Jehovah is slow to anger, and abundant in goodness, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and fourth [generation].
Israel has just refused the land, and God offers to strike the nation and start again with Moses alone. Moses answers by quoting back God's own words about Himself, first spoken on the mountain, and asking Him to act in character.
Moses does not invent an argument. He takes the description God had given of Himself and treats it as binding.
Moses could not bear to see Jehovah's character compromised, so he holds Him firmly to His own word... He holds fast to the word of God and to His ways. He holds fast to the love God had shown so often, even to this unfaithful people He had known so well from the start. If He had been patient with them before, surely He would not turn from them now.
(The ESV reads "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." Older translations quoted here say "longsuffering, and of great mercy.")
The plea rests on more than pity. Moses ties God's own glory to what becomes of Israel.
Moses steps in to plead for the people, and he builds his plea on the testimony Jehovah had given about Himself... The principle behind it is this: Jehovah completely identifies Himself with His people. He presses on Jehovah that His own glory is tied up with keeping and blessing His people. It cannot be separated from them.
The word behind "forgiving" carries a picture. It means to lift a weight up and carry it away.
nasa, 'to bear,' take away [guilt]: used by Joseph's brothers when they asked him to forgive them, Gen. 50:17; and used of God as "forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." Ex. 34:7; Num. 14:18; and in describing the blessedness of the man "whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." Ps. 32:1.
Moses asks for the power of the Lord to be great — and then defines what that power should do.
"Let the power of my Lord be great." To what end? Judgement and destruction? No; "The Lord is long-suffering." What a thought! The power of God in long-suffering and pardon! How precious beyond words! How close Moses was to the very heart and mind of God, that he could speak like this!
Moses quotes the hard half of the sentence too. Commentators warn against stopping at the kind words.
It is a great mistake to think that the proclamation of divine goodness in this scene is the gospel. People are badly wrong when they quote "Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin" in this sense and stop there... There is no doubt that this is the goodness and mercy of God, but God is showing it to a people still under the government of the law... Without this mixture of law and mercy the guilty people never could have been spared. They would have been wiped out completely. It was because of this that a new generation of Israel entered the land at all.
Set beside the gospel, the difference is sharp:
This is clearly not pure law, and it is not pure grace either. It is the goodness of God in government, and under that government God will by no means clear the guilty. Under grace, God can justify the ungodly.
The line about consequences reaching to later generations troubles many readers. Commentators place it in God's dealings on earth, not in His final verdict.
Here God is showing how He deals with people on earth in His holy government. When it comes to His judgment for eternity, He judges the dead "according to what they had done" (Rev. 20:12-13), and no child bears the sin of his father there... In the working out of God's government in this world, a father's iniquity harms his children. That fact is too obvious for any of us to overlook.
God's reply comes in two statements.
Note these two statements carefully. They are absolute and unqualified. "I have pardoned." And, "All the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." Nothing could, by any possibility, touch these grand facts. The pardon is secured; and the glory will yet shine out over all the earth.
- The Name spoken. God had used these very words about Himself before. Moses is not guessing at God's character; he is repeating it.
- The Name pleaded. Moses argues that God's own glory is tied up with keeping and blessing His people.
- The Name limited. "But he will by no means clear the guilty" keeps this from being the gospel. It is goodness at work inside God's government, where guilt still brings consequences on earth.
- The Name answered. The reply came back: "I have pardoned." That is power at work in patience, not destruction.
- The Name enlarged. What government could not do, grace does. God justifies the ungodly, and the whole earth will still be filled with His glory.
Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of thy loving-kindness, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.
Israel has just refused the land, and God has offered to destroy them and start again with Moses. Verse 19 is his reply — a plea for pardon based on nothing in the people, only on the greatness of God's love and His record of forgiving them.
Moses does not invent a new argument. He points to what God has said about Himself, and to every past forgiveness, as proof of what God is.
Moses could not bear the Lord's character to be compromised, so he holds Him tightly, as it were, to His own word... He clings to the word of God and to His ways — to the love God had shown so often, even to the faithless people He knew so well from the first. If He had borne with them before, surely He would not turn from them now.
Moses does not ask for pardon on its own. He asks on one ground above all: God's glory must not suffer.
There is, first and above all, a jealous care for the Lord's glory. That glory must be guarded on every side. But it is on this very ground — mainly, to maintain the divine glory — that he asks pardon for the people. This intercession links the two together in the most blessed way. "Let the power of my Lord be great." To what end? Judgement and destruction? No — "The LORD is slow to anger." What a thought! The power of God shown in patience and pardon!
The prayer asks nothing for Moses. One writer shows what he was ready to lose to keep God's glory safe.
If all this personal glory and greatness could only be bought at the cost of a single ray of divine glory — what then? Away with it all. Let the name of Moses be blotted out for ever.
Another writer weighs what Moses wanted for himself against what he wanted for Israel.
Look at the love he has for Israel on the one hand, and his care for God's character on the other. He says, Lord, I do not want to be made much of, but I do want something for others... The mercy of God is a deep sea that never changes, and it is infinitely precious.
God answers the prayer in the next verse, then sets a limit. Pardon here does not mean the people escape every consequence.
God answered the prayer of this one man on behalf of all Israel, telling him He has pardoned Israel: He would not destroy them. Yet, while God shows grace in this way, He will not relax His government... Israel would feel the results of their disobedience in a painful way.
How can God forgive and still punish? One writer answers by saying what forgiveness itself means.
God may discipline us in His government for our good, or even as a testimony, as in David's case and Numbers 14:20. Yet, between Him and the guilty, He forgives. He does not charge the sin against them. He no longer holds them guilty.
God's answer holds two statements, and neither one carries a condition.
Note these two statements carefully. They are absolute and unqualified. "I have pardoned." And, "all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD." Nothing could possibly touch these grand facts. The pardon is secured, and the glory shall yet shine out over all the earth.
One writer sets this prayer beside another famous prayer in Scripture.
How close Moses was to the very heart and mind of God when he could speak like this! Compare him with the prophet Elijah on Mount Horeb, who prayed against Israel. There can be little question which of these two honoured men was more in tune with the mind and spirit of Christ.
One man's prayer kept a whole nation alive. Another writer sees in it a preview of someone greater.
Again, in this wonderful instance, Moses beautifully pictures the interceding grace of the Lord Jesus. That grace keeps and sustains His people, despite their waywardness.
- Ground — Moses claims nothing for Israel. He holds God to His own word, and to every pardon given since Egypt.
- Glory — Moses asks pardon on one ground: God's own glory. Mercy and glory rise or fall together.
- Gift — "I have pardoned" is absolute. God spares the nation and shows His power in patience, not destruction.
- Government — pardon does not cancel consequences. God still disciplines the people He has forgiven, and Israel felt that painfully.
- Goal — the same answer promises that the whole earth will be filled with God's glory. Nothing can touch that.