his mind.
IV. THE REPLY OF MOSES HAS NOW TO BE CONSIDERED. Not that we need stay to investigate the merits of the considerations which Moses here puts forward. He could only speak of things according as they appeared to him. We know, looking at these same things in the light of the New Testament, that even if God had destroyed these People as at first he hinted, his promises would not therefore have been nullified. The temporal destruction of a single generation of men, however perplexing it might have seemed at the time, would afterwards have been seen as neither any hindrance in the fulfilment of God’s purposes, nor any dimming of the brightness of his glory. Be it remembered that these same people whom God brought out with great power and a mighty hand, yet nevertheless perished in the wilderness. Spared this time, they were in due season cut down as cumberers of the ground. And as to any scornful words the Egyptians might speak, God’s glow was not at the mercy of their tongues; for it had been manifested beyond all cavil in a sufficiently terrible chapter of their own history. Then as to the words spoken to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, even if all but Moses had been swept away, yet in him the seed of Abraham would have been continued, just as in the days of the flood. God did not utterly destroy the human race, but narrowed it down to one family. And more than all we should bear in mind that the true fulfilment of God’s promises was to Abraham’s spiritual seed; they who being of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. Hence we must not too readily conclude that what Moses said was the thing which here influenced Jehovah in what is called his repentance. The influential power was, that here was a man to say something, to act as a mediator, one deeply concerned to secure escape for these people, even while they, revelling in the plain below, are all unconscious of their danger. Notice that Moses says nothing by way of excuse for the people. Indeed, the full magnitude of their offence had not yet been comprehended by him; and it is interesting to contrast his pleadings here with an angry God, and his own wrath when he came actually in sight of the golden calf. The one thing Moses fixes on, in his appeal to God, is the great Divine purpose for Israel. He recaps how great that purpose is; he is profoundly concerned that it should not be interfered with; and so we are led to think of Jesus the true Mediator, with a knowledge of Divine purposes and human needs, such as it was not for Moses to attain. Consider how Jesus dwells and caused his apostles to dwell on God’s great purposes for the children of men. Thus both from Moses the type, and Jesus the antitype, we should learn to think of men not as they are only, but as they ought to be, and as God proposes they should be. Evidently Moses kept constantly in mind God’s purposes for Israel, even though he knew not how profound and comprehensive those purposes were. So let us, knowing more than Moses of God’s purposes for men in Christ Jesus, keep constantly in mind that which will come to all who by a deep patient, and abiding faith approve themselves true children of Abraham.Y.
HOMILIES BY G. A. GOODHART
Exo 32:14
Some powers restrain, some compel.
Here we see a restraining power, and one which can even restrain God. Notice
I. EVIL THREATENED.
1. Justly merited. Remember all that had gone before: deliverance after a series of awe-inspiring judgments on the oppressors; warnings after previous murmurings; now, with a fuller revelation of God’s majesty, this act of impatient apostasy: all compelled to the conclusion that the people were utterly stiff-necked (Exo 32:9).
2. Complete and final. As a moulder in clay, when he finds his material getting hard and intractable, throws it down, casts it away, and takes up with something more pliable, so God determines with regard to Israel (Exo 32:10). Let the children of Israel go, and let the children of Moses inherit the promises.
II. THE INTERCESSION. Only one thing held back the judgment (Exo 32:10). As though God could not act without the consent of Moses. [Cf. Hot sun would melt snow but for shadow of protecting wall.] The heat of God’s wrath cannot consume so long as Moses stands in the way and screens those against whom it burns. What a power! See how it was exercised:
1. Unselfishly. He might have thought, “A disgrace to we if these people are lost when I have led them;” this fear, however, provided against by the promise that he shall be made “a great nation,” The intercession is prompted by pure unselfishness; Moses identifies himself with those for whom he pleads; and this gives the power. To come between the sun and any object, you must be in the line of the sun’s rays; and to come, as Moses did, between God and a people, you must be in the line of God’s will
2. With perfect freedom. Moses talks with Jehovah as a trusted steward might with his employer:
(1) Why so angry when he has exercised such power on their behalf? (Exo 32:11).
(2) Why should the Egyptians be permitted to taunt him with caprice and cruelty? (Exo 32:12).
(3) Let him remember his oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exo 32:13). The unselfish man need not fear to speak thus openly with God. Unselfishness is so God-like that it permits familiarity whilst it guards against irreverence.
III. EVIL REPENTED OF. Notice:
1. The repentance was in direct answer to the intercession (cf. Exo 32:12, Exo 32:14). God did as Moses begged that he would do. Had Moses been less firm, God’s wrath would certainly have consumed the people. Yet
2. God cannot change! No: but Moses kept his place [cf. the wall screening the snow]; and therefore the conditions were never such as they must have been for judgment to be executed. God’s repentance was one with Moses’ persistence. The evil threatened was against the people, but the people apart from Moses. Moses identifying himself with them altered the character of the total.
ConclusionWhat Moses did for his people that our Lord does for his Church (Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25). That also we may do, each in his measure in behalf of others. It is the Pharisee who thanks God that he is not as other men are! True men love rather to identify themselves with their race, thus, salt-like, saving it from corruption; giving it shelter by the intercession of their lives.G.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Exo 32:7-11
The first intercessions.
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 (Psa 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 (Exo 32:7-11). 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 (verses 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” (verse 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 thisthat 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. Exo 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 (verses 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. verses 31-35; Exo 33:12-18; Exo 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 (verse 14); next, the consent of God to the people going up to Canaan, only, however, under the conduct of an angel (Exo 33:1-4); third, the promise that his own presence would go with them (Exo 33:14); finally, the perfect re-establishment of friendly relations, in the renewal of the covenant (Exo 34:10). Like Jacob, Moses, as a prince, had power with God, and prevailed (Gen 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 (verse 32). The third intercession, in like manner, is connected with a special mark of Jehovah’s condescending favour to himself (Exo 33:9), emboldening him to ask that God will restore his presence to the nation (verse 15); while the fourth follows on the sight which is given him of Jehovah’s glory, and on the revelation of the name (Exo 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 (verse 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 Jon 4:1-11.) 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” (verse 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 (verse 11). The finishing of work he has begun (Php 1:6).
(2) To God’s regard for his own honour (verse 12). Moses cannot bear to think of God’s action being compromised.
(3) To God’s regard for his own servants (verse 13). The love he bears to the fathers (of. Deu 4:31; Deu 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 (verse 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.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Exo 32:7. Thy people, which thou broughtest That is, as being my representative; as being a god unto them: see ch. Exo 4:16 Exo 7:1 Exo 18:19. Moses is called, Act 7:35 a deliverer. God, as it were, now disclaims this people, who had disclaimed him; he calls them thy people in this address to Moses.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Observe God’s knowledge. Pro 15:3 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 32:7 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]:
Ver. 7. For thy people, which thou broughtest. ] God will own them no longer; they are now discovenanted. The saints by gross sins may lose their ius aptitudinale, non ius haereditarium, their fitness for God’s kingdom; they may sin away all their comfortables.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the LORD [Hebrew. Jehovah. said. See note on Exo 3:7, and cep. note on Exo 6:10.
thy . . . thou. As though disowning them. Compare Moses’ grand faith, in his reply, Exo 32:11.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Exo 32:7. 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:
See how Jehovah will not own these idolaters as his people. He says to Moses, Thy people which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
Exo 32:8-10. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
What a great future was thus opened up before Moses! He might become another Abraham, and in him should all the nations of the earth be blessed. But Moses loves the people, even the people who have vexed and provoked him so many years. He still loves them so much that, even before he begins to pray for them, God says, Let me alone, as if he felt the force of Moses coming prayer, and would not have him offer it. O wondrous power of intercession, that by it even Gods right hand is held back when it is lifted up to smite!
Exo 32:11. And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?
Moses will not have it that they are his people, nor that he brought them out of the land of Egypt; but he declares that they are Gods people, and that He brought them forth with great power, and with a mighty hand.
Exo 32:12-14. Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed so the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
So a second time the mighty power of prayer was proven, and the Lord hearkened to the voice of a man. In the seventh chapter of the Gospel according to Mark, beginning at the twenty-fourth verse, is another story which you know well, which tells how the Lord Jesus was overcome by a womans mighty faith.
This exposition consisted of readings from Gen 32:22-30; Exo 32:7-14; and Mar 7:24-30.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Go: Exo 19:24, Exo 33:1, Deu 9:12, Dan 9:24
thy people: Exo 32:1, Exo 32:11
corrupted: Gen 6:11, Gen 6:12, Deu 4:16, Deu 32:5, Jdg 2:19, Hos 9:9
Reciprocal: Exo 6:26 – Bring Exo 6:27 – to bring Exo 16:6 – the Lord Exo 33:13 – consider Deu 4:25 – corrupt Isa 6:9 – Go Jer 7:24 – they Eze 3:11 – the children Eze 20:36 – General Luk 15:30 – this
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Moses’ intercession 32:7-14
God’s recounting the news of the golden calf to Moses gives the reader the divine perspective on Israel’s sin. Moses stressed three points in this pericope.
"These three points-idolatry of the golden calf, Israel’s stiff-necked refusal to obey, and God’s compassion-provide the basis of the subsequent narratives and God’s further dealings with this people. Though a great act of God’s judgment follows immediately (Exo 32:27-35), the central themes of the subsequent narratives focus on God’s compassion and a new start for Israel." [Note: Sailhamer, The Pentateuch . . ., p. 312.]
God called the Israelites Moses’ people (Exo 32:7) probably because they had repudiated the covenant and God was therefore no longer their God. God regarded the Israelites’ sacrificing before the calf as worship of it (Exo 32:8).
God offered to destroy the rebellious Israelites and to make Moses’ descendants into a great nation (Exo 32:10). He may have meant that He would destroy that older generation of Israelites immediately. God was proposing action that would have been consistent with His promises to the patriarchs and the conditions of the Mosaic Covenant (cf. Num 14:12). This offer constituted a test of Moses’ ministry as Israel’s mediator. For Moses this test was real, even though the proposed destruction of Israel lay outside God’s plan (cf. the promises to Abraham; Gen 49:10). Similarly, God told Abraham to offer up Isaac even though God had previously told him that Isaac would be his designated heir. And Jesus offered Himself to Israel as her king even though His death on the cross, according to "the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God" (Act 2:23), had to precede the establishment of His kingdom. Moses passed the test. He did not forsake his people but urged God to have mercy on them.
In his model intercessory prayer (Exo 32:11-13) Moses appealed to God on the basis of several things: God’s previous work for Israel (Exo 32:11), God’s glory and reputation (Exo 32:12), and God’s word (Exo 32:13).
The reference to God changing His mind (Exo 32:14) has been a problem to many Bible readers. The expression implies no inconsistency or mutability in the character of God. He does not vacillate but always does everything in harmony with His own character. Within the plan of God, however, He has incorporated enough flexibility so that in most situations there are a number of options that are acceptable to Him. In view of Moses’ intercession God proceeded to take a different course of action than He had previously intended. [Note: See John Munro, "Prayer to a Sovereign God," Interest 56:2 (February 1990):20-21; Thomas L. Constable, "What Prayer Will and Will Not Change," in Essays in Honor of J. Dwight Pentecost, pp. 99-113; and Robert B. Chisholm Jr., "Does God ’Change His Mind’?" Bibliotheca Sacra 152:608 (October-December 1995):387-99; Hannah, p. 156.]
"In only two of the thirty-eight instances in the OT is this word used of men repenting. God’s repentance or ’relenting’ is an anthropomorphism (a description of God in human forms [sic form]) that aims at showing us that he can and does change in his actions and emotions to men when given proper grounds for doing so, and thereby he does not change in his basic integrity or character (cf. Psa 99:6; Psa 106:45; Jer 18:8; Amo 7:3; Amo 7:6; Jon 3:10; Jas 5:16). The grounds for the Lord’s repenting are three: (1) intercession (cf. Amo 7:1-6); (2) repentance of the people (Jer 18:3-11; Jon 3:9-10); and (3) compassion (Deu 32:36; Jdg 2:18; 2Sa 24:16[; 1Ch 21:15])." [Note: Kaiser, "Exodus," p. 479.]
Advocates of the "openness of God" overemphasize this change in God and conclude that He did not just relent from a former proposed course of action but changed in a more fundamental way. They say He took a completely different direction that He had not anticipated previously. This view stresses the free will of man, in this case Moses’ intercession, at the expense of the sovereignty of God.