Deuteronomy 9:11-29: a reflection

11It came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights that the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant. 12The LORD said to me, “Arise, get down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned away from the way which I commanded them. They have made a molten image for themselves!” 13Furthermore the LORD spoke to me, saying, “I have seen these people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked people. 14Leave me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under the sky; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.” 15So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. The two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the LORD your God. You had made yourselves a molded calf. You had quickly turned away from the way which the LORD had commanded you. 17I took hold of the two tablets, and threw them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. 18I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, to provoke him to anger. 19For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the LORD was angry against you to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also. 20The LORD was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. I threw its dust into the brook that descended out of the mountain. 22At Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked the LORD to wrath. 23When the LORD sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land which I have given you,” you rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and you didn’t believe him or listen to his voice. 24You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you. 25So I fell down before the LORD the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because the LORD had said he would destroy you. 26I prayed to the LORD, and said, “Lord GOD, don’t destroy your people and your inheritance that you have redeemed through your greatness, that you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Don’t look at the stubbornness of this people, nor at their wickedness, nor at their sin, 28lest the land you brought us out from say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised to them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’ 29Yet they are your people and your inheritance, which you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”

Moses recounts one of Israel's darkest failures. While he was on the mountain receiving the covenant, the people below cast a golden calf. God's anger was such that he told Moses to stand aside so that he might destroy them and begin again with Moses alone. Coming down and seeing the calf, Moses broke the tablets and then fell before God for forty days and nights, eating and drinking nothing.

What Moses does next is the heart of the passage. He does not defend the people, for they have no defense. Instead he pleads God's own reputation and God's promises: do not destroy your inheritance whom you redeemed; remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not let the nations say you failed. He throws himself between an angry God and a guilty people, and Scripture says the Lord listened to him. One man's intercession held back judgment.

This is a picture of what Christ does for us in fullness. Moses stood in the gap for a stubborn people, appealing not to their worthiness but to God's mercy and faithfulness. When you pray for others who have no case to make for themselves, you stand in that same holy place. And when you fear your own failures, remember that you have a greater intercessor than Moses, one who ever lives to plead for you on the ground of his own finished work.

Lord, when your people deserved judgment, Moses stood in the gap and pleaded your mercy and your promises, and you listened. Thank you for a greater intercessor in Christ, who pleads for me on the ground of his finished work. Teach me to stand in the gap for others, appealing not to their worthiness but to your grace. Hear me as you heard him. Amen.