Exodus 32:7-14

MOSES' INTERCESSION

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, that thou broughtest up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves; they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed unto it, and said, These are thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And Jehovah said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked 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. And Moses besought Jehovah his God, and said, Jehovah, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, that thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, saying, For evil did he bring them forth, 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 saidest 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. And Jehovah repented of the evil which he said he would do unto his people."

Note that God Himself interpreted the actions of Israel as having "worshipped" the calf, despite their proclaiming the feast "unto Jehovah." The promise of God to Moses to make a great nation of him and thus to replace that whole generation of the Israelites did not for a moment tempt Moses who truly loved God's people and would in fact die for them if necessary. In such an act of unselfish love of Israel, Moses indeed shines as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Moses' intercessory prayer presented three arguments against what God contemplated doing:

1. He appealed for God to remember all that he had already done for Israel.

2. He pointed out that the Egyptians would accuse God of leading the people out in order to destroy them.

3. He pleaded with God to remember the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel regarding their posterity being multiplied and regarding their entry into and possession of the land of Canaan.

"Jehovah repented ..." God never repents of anything in the usual meaning of the word, but when the actions of men justify a change in God's purpose, he does not hesitate to change it. And that phenomenon is called "repentance" of God in the Scriptures. Concerning God's purpose of overthrowing Nineveh, "When God saw that they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil which he said he would do unto them, and he did it not" (Jonah 3:10). In the repentance on God's part which is mentioned here, it was not any change in Israel, but the pleading intercession of Moses that precipitated it.

"A molten calf ..." "That the figure made by Aaron is always called a molten calf, literally, a calf of fusion, disposes of the theory of Keil, that it was of carved wood covered with gold."[9]