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 (Exodus 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 (Exodus 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 (Exodus 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:
III. EVIL REPENTED OF. Notice:—
1. The repentance was in direct answer to the intercession (cf. Exodus 32:12, Exodus 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.
Conclusion—What Moses did for his people that our Lord does for his Church (Romans 8:34; Hebrews 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