Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 32:30
And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.
30. Ye ] the pron. is emphatic.
make propitiation ] viz. by intercession. The word ( kipper) is used, not in the technical sense which it has in P (see on Exo 30:10), but in that of propitiating or appeasing here by intercession, Gen 32:20 by a present, Pro 16:14 by conciliatory behaviour, Isa 47:11 (fig., of propitiating calamity) by either a bribe or some religious ceremony (EVV. ‘ put it away ’). Cf. DB. iv. 129 a , 5.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
30 34. Moses, with noble disinterestedness, offers his own life, if he can thereby secure his people’s pardon: Jehovah replies that He cannot on these terms take the life of the innocent; but He yields so far as to permit Moses to lead the people on to Canaan, though without His own personal presence. The passage (esp. vv. 30, 31) hardly reads as if it had been preceded by in vv. 9 14: still, the two passages are so far consistent that whereas in vv. 11 13 Moses had only petitioned that the people might not be destroyed, he now petitions for its entire forgiveness.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He speaks doubtfully, partly because he was uncertain how far God would pardon them, and partly to quicken them to the more serious practice of repentance.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
30-33. Moses said unto the people,Ye have sinned a great sinMoses labored to show the people theheinous nature of their sin, and to bring them to repentance. But notcontent with that, he hastened more earnestly to intercede for them.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And it came to pass on the morrow,…. The eighteenth day of Tammuz it was, the same writers say, that Moses implored the mercy of God for Israel. Jarchi on Ex 32:11 says it was on the seventeenth day the tables were broke, on the eighteenth the calf was burnt, and on the nineteenth that Moses went up to intercede for them:
that Moses said unto the people, ye have sinned a great sin; the sin of idolatry, see Ex 32:21 from whence it appears, that all that were guilty of it were not slain, perhaps only some of one tribe; and there was great reason to fear, that as wrath was gone forth it would not stop here, but others would fall a sacrifice to the divine displeasure; wherefore it is proposed by Moses to make application to the Lord on their behalf, that they might obtain mercy:
and I will go up unto the Lord: on the top of Mount Sinai:
peradventure I shall make atonement for your sin; not by any sacrifice offered, but by his prayers prevail with God to forgive their sin, and not punish any more for it: he had by his first prayer obtained of the Lord not to consume them off of the face of the earth, and utterly destroy them as a nation; but that he did not hinder but that resentment might be shown in a lesser degree, or by parts; as not 3000 men had been cut off, chiefly out of one tribe, if not altogether, the rest of the tribes might expect to be visited, according to the number of their delinquents.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
After Moses had thus avenged the honour of the Lord upon the sinful nation, he returned the next day to Jehovah as a mediator, who is not a mediator of one (Gal 3:20), that by the force of his intercession he might turn the divine wrath, which threatened destruction, into sparing grace and compassion, and that he might expiate the sin of the nation. He had received no assurance of mercy in reply to his first entreaty (Exo 32:11-13). He therefore announced his intention to the people in these words: “ Peradventure I can make an atonement for your sin.” But to the Lord he said (Exo 32:31, Exo 32:32), “ The sin of this people is a great sin; they have made themselves a god of gold, ” in opposition to the clear commandment in Exo 20:23: “ and now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin, and if not, blot me out of the book that Thou hast written.” The book which Jehovah has written is the book of life, or of the living (Psa 69:29; Dan 12:1). This expression is founded upon the custom of writing the names of the burgesses of a town or country in a burgess-list, whereby they are recognised as natives of the country, or citizens of the city, and all the privileges of citizenship are secured to them. The book of life contains the list of the righteous (Psa 69:29), and ensures to those whose names are written there, life before God, first in the earthly kingdom of God, and then eternal life also, according to the knowledge of salvation, which keeps pace with the progress of divine revelation, e.g., in the New Testament, where the heirs of eternal life are found written in the book of life (Phi 4:3; Rev 3:5; Rev 13:8, etc.), – an advance for which the way was already prepared by Isa 4:3 and Dan 12:1. To blot out of Jehovah’s book, therefore, is to cut off from fellowship with the living God, or from the kingdom of those who live before God, and to deliver over to death. As a true mediator of his people, Moses was ready to stake his own life for the deliverance of the nation, and not to live before God himself, if Jehovah did not forgive the people their sin. These words of Moses were the strongest expression of devoted, self-sacrificing love. And they were just as deep and true as the wish expressed by the Apostle Paul in Rom 9:3, that he might be accursed from Christ for the sake of his brethren according to the flesh. Bengel compares this wish of the apostle to the prayer of Moses, and says with regard to this unbounded fulness of love, “It is not easy to estimate the measure of love in a Moses and a Paul; for the narrow boundary of our reasoning powers does not comprehend it, as the little child is unable to comprehend the courage of warlike heroes” (Eng. Tr.). The infinite love of God is unable to withstand the importunity of such love. God, who is holy love, cannot sacrifice the righteous and good for the unrighteous and guilty, nor can He refuse the mediatorial intercession of His faithful servant, so long as the sinful nation has not filled up the measure of its guilt, in which case even the intercession of a Moses and a Samuel would not be able to avert the judgment (Jer 15:1, cf. Eze 14:16). Hence, although Jehovah puts back the wish and prayer of Moses with the words, “ Whoever ( , both here and in 2Sa 20:11, is more emphatic than either one or the other alone) has sinned, him will I blot out of My book, ” He yields to the entreaty that He will ensure to Moses the continuance of the nation under His guidance, and under the protection of His angel, which shall go before it (see at Exo 33:2-3), and defer the punishment of their sin until the day of His visitation.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Intercession of Moses. | B. C. 1491. |
30 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. 31 And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. 32 Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin–; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. 33 And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. 34 Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them. 35 And the LORD plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made.
Moses, having executed justice upon the principal offenders, is here dealing both with the people and with God.
I. With the people, to bring them to repentance, v. 30.
1. When some were slain, lest the rest should imagine that, because they were exempt from the capital punishment, they were therefore looked upon as free from guilt, Moses here tells the survivors, You have sinned a great sin, and therefore, though you have escaped this time, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. That they might not think lightly of the sin itself, he calls it a great sin; and that they might not think themselves innocent, because perhaps they were not all so deeply guilty as some of those that were put to death, he tells them all, You have sinned a great sin. The work of ministers is to show people their sins, and the greatness of their sins. “You have sinned, and therefore you are undone if your sins be not pardoned, for ever undone without a Saviour. It is a great sin, and therefore calls for great sorrow, for it puts you in great danger.” To affect them with the greatness of their sin he intimates to them what a difficult thing it would be to make up the quarrel which God had with them for it. (1.) It would not be done, unless he himself went up unto the Lord on purpose, and gave as long and as solemn attendance as he had done for the receiving of the law. And yet, (2.) Even so it was but a peradventure that he should make atonement for them; the case was extremely hazardous. This should convince us of the great evil there is in sin, that he who undertook to make atonement found it no easy thing to do it; he must go up to the Lord with his own blood to make atonement. The malignity of sin appears in the price of pardons.
2. Yet it was some encouragement to the people (when they were told that they had sinned a great sin) to hear that Moses, who had so great an interest in heaven and so true an affection for them, would go up unto the Lord to make atonement for them. Consolation should go along with conviction: first wound, and then heal; first show people the greatness of their sin, and then make known to them the atonement, and give them hopes of mercy. Moses will go up unto the Lord, though it be but a peradventure that he should make atonement. Christ, the great Mediator, went upon greater certainty than this, for he had lain in the bosom of the Father, and perfectly knew all his counsels. But to us poor supplicants it is encouragement enough in prayer for particular mercies that peradventure we may obtain them, though we have not an absolute promise. Zeph. ii. 3, It may be, you shall be hid. In our prayers for others, we should be humbly earnest with God, though it is but a peradventure that God will give them repentance, 2 Tim. ii. 25.
II. He intercedes with God for mercy. Observe,
1. How pathetic his address was. Moses returned unto the Lord, not to receive further instructions about the tabernacle: there were no more conferences now about that matter. Thus men’s sins and follies make work for their friends and ministers, unpleasant work, many times, and give great interruptions to that work which they delight in. Moses in this address expresses, (1.) His great detestation of the people’s sin, v. 31. He speaks as one overwhelmed with the horror of it: Oh! this people have sinned a great sin. God had first told him of it (v. 7), and now he tells God of it, by way of lamentation. He does not call them God’s people, he knew they were unworthy to be called so; but this people, this treacherous ungrateful people, they have made for themselves gods of gold. It is a great sin indeed to make gold our god, as those do that make it their hope, and set their heart on it. He does not go about to excuse or extenuate the sin; but what he had said to them by way of conviction he says to God by way of confession: They have sinned a great sin; he came not to make apologies, but to make atonement. “Lord, pardon the sin, for it is great,” Ps. xxv. 11. (2.) His great desire of the people’s welfare (v. 32): Yet now it is not too great a sin for infinite mercy to pardon, and therefore if thou wilt forgive their sin. What then Moses? It is an abrupt expression, “If thou wilt, I desire no more; if thou wilt, thou wilt be praised, I shall be pleased, and abundantly recompensed for my intercession.” It is an expression like that of the dresser of the vineyard (Luke xiii. 9), If it bear fruit; or, If thou wilt forgive, is as much as, “O that thou wouldest forgive!” as Luke xix. 42, If thou hadst known is, O that thou hadst known. “But if not, if the decree has gone forth, and there is no remedy, but they must be ruined; if this punishment which has already been inflicted on many is not sufficient (2 Cor. ii. 6), but they must all be cut off, blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which thou hast written;” that is, “If they must be cut off, let me be cut off with them, and cut short of Canaan; if all Israel must perish, I am content to perish with them; let not the land of promise be mine by survivorship.” This expression may be illustrated from Ezek. xiii. 9, where this is threatened against the false prophets, They shall not be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel. God had told Moses that, if he would not interpose he would make of him a great nation, v. 10. “No,” says Moses, “I am so far from desiring to see my name and family built up on the ruins of Israel, that I will choose rather to sink with them. If I cannot prevent their destruction, let me not see it (Num. xi. 15); let me not be written among the living (Isa. iv. 3), nor among those that are marked for preservation; even let me die in the last ditch.” Thus he expresses his tender affection for the people, and is a type of the good Shepherd, that lays down his life for the sheep (John x. 11), who was to be cut off from the land of the living for the transgression of my people,Isa 53:8; Dan 9:26. He is also an example of public-spiritedness to all, especially to those in public stations. All private interests must be made subordinate to the good and welfare of communities. It is no great matter what becomes of us and our families in this world, so that it go well with the church of God, and there be peace upon Israel. Moses thus importunes for a pardon, and wrestles with God, not prescribing to him (“If thou wilt not forgive, thou art either unjust or unkind”); no, he is far from that; but, “If not, let me die with the Israelites, and the will of the Lord be done.”
2. Observe how prevalent his address was. God would not take him at his word; no, he will not blot any out of his book but those that by their wilful disobedience have forfeited the honour of being enrolled in it (v. 33); the soul that sins shall die, and not the innocent for the guilty. This was also an intimation of mercy to the people, that they should not all be destroyed in a body, but those only that had a hand in the sin. Thus Moses gets ground by degrees. God would not at first give him full assurances of his being reconciled to them, lest, if the comfort of a pardon were too easily obtained, they should be emboldened to do the like again, and should not be made sensible enough of the evil of the sin. Comforts are suspended that convictions may be the deeper impressed: also God would hereby exercise the faith and zeal of Moses, their great intercessor. Further, in answer to the address of Moses, (1.) God promises, notwithstanding this, to go on with his kind intention of giving them the land of Canaan, the land he had spoken to them of, v. 34. Therefore he sends Moses back to them to lead them, though they were unworthy of him, and promises that his angel should go before them, some created angel that was employed in the common services of the kingdom of providence, which intimated that they were not to expect any thing for the future to be done for them out of the common road of providence, not any thing extraordinary. Moses afterwards obtained a promise of God’s special presence with them (Exo 33:14; Exo 33:17); but at present this was all he could prevail for. (2.) Yet he threatens to remember this sin against them when hereafter he should see cause to punish them for other sins: “When I visit, I will visit for this among the rest. Next time I take the rod in hand, they shall have one stripe the more for this.” The Jews have a saying, grounded on this, that henceforward no judgment fell upon Israel but there was in it an ounce of the powder of the golden calf. I see no ground in scripture for the opinion some are of, that God would not have burdened them with such a multitude of sacrifices and other ceremonial institutions if they had not provoked him by worshipping the golden calf. On the contrary, Stephen says that when they made a calf, and offered sacrifice to the idol, God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven (Act 7:41; Act 7:42); so that the strange addictedness of that people to the sin of idolatry was a just judgment upon them for making and worshipping the golden calf, and a judgment they were never quite freed from till the captivity of Babylon. See Rom. i. 23-25. Note, Many that are not immediately cut off in their sins are reserved for a further day of reckoning: vengeance is slow, but sure. For the present, the Lord plagued the people (v. 35), probably by the pestilence, or some other infectious disease, which was a messenger of God’s wrath, and an earnest of worse. Aaron made the calf, and yet it is said the people made it, because they worshipped it. Deos qui rogat, ille facit–He who asks for gods makes them. Aaron was not plagued, but the people; for his was a sin of infirmity, theirs a presumptuous sin, between which there is a great difference, not always discernable to us, but evident to God, whose judgment therefore, we are sure, is according to truth. Thus Moses prevailed for a reprieve and a mitigation of the punishment, but could not wholly turn away the wrath of God. This (some think) bespeaks the inability of the law of Moses to reconcile men to God and to perfect our peace with him, which was reserved for Christ to do, in whom alone it is that God so pardons sin as to remember it no more.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verses 30-35:
The text implies that the day was almost over when judgment was fully executed. The slain must be buried, the wounded treated, before Moses could return to Sinai to confer with Jehovah.
Moses assembled the people, and reminded them of their “great sin.” He then promised to intercede for them.
“Peradventure,” ulai, “if so be, it may be.”
“Make an atonement,” kaphar “to cover.” The text implies doubt that Moses would be able to make a covering for the people’s sin in making and worshipping the golden calf.
“Gods of gold” is literally “a god of gold,” since there was only one golden calf.
Moses’ intercessory prayer for Israel is a masterpiece. He was willing that his own name be blotted from God’s book, both in this life and in the life to come, if this would mean forgiveness for Israel. This is similar to Paul’s plea for this nation, Ro 9:1-3.
“Thy book” appears to be more than just the list of those who are alive. The text implies that Moses was not merely asking God to slay him instead of Israel. This “book” is God’s register of those who have life with Him beyond this life.
God does not judge one man for the sin of another, Eze 18:20; Ps 49:7, 8. Each must bear his own guilt.
Jehovah renewed His promise that Moses would lead Israel to the Land of Promise. His “Angel” (messenger) would go before them.
The text gives no details of the promised visitation, verse 34. Some expositors suggest this refers to the Divine sentence that none of those who had left Egypt would be allowed to enter the Land, Nu 14:35.
“Plagued,” nagaph, “to smite.” Further details of this smithing are not given.
“Make an atonement,” kaphar “to cover.” The text implies doubt that Moses would be able to make a covering for the people’s sin in making and worshipping the golden calf.
“Gods of gold” is literally “a god of gold,” since there was only one golden calf.
Moses’ intercessory prayer for Israel is a masterpiece. He was willing that his own name be blotted from God’s book, both in this life and in the life to come, if this would mean forgiveness for Israel. This is similar to Paul’s plea for this nation, Ro 9:1-3.
“Thy book” appears to be more than just the list of those who are alive. The text implies that Moses was not merely asking God to slay him instead of Israel. This “book” is God’s register of those who have life with Him beyond this life.
God does not judge one man for the sin of another, Eze 18:20; Ps 49:7, 8. Each must bear his own guilt.
Jehovah renewed His promise that Moses would lead Israel to the Land of Promise. His “Angel” (messenger) would go before them.
The text gives no details of the promised visitation, verse 34. Some expositors suggest this refers to the Divine sentence that none of those who had left Egypt would be allowed to enter the Land, Nu 14:35.
“Plagued,” nagaph, “to smite.” Further details of this smithing are not given.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
30. And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said Inasmuch as this judgment of God was terrible, lest the Israelites should altogether fall into despair, Moses addresses a consolation to them to calm their sorrow, promising that he will make entreaty to God in their behalf. Meanwhile, in order that they might betake themselves as humble suppliants to God’s mercy, he reminds them of the enormity of their sin. The Hebrew words literally mean, (352) ye have sinned a great sin; there is, however, no ambiguity in the sense; for he would humble them by setting the greatness of their crime before them, in order that they may earnestly give themselves to repentance. To the same effect is (353) the particle אולי , auli, which is often used to express uncertainty, but here, as in many other places, only denotes difficulty; lest, as is frequently the case, they should think of asking pardon unconcernedly and carelessly, and not with anxious earnestness. Thus, when Peter addresses Simon Magus, he bids him pray, “if perhaps” his iniquity may be forgiven him, ( Act 8:22😉 not that he should vacillate or waver in his mind like those who are in suspense or doubt, but that terrified by the fear of God’s wrath, he should anxiously seek after the remedy.
(352) So A.V. It will be seen that C. renders the nouns in the ablative case, Ye have sinued by a great sin.
(353) See C. on Amo 5:15. — Minor Prophets, Cal. Soc. edit., vol. 2 p. 277.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Exo. 32:30-35
RELIGIOUS PATRIOTISM
It has often been brought as a charge against Christianity that it is adverse to patriotism. It is true that the spirit of Christianity is cosmopolitan, but yet the love of humanity does not exclude the sentiment of nationality, and the Word of God presents us with instances of the most sublime patriotism. The true Christian is a true patriot; the patriotism inspired by religion is of the noblest type. The text is a case in point.
I. Religious patriotism recognises national sin, ver
Exo. 32:30. Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin. There is a patriotism whose motto is: Our countryright or wrong. Such patriotism is spurious and quite misleading. There is a patriotism which is ever dwelling in a vain-glorious temper on the wealth and victories and power of a nation, and which cannot tolerate the rebuking of the national vices. This is a kind of patriotism which leads to evil issues. Religious patriotism discerns and rebukes the sins of the times, and is therefore the true patriotism. True love is not blind, neither is true patriotism. It is sensitive to those errors and vices by which national greatness is eventually destroyed. He may seem the greatest patriot who is always vaunting the power and prowess, the wealth and magnificence, of his country; but he is really the truest friend to his country who protests against the iniquitous laws which are on its statute book, the errors which are taught in its schools and temples, the vices which disgrace its streets.
II. Religious patriotism is prepared to make the greatest sacrifices for the national welfare. We see this in Moses in the text, Exo. 32:31-32. See also Exo. 32:11-14. Moses set the nation above his personal interests, above his family glory. His temptation to become the founder of a great nation reminds us of Christs vision of the kingdoms. He loves his nation; he will not merely die for it, he is ready to suffer unknown sorrows on its behalf. See also Apostle Paul, Rom. 9:3. Thus the Christian Church is ever making great sacrifices on behalf of the nation. A religion that does not issue in practical patriotism, is not the religion of Christ. The nation is of God as well as the family, and the true Christian in the spirit of self-sacrificing love, gives time, money, influence, and often life itself, that the nation may be educated and free and pure.
III. Religious patriotism is most precious to the state, Exo. 32:33-35. We find that God was moved by the prayer of Moses to spare Israel. It is often thought that the grandest power in the state is the power which fights; but really the grandest power is the power which prays. The patriotism which seeks to spread the knowledge of God; which seeks to secure the keeping of Gods laws; which vindicates the sanctity of Gods day; which pleads with God on behalf of the nation, as it sins and suffersthis patriotism is of essential preciousness. The patriotism which seeks to bring God and the nation closer together, is far more precious than the tongue of the eloquent, the sword of the valiant, or the wisdom of the ancient.
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.
Mosaic Intercession! Exo. 32:30.
(1.) There is a sublime grandeur in the form of Moses, as we behold him holding forth his rod over the billowy sea, or raising that rod towards heaven. The stormy tempest and the beetling waters obeyed the Leader, who was invested with power by that God who made the sea and stretched out the firmament on high.
(2.) There is more than human majesty in the appearance of Moses when we behold the great Lawgiver descending from Sinai, bearing aloft those holy commandments which not a nation alone, but a world should observe, his countenance radiant with such glory as never before had beamed from human face.
(3.) But though he was mighty as the Leader, illustrious as the Legislator, it is with more of interest and admiration that we view him as the Intercessor for Israel. Power, it has been well said, excites wonder, holiness, awe. But it is love which attracts the soul.
Mid visions of eternal light
That glow on Edens plain,
Where never comes the shade of night
In spirit realms to reign;
Where robe and crown of angels glow,
Theres ONE in tears alone
One interceding for our woe
Tis JESUS by the Throne.
Book of Life! Exo. 32:23.
(1.) The book here spoken of is the Book of Life. It was even then the custom of every city to keep a list of the burgesses. The Israelites were familiar with the custom of keeping a register of families; as appears in Gen. 5:1. Hence Moses uses a familiar figure in speaking of Gods book. It has been supposed that a similar reference occurs in Psalms 29, 69; and in Dan. 12:1.
(2.) It seems that in China they have two booksone the Book of Life, and the other the Book of Death. These are presented to the Emperor by his ministers, who is at liberty to blot out from either book any names he pleases. Those whose names he blots out from the Book of Life are doomed to die; and those whom he erases from the Book of Death are allowed to live.
And then and there the likeness as of books
Before the awful presence of the Judge
Was seenthe massive chronicles of time,
The Lawthe Gospel and the Book of Life.
Bickersteth.
Intercession! Exo. 32:31-34. In one of the lovely Swiss villages, bordered on its most romantic lake, dwelt an aged Christian and his granddaughtera maiden of simple beauty and lofty imagination. Two Englishmen visited the locality; when the attention of one was attracted to this German girl. After some weeks residence, the English stranger discovered that he was loved by the village maiden. He, therefore, induced her to leave her grandfathers roof, under the promise of a marriage. For a month they continued travelling from one place to another, partly for concealment and partly to view the beautiful scenery. At length, the yearning to see the aged grandfather became intense; but he had sternly refused. In this painful crisis, the English friend undertook to intercede. His intercession proved effectual; and on the regular marriage of the two runaways, she was restored to her old home. Here husband and wife lived happily, until the summons came for the veteran Christian to leave this passing world.
We dare not think what earth would be,
O Intercession! but for thee;
A howling chaos, wild and dark
One flood of horrors, while no ark,
Upborne above the gloom-piled wave,
From one great death-abyss might save.
Intercessory Prayer! Exo. 32:34.
(1.) It has been well said, Prayer is not an endeavour to wrest from God what He is reluctant to bestow. It is the approach of the heart to Him to claim what He has promised, and what He delights to give. It was God Himself who directed Moses to stand in the beach. And it is the Father who has given the Son to be our Intercessor. All true prayer is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and therefore cannot fail to be presented and accepted.
(2.) If such is true of the intercessory prayer of Moses, how much more so is it of Christ? He pleads for our forgiveness at the throne of God. When the word went forth against the fruitless fig-tree: Cut it down, the voice was heard of the prevailing advocate, Let it alone this year also. How often may such prayers have been offered on our behalf!Luk. 6:12.
Ended is the days work now,
Jesus seeks the mountains brow;
He, from early dawn, His sheep
Hath, as Shepherd, toiled to keep.
Doth He close in sleep His days!
Nay, He watches still, and prays.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
MOSES INTERCESSION ON BEHALF OF THE PEOPLE.
(30-35) When Moses had, on first hearing of Gods intention to destroy the people, interceded for them (Exo. 32:11-13), his prayers had received no direct answerhe had been left in doubt whether they were granted or no. Having now put an end to the offence, and to some extent punished it, he is bent on renewing his supplications, and obtaining a favourable reply. Once more he ascends into the mount to be quite alone, and so best able to wrestle with God in prayer; and this time he not merely intercedes, but offers himself as an atonement for the people, and is willing to be blotted out of Gods book, if on this condition they may be spared. God refuses the offer, but makes known to Moses that He relentsthat He will spare the people, and allow them to continue their journey to the promised land; only He will send an angel to lead them instead of leading them Himself, and He will punish the sinners by a different punishment from that originally threatened (Exo. 32:10).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
30. On the morrow After that fearful day of retribution .
Ye have sinned a great sin It was important that they should realize the gravity and magnitude of their transgression, and these words of Moses were adapted to impress this upon them . Lest further punishment fall he proposes to go up unto the Lord, and seek, if possible, to make an atonement for their sin. He hopes to cover or expiate their sin by further intercession . Comp . Exo 32:11-14. He accordingly went up again into the mount, and made supplication before Jehovah there .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Moses Again Intercedes for the People
v. 30. And it came to pass on the morrow that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin; and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. v. 31. And Moses returned unto the Lord and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold! v. 32. Yet, now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin-. v. 33. And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book. v. 34. Therefore go now, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee, v. 35. And the Lord plagued the people because they made the calf, which Aaron made.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
MOSES ONCE MORE INTERCEDES WITH GOD FOR THE PEOPLEGOD ANSWERS HIM. No distinct reply seems to have been given to the previous intercession of Moses (Exo 32:11-13). He only knew that the people were not as yet consumed, and therefore that God’s wrath was at any rate held in suspense. It might be that the punishment inflicted on the 3000 had appeased God’s wrath: or something more might be needed. In the latter case, Moses was ready to sacrifice himself for his nation (Exo 32:32). Like St. Paul, he elects to be “accursed from God, for his brethren, his kinsfolk after the flesh” (Rom 9:3). But God will not have this sacrifice. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Eze 18:4). He declares, “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book” (Exo 32:33). Moses shall not make himself a victim. Without any such sacrifice, God will so far spare them, that they shall still go on their way towards the promised land, with Moses as their earthly, and an Angel as their heavenly leader. Only, their sin shall still be visited in God’s own good time and in his own way. How, is left in obscurity; but the decree is issued”In the day that I visit, I will visit their sin upon them” (Exo 32:34). And, writing long years after the event, the author observes”And God did plague the people because they made the calf which Aaron made” (Exo 32:35).
Exo 32:30
On the morrow. The day must have been well-nigh over when the slaughter of the 3000 was completed: and after that the corpses had to be buried, the signs of carnage to be effaced, and the wounded, of whom there must have been many, cared for. Moses would have had to direct, if not even to superintend, everything, and therefore could not reascend Sinai until the next day. Moses said unto the people, Not now to the elders only, as in Exo 24:14, but to all the people, since all had sinned, and. each man is held by God individually responsible for his own sin. Ye have sinned a great sin. One which combined ingratitude and falseness with impiety. Peradventure I shall make an atonement. Moses has formed the design, which he executes (verse 32); but will not reveal it to the people, from modesty probably.
Exo 32:31
Gods of gold. Rather “a god of gold.”
Exo 32:32
If thou wilt forgive their sin. The ellipsis which follows, is to be supplied by some such words, as “well and good””I am content””I have no more to say.” Similar eases of ellipses will be found in Danial Exo 3:5; Luk 13:9; Luk 19:42; Joh 6:62; Rom 9:22. And if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book. Some interpret this as merely equivalent to, “Blot me out of the book of the living,” and explain that phrase as meaning simply”Take my lifekill me instead of them”but something more seems to be meant. “The book of the living””the book of life”the book of God’s writingis not merely a register of those who happen to be alive at any given time. It “contains the list of the righteous, and ensures to those whose names are written therein, life before God, first in the earthly kingdom of God, and then eternal life also” (Keil). Thus Moses declared his willingnessnay, his wishthat God would visit on him the guilt of his people, both in this world and the next, so that he would thereupon forgive them. St. Paul has a similar burst of feeling (Rom 9:1-3); but it does not involve a formal offerit is simply the expression of a willingness. Ordinary men are scarcely competent to judge these sayings of great saints. As Bengel says”It is not easy to estimate the measure of love in a Moses and a Paul; for the narrow boundary of our reasoning powers does not comprehend it, as the little child is unable to comprehend the courage of heroes.” Both were willingfelt willing, at any rateto sacrifice their own future for their countrymenand Moses made the offer. Of all the noble acts in Moses’ life it is perhaps the noblest; and no correct estimate of his character can be formed which does not base itself to a large extent on his conduct at this crisis.
Exo 32:33
Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Beyond a doubt, it is the general teaching of Scripture that vicarious punishment will not be accepted. “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the sonthe righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him” (Eze 18:20). Man “cannot deliver his brother, or make agreement with God for him; for it cost more to redeem their souls, so that he must let that alone for ever “(Psa 49:7, Psa 49:8). One only atonement is acceptedthat of him who is at once man and Godwho has, himself, no sinand can therefore lake the punishment of others.
Exo 32:34
Lead the people unto the place, etc. This was a revocation of the sentence of death passed in Exo 32:10. The people was to be spared, and Moses was to conduct them to Palestine. Mine Angel shall go before thee. Mine Angelnot I myself (compare Exo 33:2, Exo 33:3). Another threatened punishment, which was revoked upon the repentance of the people (Exo 33:4, Exo 33:6), and the earnest prayer of Moses (Exo 33:14-16). I will visit their sin upon them. Kalisch thinks that a plague was at once sent, and so understands Exo 32:35. But most commentators regard the day of visitation as that on which it was declared that none of those who had quitted Egypt should enter Canaan (Num 14:35), and regard that sentence as, in fact, provoked by the golden calf idolatry (Num 14:22).
Exo 32:35
The Lord plagued, or “struck”i.e; “punished” the people. There is nothing in the expression which requires us to understand the sending of a pestilence.
HOMILETICS
Exo 32:30-34
Moses as the forerunner of Christ.
“A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you like unto me,” said the great lawgiver, ere he left the earth (Deu 17:15, Deu 17:18); and the parallelism between Christ and Moses is in many respects most striking.
1. Both were of obscure birth”the son of a carpenter”the son of “a man of the house of Levi.”
2. Both were in great peril in infancytheir life sought by the civil rulerHerodPharaoh.
3. Both passed their youth and early manhood in obscurityChrist for thirty, Moses for forty years.
4. Both felt they had a mission, but on coming forward were rejected by their brethren. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (Joh 1:11). “He supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not” (Act 7:25).
5. Both showed “signs and wonders,” such as have rarely been seen upon earth, and thus made it manifest that their missions were from God.
6. Both were law-giverspromulgators of a new moral codeMoses of an imperfect, Christ of a perfect law(” the perfect law of love”).
7. Both were founders of a new communityMoses of the Hebrew state, Christ of the Christian Church.
8. Both were great deliverers and great teachersMoses delivered his people from Egypt and Pharaoh, and led them through the wilderness to Canaan; Christ delivers his from sin and Satan, and. leads them through the wilderness of this life to heaven.
9. Both willed to be a sacrifice for their brethrenGod could not accept the one sacrifice (Exo 32:33), but could and did accept the other.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Exo 32:31, Exo 32:32
The confession and intercession of Moses.
Notice here
I. THE AMPLITUDE OF THIS CONFESSION. It is very necessary to contrast the words of Moses in Exo 32:31 and Exo 32:32 with his previous words in Exo 32:11-13. What a difference there is in the ground, elements, and tone of the two appeals! and this difference is fully explained by the experience through which he had been in the interval. It was a bitter and humiliating experiencewe may almost say an unexpected one. For, although, before he had gone down from the mount, Jehovah had given him a clear forewarning of what awaited him, somehow he seems not to have taken in the full drift of Jehovah’s words. It is not till he gets down into the camp and sees the golden image, and the revelry and riot, and the implication of his own brother in a broken covenant, that he discerns the full extent of the calamity, and the difficulty, almost the impossibility of bringing together again Jehovah and his revolted people. Vain is it to seek for anything like sure conclusions in the details of Moses’ conduct on this occasion. The things he did were almost as the expressions of a heart beside itself with holy grief. There is a good deal of obscurity in this portion of the narrative; and our wisest course is to turn to what is clear and certain and most instructive, namely, the great result which came out of this experience. It was truly a result, beyond all estimation, to have been led to the conclusion”This people have sinned a great sin.” That was just the light in which Jehovah looked upon their conduct; and though Moses could not see all that Jehovah saw, we may well believe that he saw all that a brother man could see, one whose own heart’s vision was not yet perfectly clear. Blessed is that man who, for himself and for others, can see the reality and magnitude of the human heart’s departure from God. It would not, indeed, be hard, from a certain point of view, to frame a very plausible story on behalf of these Israelites; but it is far better to bear in mind that just at this particular juncture this very Moses who at first had expostulated with Jehovah, making not the slightest reference to the people’s sin, is now found on account of that sin bending himself in the utmost submission before God. Aaron came to Moses with an excuse (Exo 32:22-24); he spoke in the spirit of Adam, laying the blame elsewhere. But Moses attempts neither excuse nor extenuation. Nor was any enlargement needed. The brief sentence he spoke, standing in all its naked severity, was quite enough.
II. HOW UNCERTAIN MOSES IS IN HIS EXPECTATIONS. The confession is as full and emphatic as it can be, but the heart is of necessity very doubtful as to what may come out of the confession. The words of Moses here are very consistent with the quick fluctuations of human nature. From extreme to extreme the pendulum swings. Previously he spoke as almost rebuking Jehovah for thinking to destroy his people; now even when the insulting image is ground to powder, and the ringleaders in transgression destroyed, he makes his way into the Divine presence as one who is fully prepared for the worst. “If thou wilt forgive them.” One can imagine the stammering, half-ashamed tones in which these words would issue from the lips of Moses. The man who was so fruitful of reasons before is silent now. Jehovah’s past promises and past dealings he cannot urge; for the more he thinks of them, the more by an inevitable consequence, he thinks of the broken covenant. The light of these glorious promises shines for the present, upon a scene of ruin and shame. Then it is noteworthy that Moses had to go up, from the impulse of his own heart. We do not hear as yet of any general confession; it is not the weeping and wailing of a nation returning in penitence that he bears before God. If only the people had sent him to say, “We have sinned a great sin;” if only they had made him feel that he was their chosen spokesman; if only their continued cry of contrition, softened by distance, had reached his ears, as he ventured before God, there might have been something to embolden him. But as yet there was no sign of anything of this sort. lie seems to have gone up as a kind of last resort, unencouraged by any indication that the people comprehended the near and dreadful peril. Learn from this that there can be no availing plea and service from our great advocate, except as we look to him for the plea and service, in full consciousness that we cannot do without them. We get no practical good from the advocacy of Jesus, unless as in faith and earnestness, we make him our advocate.
III. HOW COMPLETELY MOSES ASSOCIATES HIMSELF WITH THE FATE OF HIS BRETHREN. He could not but feel the difference there was between his position and theirs; but at the moment there was a feeling which swallowed all others up, and that was the unity of brotherhood. The suggestion to make out of him a new and better covenant people came back to him now, with a startling significance which it lacked before. Israel, as the people of God, seemed shut up to destruction now. If God said the covenant could not be renewed; if he said the people must return and be merged and lost in the general mass of human-kind, Moses knew he had no countervailing plea; only this he could pray that he also might be included in their doom. lie had no heart to go unless where his people went; and surely it must have a most inspiring and kindling influence to meditate on this great illustration of unselfishness. Moses, we know, had been brought very near to God; what glimpses must have been opened up to him of a glorious future. But then he had only thought of it as being his future along with his people. In the threatenings that God was about to forsake those who had forsaken him, there seemed no longer any brightness even in the favour of God to him as an individual. Apostate in heart and deed as his brethren were, he felt himself a member of the body still; and to be separated from them would be as if the member were torn away. lie who had preferred affliction with the people of God rather than the pleasures of sin for a season, now prefers obliteration along with his own people rather than to keep his name on God’s great book. It can hardly be said that in this he spurns or depreciates the favour of God; and it is noticeable that God does not rebuke him as if he were preferring human ties to Divine. Jehovah simply responds by stating the general law of what is inevitable in all sinning, lie who sins must be blotted out of God’s book. God will not in so many words rebuke the pitying heart of his servant; but yet we clearly see that there was no way out by that course which Moses so very deferentially suggests. When first Moses heard of the apostasy of Israel he spoke as if the remedy depended upon Jehovah; now he speaks as if it might be found in his own submission and self-sacrifice; but God would have him understand that whatever chance there may be depends on a much needed change in the hearts of the people, a change of which all sign so far was lacking.Y.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Exo 32:30-35
The second intercession.
This second intercession of Moses is even more wonderful than the first. The question raised on that former occasionIs Moses more merciful than God?will, indeed, no longer occur. Those who might have been disposed to press that question then will probably not be disposed to press it now. They have since had sufficient evidence of Moses’ severity. They have found that, whatever elements of character are lacking to him, he is not wanting in energy of indignation at patent wickedness. The temptation, on the contrary, may now be to accuse the lawgiver of unjustifiable and unholy angerof reckless disregard of human life. The charge is groundless; but if, for a moment, it should appear natural, the reply to it is found in the study of this second scene upon the mount. Surely, if ever human heart laid bare its intense and yearning love for those whose sin fidelity to duty yet compelled it to reprobate and loathe, it is the heart of Moses in this new, and altogether marvellous, juncture in his history. Consider
I. THE CONFESSION MADE (Exo 32:30, Exo 32:31). Moses makes a full confession of the sin of the people. This confession was
1. Holy. He has just views of the demerit of the sin for which he seeks forgiveness. His impressions of its enormity are even stronger than at the time of his first intercession. So heinous does it now appear to him that he is mentally in doubt whether God possibly can forgive it.
2. Perfectly truthful Moses fully admits the people’s sin. He does not make light of it. He does not seek to minimise it. Not even to secure the salvation of the people over whom he yearns with so intense an affection will he unduly palliate their offence, or feign an excuse where he knows that there is none to offer. Mark how, in both of these respects, Moses answers to the true idea of a mediator. “A mediator is not a mediator of one” (Gal 3:20). It is his function, in conducting his mediation, to uphold impartially the interests of both of the parties between whom he mediates. Both are represented in his work. He stands for both equally. He must do justice by both. His sympathy with both must be alike perfect. He must favour neither at the expense, or to the disadvantage, of the other. These acts of intercession show in how supreme a degree this qualification of the mediator is found in Moses. He has sympathy with the people, for whose sin he is willing, if need be, even to die; he has also the fullest sympathy with God. He looks at the sin from God’s standpoint. He has sympathy with God’s wrath against it. He is as jealous for God’s honour as he is anxious for the forgiveness of the people. He is thus the true daysman, able to lay his hand upon both.
3. Vicarious. He confesses the people’s sin for them. On the depth to which this element enters into the idea of atonement, and on the place which it holds in the atonement of Jesus, see J. McLeod Campbell’s work on The Nature of the Atonement.
II. THE ATONEMENT OFFERED (verse 32). The new and awful impressions Moses had received of the enormity of the people’s conduct gave rise in his mind to the feeling of the need of atonement. “Now I will go up to the Lord,” he says to them, “peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin” (verse 30). That the intercessory element entered into Moses’ idea of “making an atonement” is not to be denied. But it is not the only one. So intensely evil does the sin of the people now appear to him that he is plainly in doubt whether it can be pardoned without some awful expression of God’s punitive justice against it; whether, indeed, it can be pardoned at all. This sense of what is due to justice resolves itself into the proposal in the texta proposal, probably, in which Moses comes as near anticipating Christ, in his great sacrifice on Calvary, as it is possible for any one, beating the limitations of humanity, to do (cf. Rom 9:3). Observe
1. The proposal submitted. It amounts to this, that Moses, filled with an immense love for his people, offers himself as a sacrifice for their sin. If God cannot otherwise pardon their transgression, and if this will avail, or can be accepted, as an atonement for their guilt, let himMosesperish instead of them. The precise meaning attached in Moses’ mind to the words, “If not, blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which thou hast written,” must always be a difficulty. Precision, probably, is not to be looked for. Moses’ idea of what was involved in the blotting out from God’s book could only be that afforded him by the light of his own dispensation, and by his sense of the exceeding greatness of God’s wrath. His language is the language of love, not that of dogmatic theology. Infinite things were to be hoped for from God’s love; infinite things were to be dreaded from his anger. The general sense of the utterance is, that Moses was willing to die; to be cut off from covenant hope and privilege; to undergo whatever awful doom subjection to God’s wrath might imply; if only thereby his people could be saved. It was a stupendous proposal to make; an extraordinary act of self-devotion; a wondrous exponent of his patriotic love for his people; a not less wondrous recognition of what was due to the justice of God ere sin could be forgivena glimpse even, struck out from the passionate yearning of his own heart, of the actual method of redemption. A type of Christ has been seen in the youthful IsaActs ascending the hill to be offered on the altar by Abraham his father. A much nearer type is Moses, “setting his face” (cf. Luk 9:51) to ascend the mount, and bearing in his heart this sublime purpose of devoting himself for the sins of the nation. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Joh 15:13).
2. The alternative desired. If the people must perishthis meaning also seems to be conveyed in the wordsMoses would wish to perish with them. Not only has the proposal to make of him “a great nation” (Exo 32:10) no allurement for his mind, but, if the people are to be destroyed, he would prefer to die with them. He desires no life outside of theirs. Patriotic devotion could no further go. Noble Moses! Yet only the type of the nobler than himself, who, devoting himself in the same spirit, has actually achieved the redemption of the world. See in this incident
(1) The connection of a feeling of the need of atonement with just views of sin’s demerit.
(2) The certainty, when just views of sin are entertained, of this feeling of the need of atonement arising. In declining the proposal of Moses, God does not say that atonement is not needed. He does not say that his servant has exaggerated the enormity of the sin, or the difficulties which stand in the way of its forgiveness. He does not say that it is not by means of atonement that these difficulties connected with the forgiveness of sins are ultimately to be removed. On the contrary, the spirit of Moses in this transaction is evidently in the very highest degree pleasing to Jehovah, and so far as atonement is made for the people’s sins, it is by Jehovah accepting the spirit of his sacrifice, even when rejecting the proposal in its letter.
(3) The naturalness of this method of salvation. The proposal sprang naturally from the love of Moses. It expressed everything that was grandest in his character. It shadowed forth a way in which, conceivably, a very true satisfaction might be offered to Divine justice, while yet mercy was extended to the sinner. The fulfilment of the prophecy is the Cross.
III. THE REPLY GIVEN.
1. The atonement is declined in its letter. God declares that so far as there is to be any blotting from the book of life, it will be confined to those who have sinned. It may be noted, in respect to this declinature of the proposal of Moses that, as above remarked, it does not proceed on the idea that atonement is not needed, but
(1) Moses could not, even by his immolation, have made the atonement required.
(2) God, in his secret counsel, had the true sacrifice provided.
(3) Atonement is inadmissible on the basis proposed, viz. that the innocent should be “blotted out from the book of life.” Had no means of salvation presented itself but this, the world must have perished. Even to redeem sinners, God could not have consented to the “blotting from his book” of the sinless. The difficulty is solved in the atonement of the Son, who dies, yet rises again, having made an end of sin. No other could have offered this atonement but himself.
2. While declining the atonement in its letter, God accepts the spirit of it. In this sense Moses, by the energy of his self-devotion, does make atonement for the sins of Israel. He procures for them a reversal of the sentence. Further intercession is required to make the reconciliation complete.
3. God makes known his purpose of visiting the people for their sin (verse 34). The meaning is
(1) That the sin of the people, though for the present condoned, would be kept in mind in reckoning with them for future transgressions.
(2) That such a day of reckoning would come. God, in the certainty of his foreknowledge, sees its approach.J.O.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Isa 58:1 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Providence Delayed
Exo 32:30-35
Let us look at the historical picture which has now been almost completed. Moses had been summoned to meet the Lord upon Mount Sinai. There he had tarried forty days and forty nights. On coming down the mountain, it was discovered that Aaron and the people had fashioned and worshipped a golden calf. On descending to the plain Moses broke the two tables of stone, and inflicted humiliation and punishment upon the idolaters. And strange to say yet not strange to those who know the wondrous ways of the human heart no sooner had Moses expended his righteous indignation than he began to pray for the very people on whom he had uttered his denunciation and his wrath. Here a very curious expression occurs:
“And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation” ( Exo 33:7 ).
But he had been in the mountain for the express purpose of receiving a specification for the building of the tabernacle; how conies it, then, that we read of the tabernacle before it was built? We have been expecting the erection of this glorious edifice, and, behold, in the very agony of our expectation, we read that “Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation.” This was a temporary tabernacle. Probably it was the tent which belonged exclusively to Moses himself, and in the urgency of his sacred passion, he anticipated the building of the edifice which had been sketched to him in the mount, and extemporised an altar. There is no mystery about this. We are forced by sadness and painful surprises into new postures of supplication and new eloquence of intercession. Moses was preeminently the man to do this very thing. Now and again, though known as the meekest of men, there flamed up out of him a hidden fire, that burned and showed him to be just the man to see the flaming bush where he learned his first lesson of leadership and saw what was truly his first revelation of the God of the living. A lesson lies here. Moses will not wait for the consecration of Aaron: he himself becomes priest before God on behalf of the people, and pours out his soul in passionate intercession. He was priest before the anointed one; he built a tabernacle of his own, before he had time to erect the specified structure. These are the actions of a burning life, the eccentricities and exaggerations of men who cannot proceed by cold rule and adapt themselves to intricate, pedantic, and slow-moving mechanism.
In this high temper he utters the boldest prayer ever uttered up to that time by human lips:
“I beseech thee, shew me thy glory” ( Exo 33:18 ).
“And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai” [the second time], “with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him” ( Exo 34:29 ).
What do we know about our best selves? Men have qualities of which they are not cognisant. We may be nearer heaven than we suppose. We may be nearer God than we fully realise. Sometimes there may be between us and him but a thin film, less than a vail in thickness. We know not where sometimes we stand.
Then Moses, returning, delivered the instructions to the people. He told them what God told him; and the people, having heard what Moses communicated to them, “did according to all that the Lord commanded.” For the time being they were converted. Their conversion was not a momentary and final act. They went through a kind of process of conversion one conversion succeeding another, repentance following upon sin with quickness and certainty.
This is the historical position in which we now stand what are its sacred and eternal lessons? Do we not see how God’s purposes are thwarted and deferred by human perversity? God’s purpose was far advanced in the cloud, but the people at the foot of the mountain could not wait. At the very time when God had determined upon the election and consecration of Aaron to the priesthood Aaron was spending his time in moulding and chiselling the golden calf. Time is thus wasted. Just as the revelation was about to appear, the radiant cloud was turned aside by the wickedness of the idolatrous mob at the base of the hill. We do not know how often God has just been on the threshold, coming into the house, and has been affrighted by the overhearing of some idolatrous or blasphemous noise. We might have been crowned fifty years ago, but just as the coronation was about to take place, we were discovered in the manufacture of an idol. Your sins have kept good things from you.
It is most instructive to keep the two scenes vividly before the eye of the mind. The first scene is that of God with Moses in the cloud speaking about the consecration of Aaron, setting apart Aaron and his sons to the priestly office for ever. There the Lord detailed the mystic and symbolic garments by which the priest was to be clothed. That is the one scene. At the very moment when that scene is taking place in the cloud, Aaron is listening to the foolish clamour which insists upon having a god made, or is at that instant himself employing the graving tool upon the calf, that he may make an idol for Israel. What a solemn view this gives one of life! When we are thinking least of God, God is thinking most of us; or when God is thinking most of us, purposing for us great office and honour and service, we are farthest away in thought and love from the altar where he intended to meet us. Why is the vision delayed? Because of the idolatry of the people for whom it was intended. Why tarry the chariot wheels of the King? Because the people towards whom he was hastening in his golden chariot have prostituted their affections and turned their prayers to forbidden and helpless gods. Why should we blame Providence for slowness when the answer is in our own conduct? It may suit us in some of the lower moods of our mind and heart to think of God as very slow in his action and as keeping back revelation for inscrutable reasons. On one side of life that may be true, on another side of life it is not only untrue in fact, but it is unjust in principle. Who stopped the revelation? Aaron. Why were forty days and forty nights wasted? Because of the sin of the people. Christ might have been here yesterday, but for our making of the golden calf; fifty years ago he might have had the whole country as his own, but for perfidy, selfishness, and practical atheism. We might now see some great figure in the sun, and hear some voice supernatural, in music heavenly, but that we have filled our ears with riotous noise and deafened ourselves with the thunders of our own idolatry. Do not blame God for waste of history and waste of time, and repetition of events which we thought had been accomplished. Speaking reverently, God himself might have thought that the tabernacle was just about to be begun, and Aaron in a few minutes would be called to priestly office and honour, but (still accommodating human language to Divine mysteries) he was surprised and grieved by an action on Aaron’s part, which suspended the Divine revelation and held back the honour that was prepared. What we might have been this day but for the calf-making, the idolatry, the disobedience, and the sins of various names! The Lord was just ready to make kings of us, when we made fools of ourselves. God was signing the decree that was to have given us solidity, influence, high position, and noble honour, and ere he laid down the pen of signature we smote him in the face by some new sin. Then we spoke about the mysteries of Providence, and wondered why God was so slow in his manifestations and revelations, it never occurring to the heart that had just sinned, that itself shut up the heavens and turned back a purpose which was just about to open in magnificent and beneficial fruition. When we wonder at the weeks being wasted, and the time being non-productive, and history being barren, instead of always making a providential mystery of it, let us ask ourselves the soul-dividing question, Are not we to blame for this loss of time?
Yet even sin may be made to contribute to the good man’s highest education. Moses was enriched by this very circumstance. He never prayed in his life as he prayed for the children of Israel. When he saw what they had done, said he,
“Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin “;
There language fails; the sentence is not completed; it was completed in the living instance with a great choking sob which, having been overcome, made way for these continuing words,
“And if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written” ( Exo 32:32 ).
He could not survive an unpardoned nation; account for it as we may, he had come so to identify himself with the people that their pardon involved his, and his heaven was involved in theirs, and to be without them was an issue not to be borne by his noble and sensitive nature. What a hold his work had upon him! He was not priest, minister, or ambassador, who could stand aside from his people and let them be divided, sundered, smitten, and accursed, saying, “I am free; take you, who deserve it, the judgment of God.” We already begin to feel the formation of that spiritual fellowship which cannot be dissolved. Here is a family within a family, a life within a life, a tenderness more sensitive than all the tenderness of perishable relationship. We now begin to see what is meant by the society of souls, the masonry of hearts, the oneness of the innermost nature of man. Moses could not bear to be left whilst Israel was lost. Who could be? Can the shepherd come home at night without his flock, and be merry in the house whilst the flock is being torn by the wolf? If he could be so happy, he would be no shepherd, but a selfish hireling. Can the general return, saying, “The army is broken, slain; it was no blame of mine, and I have come to enjoy the feast and the dance, and forget the bones that whiten on the field”? If he made a speech so base he would dispossess himself of every title to be called a soldier of the true blood. A minister standing before God to receive a solitary crown, saying, “The people are lost, but I did my duty; not a man has come with me; still, I claim the heaven due to virtue”! Could he make a speech so vile, no heaven could God shape for his residence and welcome. In all our higher moods we are one. We cannot be at rest whilst there is one vacant chair at the table which might be filled. Paul rose to the same magnanimity when he said he could wish himself accursed ratter than Israel should not be saved; he would be prepared to be lost if the people could be saved. We do not come into that sacred passion in any way conceived by the human mind, or invented by human selfishness. It is the inspiration of Christ yes, it is the very mystery and the glory of the Cross. Whilst the people, with Aaron at their head, were content with their idol, Moses said, “Show me thy glory.” Some sights must be purged out of our vision, for they dim the whole outview and aspect of things. To have seen sin in the right way, and yet not to have suffered in feeling, but to have risen up into a tender and truer appreciation of holiness, is really to suggest an inspired prayer. “Show me thy glory.” There is logic in this passion; there is rational sequence in all this tide of feeling, though it rolls billow upon billow, as if in a great confusion and tumult. When for a moment you have perused some debasing book, or even some feeble and inane composition, or have seen how the noble language of the fatherland can be debased into the utterance of things so jejune, so juiceless, and mean, how you have longed to take up some grand old author whose every word was a burning fire, every sentence the beginning of a revelation, every page the work of a master, that you might forget what you have passed through; and have it obliterated from the receptive memory! It is but a feeble picture of what Moses felt, and what we may feel, when we have seen the calf we are called to worship. We long to forget the miserable spectacle in some burst of glory worthy of a vision opened by the Almighty wisdom. So Moses was the better for this most ludicrous as well as mischievous and iniquitous event. He did not fall into the temptation. We need men of that mould and temper, who, coming down a hill of prayer and high communion, and seeing our folly, look upon it with the right eyes and burn it with their anger, and scorch it with their jealousy for God. Let us pray for such men. They are the angels of God amongst us. The Aarons of the race would fall into all snares and traps, and yield to all tumultuous clamour for new policies and new programmes. We need the stern, iron, burning man, the incorruptible patriot, the theologian whose soul is fastened upon central truths, the suppliant who never can lower the tone of his intercession, to keep us right, to call us back a man so terrible that he can smite us with judgment and, ere the thunder dies, turn his very anger into prayer.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Exo 32:30 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.
Ver. 30. And now I will go up unto the Lord. ] As angry as he was, he could pray for them: as when our children, through their own fault have got some sickness, for all our angry speeches we go to the physician for them.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exodus
THE GOLDEN CALF
Exo 32:1 – – Exo 32:8
It was not yet six weeks since the people had sworn, ‘All that the Lord hath spoken will we do, and be obedient.’ The blood of the covenant, sprinkled on them, was scarcely dry when they flung off allegiance to Jehovah. Such short-lived loyalty to Him can never have been genuine. That mob of slaves was galvanised by Moses into obedience; and since their acceptance of Jehovah was in reality only yielding to the power of one strong will and its earnest faith, of course it collapsed as soon as Moses disappeared.
We have to note, first, the people’s universal revolt. The language of Exo 32:1 may easily hide to a careless reader the gravity and unanimity of the apostasy. ‘The people gathered themselves together.’ It was a national rebellion, a flood which swept away even some faithful, timid hearts. No voices ventured to protest. What were the elders, who shortly before ‘saw the God of Israel,’ doing to be passive at such a crisis? Was there no one to bid the fickle multitude look up to the summit overhead, where the red flames glowed, or to remind them of the hosts of Egypt lying stark and dead on the shore? Was Miriam cowed too, and her song forgotten?
We need not cast stones at these people; for we also have short memories for either the terrible or the gracious revelations of God in our own lives. But we may learn the lesson that God’s lovers have to set themselves sometimes dead against the rush of popular feeling, and that there are times when silence or compliance is sin.
It would have been easy for the rebels to have ignored Aaron, and made gods for themselves. But they desired to involve him in their apostasy, and to get ‘official sanction’ for it. He had been left by Moses as his lieutenant, and so to get him implicated was to stamp the movement as a regular and entire revolt.
The demand ‘to make gods’ or, more probably, ‘a god’ flew in the face of both the first and second commandments. For Jehovah, who had forbidden the forming of any image, was denied in the act of making it. To disobey Him was to cast Him off. The ground of the rebellion was the craving for a visible object of trust and a visible guide, as is seen by the reason assigned for the demand for an image. Moses was out of sight; they must have something to look at as their leader. Moses had disappeared, and, to these people who had only been heaved up to the height of believing in Jehovah by Moses, Jehovah had disappeared with him. They sank down again to the level of other races as soon as that strong lever ceased to lift their heavy apprehensions.
How ridiculous the assertion that they did not know what had become of Moses! They knew that he was up there with Jehovah. The elders could have told them that. The fire on the mount might have burned in on all minds the confirmation. Note, too, the black ingratitude and plain denial of Jehovah in ‘the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt.’ They refuse to recognise God’s part. It was Moses only who had done it; and now that he is gone they must have a visible god, like other nations.
Still sadder than their sense-bound wish is Aaron’s compliance. He knew as well as we do what he should have said, but, like many another man in influential position, when beset by popular cries, he was frightened, and yielded when he should have ‘set his face like a flint.’ His compliance has in essentials been often repeated, especially by priests and ministers of religion who have lent their superior abilities or opportunities to carry out the wishes of the ignorant populace, and debased religion or watered down its prohibitions, to please and retain hold of them. The Church has incorporated much from heathenism. Roman Catholic missionaries have permitted ‘converts’ to keep their old usages. Protestant teachers have acquiesced in, and been content to find the brains to carry out, compromises between sense and soul, God’s commands and men’s inclinations.
We need not discuss the metallurgy of Exo 32:4 . But clearly Aaron asked for the earrings, not, as some would have it, hoping that vanity and covetousness would hinder their being given, but simply in order to get gold for the bad work which he was ready to do. The reason for making the thing in the shape of a calf is probably the Egyptian worship of Apis in that form, which would be familiar to the people.
We must note that it was the people who said, ‘These be thy gods, O Israel!’ Aaron seems to keep in the rear, as it were. He makes the calf, and hands it over, and leaves them to hail it and worship. Like all cowards, he thought that he was lessening his guilt by thus keeping in the background. Feeble natures are fond of such subterfuges, and deceive themselves by them; but they do not shift their sin off their shoulders.
Then he comes in again with an impotent attempt to diminish the gravity of the revolt. ‘When he saw this,’ he tried to turn the flood into another channel, and so proclaimed a ‘feast to Jehovah’ !-as if He could be worshipped by flagrant defiance of His commandments, or as if He had not been disavowed by the ascription to the calf, made that morning out of their own trinkets, of the deliverance from Egypt. A poor, inconsequential attempt to save appearances and hallow sin by writing God’s name on it! The ‘god’ whom the Israelites worshipped under the image of a calf, was no less another ‘god before Me,’ though it was called by the name of Jehovah. If the people had their idol, it mattered nothing to them, and it mattered as little to Jehovah, what ‘name’ it bore. The wild orgies of the morrow were not the worship which He accepts.
What a contrast between the plain and the mountain! Below, the shameful feast, with its parody of sacrifice and its sequel of lust-inflamed dancing; above, the awful colloquy between the all-seeing righteous Judge and the intercessor! The people had cast off Jehovah, and Jehovah no more calls them ‘My,’ but ‘ thy people.’ They had ascribed their Exodus first to Moses, and next to the calf. Jehovah speaks of it as the work of Moses.
A terrible separation of Himself from them lies in ‘ thy people, which thou broughtest up,’ and Moses’ bold rejoinder emphasises the relation and act which Jehovah seems to suppress Exo 32:11. Observe that the divine voice refuses to give any weight to Aaron’s trick of compromise. These are no worshippers of Jehovah who are howling and dancing below there. They are ‘worshipping it , and sacrificing to it,’ not to Him. The cloaks of sin may partly cover its ugliness here, but they are transparent to His eyes, and many a piece of worship, which is said to be directed to Him, is, in His sight, rank idolatry.
We do not deal with the magnificent courage of Moses, his single-handed arresting of the wild rebellion, and the severe punishment by which he trampled out the fire. But we must keep his severity in mind if we would rightly judge his self-sacrificing devotion, and his self-sacrificing devotion if we would rightly judge his severity.
No words of ours can make more sublime his utter self-abandonment for the sake of the people among whom he had just been flaming in wrath, and smiting like a destroying angel. That was a great soul which had for its poles such justice and such love. The very words of his prayer, in their abruptness, witness to his deep emotion. ‘If Thou wilt forgive their sin’ stands as an incomplete sentence, left incomplete because the speaker is so profoundly moved. Sometimes broken words are the best witnesses of our earnestness. The alternative clause reaches the high-water mark of passionate love, ready to give up everything for the sake of its objects. The ‘book of life’ is often spoken of in Scripture, and it is an interesting study to bring together the places where the idea occurs see Psa 69:28 ; Dan 12:1 ; Php 4:3 ; Rev 3:5. The allusion is to the citizens’ roll Psa 87:6. Those whose names are written there have the privileges of citizenship, and, as it is the ‘book of life’ or ‘ of the living’, life in the widest sense is secured to them. To blot out of it, therefore, is to cut a man off from fellowship in the city of God, and from participation in life.
Moses was so absorbed in his vocation that his life was less to him than the well-being of Israel. How far he saw into the darkness beyond the grave we cannot say; but, at least, he was content, and desirous to die on earth, if thereby Israel might continue to be God’s people. And probably he had some gleam of light beyond, which enhanced the greatness of his offered sacrifice. To die, whatever loss of communion with God that involved here or hereafter, would be sweet if thereby he could purchase Israel’s restoration to God’s favour. We cannot but think of Paul willing to be separated from Christ for his brethren’s sake.
We may well think of a greater than Moses or Paul, who did bear the loss which they were willing to bear, and died that sin might be forgiven. Moses was a true type of Christ in that act of supreme self-sacrifice; and all the heroism, the identification of himself with his people, the love which willingly accepts death, that makes his prayer one of the greatest deeds on the page of history, are repeated in infinitely sweeter, more heart-subduing fashion in the story of the Cross. Let us not omit duly to honour the servant; let us not neglect to honour and love infinitely more the Lord. ‘This man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses.’ Let us see that we render Him
‘Thanks never ceasing,
And infinite love.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
atonement
(See Scofield “Exo 29:33”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Ye have: Exo 32:31, 1Sa 2:17, 1Sa 12:20, 1Sa 12:23, 2Sa 12:9, 2Ki 17:21, Luk 7:47, Luk 15:18
peradventure: 2Sa 16:12, Amo 5:15, Jon 3:9, 2Ti 2:25
an atonement: Exo 32:32, Num 16:47, Num 25:13, Job 42:7, Job 42:8, Rom 9:3, Gal 3:13, Jam 5:16
Reciprocal: Lev 4:20 – an atonement Num 21:7 – And Moses 2Sa 21:3 – wherewith Joe 2:14 – Who Luk 13:8 – let
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Moses’ second intercession 32:30-35
To make atonement (Exo 32:30) means to obtain a covering for sin.
We see Moses’ great love for the Israelites as their mediator in his willingness to die for them (cf. Rom 9:3). Being blotted out of God’s book may refer to physical death. Alternatively the book could refer to the register of those loyal to Yahweh and thereby deserving His special blessing (cf. Psa 69:28; Isa 4:3; Eze 13:9; Dan 12:1; Mal 3:16). [Note: Durham, p. 432.] God explained a principle of His dealings with people here. Individual sin brings individual responsibility that leads finally to individual judgment (cf. Eze 18:4). God was not saying that everyone will bear the punishment for his own sins precluding substitution, but everyone is responsible for his own sins. He chose not to take Moses’ life as a substitute for the guilty in Israel since this would not have been just. Moses being a sinner himself could not have served as a final acceptable substitute for other sinners in any case.
God promised Moses that He would not abandon His people for their sin (Exo 32:34), but when their rebellion was full (at Kadesh Barnea, Num 14:27-35) He smote those of them who remained (Exo 32:35). [Note: See Jonathan Master, "Exodus 32 as an Argument for Traditional Theism," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 45:4 (December 2002):585-98.]