Category Archives: Exodus
Which day is the Sabbath?
Jesus says that the Sabbath was made for people’s benefit (Mark 2:27). Years ago an Adventist layman wrote in to our Ohio town’s local newspaper, arguing that the Bible never speaks of the Sabbath being changed to Sunday. As I read the letter, I had to admit that the author was correct. Shortly afterward in the newspaper a local pastor countered, “We’re not under the law; therefore the Sabbath is on Sunday.” If you think that the pastor’s argument makes sense, you are a more clever person than I.
Some years after that I was doing my PhD work when I read an article from Christianity Today about “The Case for Quiet Saturdays.” It argued that the particular day was less essential than that we kept a special day for rest. That got my attention, because, whether the proper day is Saturday, Sunday, or just any day, at the time I was working every day of the week.
Sabbath is important
As I tried to study the biblical text honestly, I could see that this was not just a matter of keeping laws designated for Israel; God actually modeled the Sabbath rest in creation (Gen 2:2-3). Whether we take that narrative literally or not, the principle of the Sabbath is there, and it apparently is an example for all people, not just those who are ethnically descended from Abraham.
Moreover, it seemed clear that in Scripture, keeping the Sabbath was a serious matter. The law mandated a death penalty for violating it (Exod 31:14-15; 35:2; Num 15:32-36). Although most of us would not endorse execution for all other capital offenses in Moses’s law today, normally we at least view them as sins—offenses such as murder, sorcery, blasphemy, and sexual relations outside of marriage. Likewise, observing the Sabbath is one of Ten Commandments (Exod 20:8-11). We take all the other Ten Commandments as universal; why exclude this one? In the Prophets, God promises to welcome Gentiles into his covenant, provided that we observe his sabbaths (Isa 56:6-7).
Many festivals in Israel commemorated various events; for example, Passover commemorates redemption, tabernacles dwelling in the wilderness, and first fruits celebrates the beginning of harvest. Depending on how we read Exod 20:11, possibly the Sabbath celebrates God’s action of creating the universe in which we live; in any case, it recalls his model of rest afterward, as already noted.
A particular day?
Is the Sabbath necessarily a particular day of the week? This question arouses greater controversy among Christians, and answers often reflect different Christian groups’ interpretive considerations. Churches that accept early Christian traditions beyond the New Testament, traditions from the second century or later, have traditionally said that the Sabbath day must be Sunday. Even those who disagree with them can still appreciate the conviction and devotion of someone like the runner Eric Liddell (“Chariots of Fire”), who kept that day for the Lord.
This tradition affects especially those churches ultimately influenced by the church in the Roman empire, which is the majority of churches today. Nevertheless, the Ethiopian church through its long history often observed both Sunday as the Lord’s Day and Saturday as the Sabbath. Some other African and Chinese indigenous churches, as well as Messianic Jewish believers and Adventists today, observe the Sabbath on the same day as in Scripture.
Those who regard second- and third-century traditions as normative will observe Sunday, but this need not be normative for churches that start only from Scripture. The instructions for the first day of the week in 1 Corinthians 16:2 are for individual members, not about a specified meeting day; the meeting on the first day of the week in Acts 20:7 is probably a Sunday evening gathering (see my Acts commentary for details), and is probably assembled simply because Paul is leaving town the next day.
Churches that insist on following New Testament practice may thus consider a Saturday Sabbath. In Acts, “Sabbath” continues to designate the seventh day (technically Friday sundown to Saturday sundown); although most instances refer to traditional Jewish practice there, there is certainly no indication that the day was changed. Personally, when I discovered the Sabbath principle, I began following it on Saturday, like my Jewish friends. I couldn’t observe the Sabbath on Sundays because, as an associate pastor in a Baptist church at the time, I had special responsibilities on that day. (I took the duties seriously enough that I skipped my doctoral graduation because it would have conflicted with our Sunday service. Although having one’s main worship service on one’s day of rest might be easier for most worshipers, it can be more difficult for some of us with significant ministry responsibilities!)
Others say that the principle applies to any day. Paul appears to approve of both those who honor one day above another and those who honor every day the same (Rom 14:5). Many Gentiles belonged to the Roman church (Rom 1:13; 11:13), and those who were employed by Gentiles, whether as slaves or free persons, could not choose when they would not work. At the same time, we should note what Paul says and what he does not say. Honoring “every day alike” would mean to keep all days sacred (cf. also the broader principle of Sabbath rest in Heb 4:9); those devoting our whole lives to God are not expected to limit worship to a single day. Paul does not, however, list the option of keeping no days sacred!
Keeping the Sabbath principle
Whatever the day, the way God designed our bodies, we need a day of rest. Living things need rest to rejuvenate; the law mandates this principle also for livestock and, by sabbatical years, for fields (Exod 20:10; 23:11-12; Lev 25:4; Deut 5:14). Our activity (or perhaps, non-activity!) of resting further communicates theology by what we do (or don’t do): we recognize our limitations as mortal humans. Observing a day of rest also requires us to trust God to make up for this day set aside in devotion to him. For ancient Israelite farmers to observe the Sabbath even during harvest (Exod 34:21) would demand faith in God.
If we do keep a Sabbath, we need to be careful not to treat this as a matter of spiritual superiority, looking down on other believers (Rom 14:5-6; Col 2:16). Paul repeatedly warns believers against division, rivalry, arrogance, and looking down on one another. Such attitudes defeat the purpose of depending on God, and are like doing our righteousness for other people’s approval instead of God’s (Matt 6:1). Jesus contested his contemporaries’ application of the Sabbath, so we recognize that today we should keep it in different ways than Jesus’s contemporaries (cf. Matt 11:28—12:8).
We have noted that Sabbath remains valuable for our health. For those who cannot devote every day directly to God’s work, it is also important to set aside at least a day to focus attention on him and renew our spiritual purpose for the rest of the week. Although pure legalism is counterproductive, I confess that I have to discipline myself somewhat rigidly to observe the Sabbath. That’s because I become so engrossed in my work that I wouldn’t take a break if I didn’t have to. That is, I wouldn’t stop until my body made me stop; by that point we in fact lose more productivity in the long run!
When I realized that the Sabbath principle really was biblical, I was initially unhappy about it. I was working on my PhD and thought I was too busy—even though I am far busier now than I was back then. At that time, the stress of nonstop work was building up, week after week. Recognizing the principle to be biblical, however, I realized that I needed to obey it and I began observing Sabbath.
What I immediately discovered was that it was like a circuit breaker. Granted, stopping my work Friday evening felt like breaking me in a different way—I felt like I was putting the brakes on suddenly. But before the Sabbath was over, I had been able to fully relax, and the stress of the past week dissipated. This way I never carried a week’s work-related stress for more than a week, and it couldn’t accumulate. Hopefully my seventeen books so far (one of them roughly four thousand pages long) illustrates that God enabled me to be productive nonetheless, whether you think that’s because, or in spite of, taking a Sabbath.
I do have to admit that I did eventually learn that we need more than just a day of rest. (Even though there’s no biblical requirement for how many hours a person should sleep a night, lack of sleep does catch up to one!) Also, in the early days I sometimes tested the limits to see what could be subsumed under the category of rest. (Writing this some weeks before April 15, I can tell you that doing some of one’s income tax on that day is not a restful activity.) For myself, I lay aside all my book and article writing on the Sabbath; while I am happy to talk about the Bible on any day, I don’t perform my official faculty responsibilities on that day. This discipline helps me not to fixate on my writing and teaching as if there is nothing else in life, like Jack the proverbially dull boy (presumably a less interesting Jack than the one who fell down and broke his crown).
Nevertheless, besides normal prayer and spending time with my family, I do try to catch up on some emails to friends during the Sabbath, as well as reading some of my mail, and so forth. An Orthodox Jewish scholar friend laughs that I keep Shabbat like a Reform Jew (though he graciously welcomed me to spend Shabbat the Orthodox way with his family; that was a particularly enjoyable Sabbath for me).
Not everyone will draw the boundaries in exactly the same places. What is helpful for all of us to realize, however, is that God built us with limits. Observing those created limits by celebrating Sabbath helps us function the way that God designed us. A restaurant chain used to say, “You deserve a break today.” Whether we deserve it or not, God made the Sabbath for people (Mark 2:27)—for our good. It’s a wonderful way to renew your joy and strength.
Did God love the Egyptians?
Some almost indispensable parts of the Moses-movie tradition are unlikely: for example, most Pharaohs had scores of children, so it’s highly unlikely that Moses and the next Pharaoh grew up together as close brothers or rivals. (Admittedly, a more accurate depiction on this point wouldn’t work as well for cinematic depiction.) Still, each Moses movie offers some valuable contributions: for example, the Moses of Ben Kingsley and of Dougray Scott depicted Moses’s self-doubt emphasized in Scripture; the Prince of Egypt cartoon for children actually may capture God’s heart the best.
Understandably, for magnificent scale and special effects the new Exodus: Gods and Kings is unmatched. Nevertheless, the biblically literate will have more than quibbles with some details of the newest film’s plot. With regard to some of these details, the biblical narrative is more coherent than (and in these cases might have received better reviews than) that of the movie.
In any case, my post here is not intended as a movie review. (Personally, though I don’t have time or resources to go to many movies, I felt this new movie was well worth what I paid to see it. But that doesn’t reduce my unhappiness regarding some key theological issues.) I bring up the movie because its depiction of the God of the Hebrews is what provoked the question on which I comment briefly here.
Did God love the Egyptians when he struck Egypt with plagues? In the larger biblical narrative, the answer is obviously yes. The prophet Isaiah later prophesies about judgments on Egypt (Isa 19:1-17, 22; akin to judgments he also prophesies against Israel); as a result, Egyptians will turn to God and they will become part of God’s people alongside Israel (19:18-25). In the law of Moses, Israelites are forbidden to despise Egyptians, because Israel’s ancestors found refuge in Egypt (Deut 23:7).
Within the Pentateuch itself, under the Pharaoh of Joseph’s day, Israel experienced great hospitality and Egypt received great blessings. The Exodus narrative suggests that Egypt’s plagues at that time reversed the effects of the very sort of prosperity with which God blessed them in the time of Joseph. The reason the plagues assaulted the Egyptians was not because they were Egyptians; God at other times blessed Egypt. Indeed, ancient Egyptians themselves recognized that fertility was a blessing of the gods—it was simply that they sought the wrong gods (see further comment below).
We needn’t digress to the rest of the Bible, however, to understand why God dealt so harshly with Egypt in the Book of Exodus. A generation earlier, in the same book, Egyptians drowned Israel’s babies in the Nile. God’s judgments clearly evoke that event, leaving no doubt that the plagues address this injustice. Pharaoh drowned babies in the Nile; the first plague thus turns the Nile to blood (with apologies to the movie, no crocodiles are specified). Pharaoh drowned babies in the Nile; the last plague is thus the death of some of Egypt’s children, including Pharaoh’s. Pharaoh drowned babies in the Nile; God thus drowns Pharaoh’s army in the sea.
Moreover, Egypt had enslaved and exploited Israel, and Egypt’s current prosperity partly rested on that exploitation. As Moses said in the Prince of Egypt children’s movie, “No empire should be built on the backs of slaves.” (Compare slave trade as the climax of the list of Babylon’s imports in Rev 18:13; in that case, God pronounces judgment at least partly on Rome, in an era when Egypt was one of Rome’s most exploited provinces.)
I confess that I always wince at the narratives of Egypt’s sufferings; as a modern Western reader, or even a Christian reader from the standpoint of the New Testament, I feel badly for the individual Egyptians who suffered because of Pharaoh’s choices. It was much easier for hearers in ancient Israel and among their contemporaries to think in corporate terms than it is for most of us today. Having said that, however, the Egyptians as a whole shared the false ideology that stood behind Pharaoh’s resistance: most believed that their many gods, including Pharaoh himself, were more powerful than the pathetic single god of the enslaved Hebrews.
Understood in this context, God’s judgments on Egypt were visible reflections of a spiritual battle; God was discrediting false gods to turn people from empty objects of worship to truth and life. When describing the purpose of the plagues, God specifies that his plagues are at least partly directed against “the gods of Egypt” (Exod 12:12; cf. Num 33:4).
God cares not only that Israel trusts him, but also what all peoples think about him. God reports that he raised up (or spared) this particular Pharaoh for his own purposes: to reveal God’s power (through the plagues) so God’s name would be recounted “in all the earth” (Exod 9:16)—among all peoples. Pharaoh is sometimes described as hardening his heart (Exod 8:15, 32; 9:34), so Pharaoh cannot complain if, even after divine activity became most conspicuous, God handed him over to further hardness. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, especially during mercy, when the judgments relented (Exod 9:12; 10:20, 27; 11:10; 14:8). God hardened Pharaoh so God could reveal divine power (Exod 7:3; 10:1; 14:17), and so the Egyptians would know that he was God (14:4).
God’s purpose in hardening Pharaoh was that he could give further signs and further convince Egypt. Mere liberation could have been achieved in an earlier response to the plagues, but God wants not only liberation but also recognition of his identity. A conspicuously repeated phrase throughout the plague narratives highlights God’s ultimate purpose: “that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD” (Exod 7:5, 17; 8:10, 22; 9:14, 29). God performed these dramatic signs also that Israel might know that he was God (Exod 6:7; 10:2; cf. 16:12; Num 16:28). Even the Philistine priests later understand this principle in 1 Sam 6:5-6 (cf. 4:8).
From the Christian perspective, the greatest blessing is to know the living God, and thus have eternal life (John 17:3) God alone can fill our deepest need (Jer 2:13; Hos 13:9; John 4:14). In that light, afflictions that get our attention can be for our good (or for the good of hardships’ survivors; cf. Ps 119:67, 71, 75); they are invitations to seek and find the true God.
Did God love the Egyptians? Yes. He was seeking to gain the attention of Egypt for the one true God. In this era, Israel was becoming a primary vehicle of God’s revelation, despite Israel’s many failures throughout its history (not least in their worship of the golden calf soon after the plagues). God had warned that those who cursed his people would be cursed just as those who blessed them would be blessed (Gen 12:3; 27:29; Num 24:10), a principle that another Pharaoh learned as early as Gen 12:17. But God always intended his work in Israel to become a blessing to all the peoples of the earth (Gen 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14).
Christians believe that we have a fuller revelation of God today, offering to all peoples access to God. For us, the climax of Israel’s story comes in Jesus, the fullest revelation of God’s purpose. (It’s no surprise that Egypt was one of the earliest areas massively converted to Christian faith in the movement’s first few centuries.) In Jesus, God demonstrates his love for all the world. Jesus bore the curse to bring blessing to anyone who blesses him, from any of the peoples of the earth. God loved not only Israel, and not only Egyptians, but God loved the world: he proved it in giving his Son for all of us (John 3:16; Rom 5:6).
God uses weak people—Exodus 6:10-30
Have you ever wondered if God could use someone like you? People in the Bible often wondered that also.
One person who wondered that was Moses. He wondered on multiple occasions; here we focus on one such context in which Exodus recounts his wondering. Most preachers do not preach from genealogies; most individual genealogies were probably not designed for preaching anyway. But one must ask why God suddenly interrupts the story of Moses with a genealogy in Exodus 6:14-25. God commands Moses to tell Pharaoh to release his people, but Moses protests that his own people have not heeded him, so how would Pharaoh listen to him (6:10-13)? After the genealogy, the narrative repeats the point: God commands Moses to confront Pharaoh, and Moses protests that Pharaoh will not listen to him.
What is the point of interrupting this narrative with a genealogy? The genealogy itself lists three tribes, the three oldest tribes, which sages who remembered the story might have called out until getting to Moses’ tribe. But the fact that the genealogy occurs at this point in the narrative may tell us more than just that someone decided to recite the genealogy in order until they reached Moses’s ancestors.
The list reminds us that Moses was descended from Levi, and related to Reuben and Simeon. Reuben slept with his father’s concubine; Simeon and Levi massacred all the men in Shechem. By placing the genealogy here, Exodus may be commenting on why Moses was so uncomfortable with confronting Pharaoh. If he was descended from such people as Levi, Reuben and Simeon, is it any wonder that Moses would have problems?
With the exception of Jesus, all the people God chose in the Bible were people with weaknesses rather than those who might think they “deserved” to be called. God chose broken people whose triumphs would bring glory to him rather than to themselves. If you trust God with your life, he can use your life to bring him honor also.
Contemporary Christian worship?—Exodus 25
What matters about worship is whom it addresses: the true God. As far as music styles or other features, they often fit the culture addressed. The musical instruments used in Psalm 150:3-5, for example, were also used by Canaanites in their worship. The Israelites used all these same instruments, but the difference was that they worshiped the true and the living God rather than statues.
The same is true for the design of the tabernacle in Exodus. Egyptians built temples differently than Mesopotamians. If one wanted to get to the innermost shrine in a Mesopotamian temple, one might have to go this way and that; in Egyptian temples, the holiest shrine, or holy of holies, was in a line directly from the front entrance, in the furthest rear. The tabernacle looks like the Egyptian model.
Because the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt used in building projects, they knew what Egyptian temples looked like. They would have known about portable tent-shrines used in Egypt and Midian, as well as about the structure of Egyptian temples (and palaces), with an outer court, inner court, and the innermost shrine, which was the holiest place. God chose a design with which the Israelites were familiar so they could understand that the tabernacle they carried through the wilderness was a temple.
Some aspects of the tabernacle parallel other temples, and the parallels communicate true theology about God. In the tabernacle, the most expensive materials were used nearest the ark of the covenant: gold was more expensive than copper, and blue dye than red dye. These details reflect an ancient Near Eastern practice: people used the most expensive materials nearest the innermost sanctuary to signify that their god should be approached with awe and reverence. The tabernacle uses standard ancient Near Eastern symbols to communicate its point about God’s holiness.
Some aspects of the tabernace include both parallels and contrasts, which also communicate theology about God. For instance, some of the furniture of the Tabernacle resembles the furniture of other ancient temples: a table of offerings, an altar, and so forth. Various sacrifices, such as sin offerings and thank offerings, were also used by other cultures, as were purity rules.
But Canaanite, Egyptian and Hittite temples included other features not found in the tabernacle, such as a chest of drawers and bed. Priests would wake their idols in the morning, give them their morning toilet, entertain them with dancing girls, feed them, and eventually put them back to bed at night. There was none of this in the Lord’s temple, for he was not merely an idol dependent on his priests to assist him. Unlike the gods of these peoples’ myths, the God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps (Ps 121:3-4).
Some features of the tabernacle contrast starkly with their culture, and in light of the other parallels, these contrasts are all the more obvious. The climax of other ancient Near Eastern and northern African temples was the image of the deity, enthroned on its sacred pedestal in the holiest innermost sanctuary. But there is no image in God’s temple, because he would allow no graven images of himself (Exod 20:4).
Further, many massive Egyptian temples included shrines for tutelary deities flanking the inner sanctuary; but there are no other deities associated with the Lord’s tabernacle, for he would tolerate the worship of no other gods in his sight (Exod 20:3). God communicated his theology to Israel even in the architecture of the tabernacle, and he did so in cultural terms they could understand. (Some of the modern interpretations of the colors and design of the tabernacle are simply guesses that have become widely circulated. The suggestions we offer here represent instead careful research into the way temples were designed in Moses’s day.)
God identified with various elements of local cultures and used them to communicate with people in language that they understood. Where there could be no compromise, however, was in the character of the object of worship, the one true God. As we worship God with all our diverse cultural styles of worship, we need to keep that in mind. We do not need to debate one another over music styles or other features. What we do need to remember is that our true God is holy, to be approached with awe and reverence, with joy and celebration. Let us magnify the name of the Lord!
The unexpected deliverer—Exodus 2
Often we wonder why God does not seem to be answering our prayers. But I learned an important insight from some older members in African-American churches that I was a part of: “God may not come when you want him to, but he’s always right on time.”
As Israel cried out for deliverance in Exodus 2:23, they may have wondered why deliverance took so long. They could not know the irony that God had already been preparing a deliverer even when Pharaoh was killing their children. Moses’s future role as deliverer is already foreshadowed in Moses’s survival in Exodus 2:3. Moses’s mother rescued him from Pharaoh by putting him in something like a basket—the Hebrew term is used elsewhere in the Bible only for Noah’s ark. Then she placed it among the reeds—a Hebrew term that is later used in connection with the place where God brought his people through the sea. The narrative looks back to Noah and God’s rescue of a remnant to perpetuate all humanity; it looks forward to Israel’s deliverance at the sea.
Surprisingly, God chooses to use Moses as an outsider rather than when he was a prince of Egypt. The narrative prepares us for that outsider role not least by leaving the Pharaoh unnamed, yet subverting his evil purposes by comparatively less powerful women. These women include the named Hebrew midwives who protected children (1:15-21), Moses’s mother and sister who rescued him (2:2-4), one of Pharaoh’s own daughters (2:5-10), and in a sense even Zipporah and the other female Midianites who were Moses’s first contacts in Midian.
Israel’s expectations of a deliverer may be shaped by how God raised up Joseph generations before. But God does not always do things the same way, and we see some contrasts between Joseph and Moses:
• Whereas Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, Moses’s sister helped him escape slavery
• Whereas Midianites sold Joseph into Egypt, Midianites welcomed Moses when he fled Egypt
• Whereas Joseph became like a “father” to Pharaoh (Gen 45:8), Moses became a son of one of Pharaoh’s daughters
• Whereas God exalted Joseph from slavery to rule Egypt, Moses abandoned his royal position on behalf of slaves
• Whereas Joseph made Egypt Pharaoh’s servants (Gen 47:19), God uses Moses to free Pharaoh’s slaves
• Whereas God used Joseph to deliver Egypt economically, God used plagues through Moses to devastate Egypt economically
• Whereas God used Joseph to bring Israel to Egypt, God used Moses to return them to Canaan
Nevertheless, there are important parallels between these figures, for example:
• Joseph married the daughter of an Egyptian priest; Moses, fleeing Egypt, married the daughter of a Midianite priest
• Both Joseph and Moses gave their first son names recalling that they were staying in a foreign land
Both these factors underline a deeper parallel: both deliverers were initially rejected by their own people. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery; one of Moses’s fellow Israelites complained, “Who made you ruler and judge over us?” (Exod 2:14). Many prophets and deliverers, and ultimately the Lord himself, faced the same resistance.
God did not act in the way his people would have expected, and they did not initially recognize the one who would be their deliverer. In fact, many complained about his leadership even during their forty years in the wilderness. Sometimes we don’t recognize that God is at work even when it is right in front of our eyes, because he is not working the way that we expected.
Nevertheless, God’s deliverance did come, and it sent a clear message when it did. Israel had suffered for a generation in bondage, but God’s purposes are often worked out over the long run. Too close to our sufferings and our daily life in the present to see beyond, we often miss the larger picture of God’s faithful work over time.
Yet how much clearer could the message finally be? Pharaoh drowned Israel’s babies in the Nile; the first plague later turned the Nile to blood. Pharaoh drowned Israel’s babies in the Nile; the last plague struck Egypt’s firstborn. Pharaoh drowned Israel’s babies in the Nile; God drowned Pharaoh’s army in the sea.
Those wise older believers who had been through much yet had seen God’s faithfulness were right about how God works in the long run. “God may not come when you want him to, but he’s always right on time.”
God’s forgiveness — Exodus 32:7-14
Have you ever done something so bad that you wondered on what basis God could forgive you?
Soon after God delivered his people from slavery, they did something very bad. Instead of worshiping the true, imageless God who brought them out of Egypt, Israel asked for a god of their own making, and attributed their deliverance to a golden calf. Israel would have been accustomed to the Egyptian worship of bovine images in Egypt, but by this point they already knew better, because God had forbidden making an image of him like anything on earth (Exod 20:4-5).
Israel claimed that the calf was their god who brought them up from Egypt (Exod 32:8). Angrily, God spoke to Moses of Moses’s people whom Moses had brought up from Egypt (32:7). Moses in turn reminded God that these were God’s people whom God had brought up from Egypt (32:11).
God declared to Moses, “I have seen this people,” noting their obstinacy and threatening to destroy them (32:9). Much earlier, when God first called Moses, God spoke of seeing his people: “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt,” and, “I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.” There he announced that he had heard their cries and had come down to deliver them (3:7-9). This new declaration to destroy his people reversed his earlier intention, declared when he called Moses to deliver them. His people clearly had acted very badly.
Moses offers a couple arguments to intercede for his people; one is for the honor of God’s name among the Egyptians (32:11-12). We know that God cared what the Egyptians thought because he had sent judgments to show the Egyptians that he was God (7:5; 14:4, 18). (Indeed, God’s plan was for the Egyptians to know him one day; Isaiah 19:21.)
But (more to the point of this Bible study) Moses also argues by reminding God of his own promises. When God had initially revealed himself to Moses, he declared that he was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (3:6, 15). He had promised to deliver Israel and bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey (3:8). So now Moses calls God to remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom he promised multiplied descendants and the land for them (32:13). He did not want God to reverse his earlier plan, and appealed to God’s characteristic faithfulness. So the Lord changed his mind and did not destroy his people (32:14).
God spared his people because of his covenant faithfulness, because of his promises to his servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And it is the same with us today. God spares us, forgives us, and looks on us with favor because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. God is still the God who is faithful to his covenant. He does not forget his mercy. And he has provided us that mercy at the greatest cost to himself, for Jesus was even more than a faithful servant of God like Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. He was God’s own Son, whom God gave on our behalf to save us.