Scripture Daily

Context No. 1546 of 4322 · Exodus

Context · Reflection

Exodus 32:11-16: in context

11Moses begged the LORD his God, and said, “LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, that you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12Why should the Egyptians talk, saying, ‘He brought them out for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the surface of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath, and turn away from this evil against your people. 13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the sky, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14So the LORD turned away from the evil which he said he would do to his people. 15Moses turned, and went down from the mountain, with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand; tablets that were written on both their sides. They were written on one side and on the other. 16The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

Israel has made the golden calf, and God's anger burns against them. But Moses stands in the gap and pleads. Why should your wrath burn against your people, he asks, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power? Why let the Egyptians say you brought them out only to destroy them? Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and the promise you swore to them, to multiply their offspring and give them the land. And the text records a remarkable thing: the LORD relented from the disaster he had spoken of. Then Moses goes down the mountain with the two tablets, the work of God, in his hands.

What Moses does here is intercede, and it is worth watching how he does it. The people deserve judgment; they have broken the covenant almost before the ink was dry. Moses does not defend their conduct, which is indefensible; instead he stands between them and God's wrath and pleads for mercy, appealing not to their worthiness but to God's own honor and God's own promises. Why let the Egyptians mock your name, he argues; remember the oath you swore to Abraham. He grounds his plea entirely in God, in God's reputation and God's word, not in anything good about the people. This is intercession: standing in the gap for others who cannot stand for themselves, pleading before God on their behalf, appealing to his mercy and his promises. And the text says God relented in response. This does not mean Moses changed God's mind against his will, but it does show that God has ordained intercession as a means by which mercy comes, that the prayers of one who stands in the gap for others genuinely matter. There is a call in this to the ministry of intercession, to stand before God on behalf of others, even the undeserving, pleading his mercy and his promises rather than their merit. Moses' intercession points forward to a greater Mediator, Christ, who ever lives to intercede for us, standing in the gap between us and the judgment we deserve. And it invites us to join, in our measure, that same work, to stand and plead for others before God.

Do I take up the ministry of intercession, standing in the gap to plead God's mercy for others, even the undeserving, appealing to his promises rather than their merit, as Moses did for a people who had just broken faith?

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