And it came to pass the next day, that Moses said to the people, Ye have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to Jehovah perhaps I shall make atonement for your sin.
Israel had just made and worshipped a golden calf while Moses was on the mountain receiving the law, and the covenant lay broken. Moses now turns back toward God on their behalf — but with a word of uncertainty that marks the whole scene: perhaps.
Moses does not soften what happened. He states it to the people, then leaves the camp to plead for them.
Moses has now little heart for intercession. When he was on the mountain he breathed the very atmosphere of grace; but now he is in the actual scene of sin, and sees it as the Lord had seen it. Now nothing but the sin of the people is before Moses. "You have sinned a great sin." He must get out of the scene of sin to get into the place of intercession. What blessed instruction for us! Such a High Priest was exactly what we needed: "holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens"! He is always able to weigh sin as it must appear to God, who is of purer eyes than to look on evil. At the same time He throws the glory of His own person, and the value of His own work, into His own prevailing intercession.
The word "atonement" has a plain sense in the Old Testament. Its earlier appearances show it.
Atonement is the Old Testament word, as propitiation is the New Testament word. It simply means to cover. Genesis 6:14 uses it first: God told Noah to cover the ark inside and outside with pitch. It appears again in Genesis 32:20. Jacob said he would appease Esau with a present, and the present would cover his fault… The offering puts the offence out of sight. It gives the injured party an equivalent that covers the cause of offence.
Moses meant his offer. But it ran into a limit no man can cross.
Moses had indeed proposed to make such a settlement — "perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." But no creature effort was of any use. "Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life." The Lord Jesus did not go up to God until He had come down and given His life as a ransom for many.
What Moses lacked in power he made up in love. Going further than the verse promises, he asked God to blot his own name out instead.
He returned, confessed his people's sin, and pleaded with intense affection for their forgiveness. More than that — he could go no further — he added, "If not, please blot me out of Your book that You have written." He had so fully identified himself with the people that if they were unforgiven he wanted to perish with them. Such identification is the source of all strength in intercession, when the Spirit of God produces it… God did not grant what His servant asked, for he had no finished atonement to stand on, nor had he anything with which to make atonement — the only basis on which a holy God could righteously forgive His people. But his intercession did prevail so far as to spare the people the consequences their sin deserved under God's government — destruction as its penalty.
Set Moses' going up and coming down beside Christ's, and the difference is total.
How different this is from what we see in Christ! He came down from the bosom of the Father, not with the stone tablets in His hands, but with the law in His heart. He did not come down to learn the people's condition. He knew perfectly what it was. And instead of destroying the tablets of the covenant and executing judgment, He magnified the law and made it honourable. He bore the judgment of His people in His own blessed Person on the cross. Having done it all, He went back to heaven. He did not go with a "perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." He went to lay on the throne of God on high the lasting memorials of an atonement already accomplished.
Moses' "perhaps" is not where the story ends.
Moses goes up from that scene saying, "Perhaps I shall make atonement for your sin." He returns, and separates himself from the guilty camp of Israel. Then came the meeting that followed. At his cry, "Please show me Your glory," the Lord withdraws into Himself. He takes His stand on a sovereignty that can do as it pleases. He alone can say "I will," and no one can hinder. "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious."
- The sin. Moses tells Israel what they have done, then leaves the camp to pray — he names the sin before he pleads about it.
- The word. To make atonement is to cover: the offering puts the offence out of sight and satisfies the injured party.
- The "perhaps." Moses had no offering to bring, so all he could leave with the people was uncertainty; no one can pay a ransom for another.
- The love. He asked God to blot out his own name instead of seeing them lost. That intercession spared the nation, though it could not forgive it.
- The certainty. Christ came down with the law in His heart, bore the judgment, and went up with no "perhaps" — carrying proof of an atonement already made.
And Moses returned to Jehovah, and said, Alas, this people has sinned a great sin, and they have made themselves a god of gold!
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And now, if thou wilt forgive their sin ... but if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book that thou hast written.
Moses has come down from the mountain, found Israel worshipping a golden calf, and gone back up to plead for them. His prayer is one of the boldest ever spoken: forgive them, or erase me.
The verse opens with a sentence that stops in the middle. One writer reads that break as knowledge, not hesitation.
Bowed down with grief, Moses admits the people have committed a grave sin. He adds: "Yet now, if You will forgive their sin …" He cannot finish his sentence, because he knows well that God cannot forgive unless atonement is made. So he says out loud what he had secretly held in his heart: "If not, please blot me out of Your book that You have written." In this way he offers himself as a propitiation for the people. He has not yet learned what the psalmist will declare later: "Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life" (Ps. 49:7).
The "me" in this verse matters. Moses had not joined in the sin, yet he asked to share the sentence.
He had identified himself with the people so fully that if they were unforgiven he wanted to perish with them. Such identification is the source of all strength in intercession, when the Spirit of God produces it. It was the overflow of his intense love for guilty Israel. The case of the apostle Paul was not unlike it, for he said, "For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh." (Rom. 9:3.)
Love like this was not softness. Praying for people is not the same as excusing them.
Moses loved Israel with a love stronger than death. Yet the very man who loved them like that did not hold back his horror at the leprosy that had broken out among them. He felt that such evil must be rooted out at all cost, and banished from among them.
In God's presence Moses had every reason to complain about Israel. He never did. A commentator sets this beside the prophet Elijah, who asked God to act against his own nation.
Though he felt strongly the affront to Jehovah, yet in His presence not a single ill word escaped his lips about them. On the contrary, he kept reminding Jehovah that they were His people in spite of their grave sin, and that the honour of His great name was bound up with their blessing. Rather than have them overthrown, he was willing that God should blot him out of the book that He had written.
The plea was refused. Not because the love was too small, but because the man was not qualified.
The only solution he proposes shows how deep and real his love for the people was, but it was an impossible solution. He fully confesses the greatness of their guilt, pleading that he might be allowed to be a substitute for them — that he should be blotted out of God's book so that they might be forgiven (vv. 31-32)… He beautifully pictures the love of Christ in his willingness to sacrifice himself. But he could go no further than this in representing Christ, for he was a sinner himself and his sacrifice could atone for no one.
Moses went up the mountain with a "perhaps" on his lips. One writer sets that uncertainty against the One who came the other way.
He came down from above — from His dwelling place in the glory of the Father — to do His will. And while keeping the law, He Himself bears the penalty for breaking it. He did not destroy the tables, the signs of this covenant, whose demands man could not meet. He accomplished the atonement before returning above. So He does not go up with a cheerless "perhaps" in His mouth, which the holiness of God at once cancelled. He ascends with the sign that the atonement is finished.
God's reply put the account back on each person.
They were put fully under law, each man responsible for his own sin. As law and judgment, that is of course entirely righteous. But no atonement was made, and personal responsibility left everything on the individual.
Moses assumed a name could be erased from God's book. One writer draws a line between names God writes and names people write for themselves.
I believe the book of life is final, and all the devils cannot blot a name out of it. Where it speaks of blotting out, it is like a register of voters. If a name is shown to have no right to be there, it is blotted out… Someone who only claims to be a believer writes his own name in. He has no right to be there unless God has written his name, so it will be blotted out. God takes away no name that He has written.
Moses offered to have his name removed. The gospel removes something else.
Grace makes righteousness rest on the obedience of another, and so now it is not the sinner who is blotted out, but his sins, however vile they are. If I say I have sinned, and perhaps He will blot me out of His book, I am standing on law. But the moment I understand that Christ is my righteousness, the ground is completely changed.
- Sin. Moses calls it what it is — a great sin. Real love hated the evil enough to root it out.
- Offer. His broken sentence shows he knew forgiveness needs atonement. So he offered his own name in place of theirs.
- Refusal. God said no, because Moses had no atonement to bring — yet the prayer still spared the nation from destruction.
- Fulfilment. He went up with a "perhaps"; Christ made the atonement first and then ascended with the proof of it finished.
- Result. Under law the sinner is blotted out; under grace it is the sins that are blotted out, and a name God wrote is never erased.