And Moses returned to Jehovah, and said, Alas, this people has sinned a great sin, and they have made themselves a god of gold!
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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.