Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.
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.
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.
Moses earnestly intercedes with God on their behalf (Ex 32:11-13): 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 106:23. 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 59:16. Observe,
1. His prayer (Ex 32:12): 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,