CONTENTS
This is a most interesting Chapter, but no less distressing to read. We have therein related to us, that God, by his divine foreknowledge, having seen, that in consequence of Moses being with him longer in the Mount than the people below in the camp expected, they fell away to idolatry: the Lord commands Moses to go down to the people: the Lord informs his servant what had taken place during his absence; Moses intercedes for the people: Moses descends from the Mount; arrives at the Camp: beholds the idol of the people: his anger is so great that he casts the Tables of Testimony, which the Lord had given him, out of his hands, and they are broken; the conference between Moses and the people, and Moses returns unto the Lord.
Observe, what unbelief induceth in the heart of man. Believers have too much of this in them. The Lord Jesus is gone up into the heaven of heavens, there to appear in the presence of God for his people; and yet how often do they cry out in doubts and misgivings. Isaiah 40:27; Psalms 13:1-2. And ungodly men are here from led to question the truth of divine promises. 2 Peter 3:4. It was this impious disregard of the divine threatenings which induced the wicked servant, in the parable, to smite his fellow servants. Matthew 24:48.