‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the 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.
Pleading God's Own Words
Moses does not invent an argument. He takes the description God had given of Himself and treats it as binding.
William KellyMoses 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 Glory Tied to the People
The plea rests on more than pity. Moses ties God's own glory to what becomes of Israel.
J. N. DarbyMoses 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 "Forgiving"
The word behind "forgiving" carries a picture. It means to lift a weight up and carry it away.
Morrish Bible Dictionarynasa, '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.
Power Shown in Patience
Moses asks for the power of the Lord to be great — and then defines what that power should do.
C. H. Mackintosh"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!
The Clause That Limits the Mercy
Moses quotes the hard half of the sentence too. Commentators warn against stopping at the kind words.
William KellyIt 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:
Hamilton SmithThis 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.
Fathers and Children
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.
F. B. HoleHere 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.
The Answer Given
God's reply comes in two statements.
C. H. MackintoshNote 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.
Summary
- 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.