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From: Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14
The Lord’s Ire
Moses’ Prayer for Israel
[13] “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou didst
swear by thine own self, and didst say to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants
as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your
descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.”’ [14] And the LORD repented of
the evil which he thought to do to his people.
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Commentary:
32:7-14. The Lord’s dialogue with Moses contains the doctrinal basis of salvation
history—Covenant, sin, mercy. Only the Lord knows just how serious this sin is:
by adoring the golden calf the people have taken the wrong road and have vitia-
ted the whole meaning of the Exodus; but most of all, they have rebelled against
God and turned their backs on him, breaking the Covenant (cf. Deut 9:7-14). God
no longer calls them “my people” (cf. Hos 2:8) but “your people” (Moses’) (v. 7).
That is, he shows him that they have acted like anyone else, guided by human
leaders.
The punishment that the sin deserves is their destruction (v. 10), for this is a stiff-
necked nation (cf. 33:3; 34:9; Deut 9:13). The sin deserves death, as the first sin
did (Gen 3:19) and the sin which gave rise to the flood (cf. Gen 6:6-7). However,
mercy always prevails over the offense.
As Abraham did in another time on behalf of Sodom (Gen 18:22-23), Moses inter-
cedes with the Lord. But this time intercession proves successful, because Israel
is the people that God has made his own; he chose it, bringing it out of Egypt
in a mighty way; so, he cannot turn back now; in fact, he chose it ever since he
swore his oath to Abraham (cf. Gen 15:5; 22:16-17; 35:11-12). He established the
Covenant with Israel, as Moses reminds him when he refers to “thy people, whom
thou has brought forth out of the land of Egypt’ (v. 11). Thus, promise, election
and Covenant form the foundation which guarantees that God’s forgiveness will
be forthcoming, even if they commit the gravest of sins.
God forgives his people (v. 14) not because they deserve to be forgiven, but out
of pure mercy and moved by Moses’ intercession. Thus God’s forgiveness and the
people’s conversion are, both of them, a divine initiative.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.