I prayed therefore unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, destroy not Thy people.
A covenant people
This prayer brings out in its greatest strength a contrast which goes through the Book of Deuteronomy, and through the whole Bible. The Israelites are the people of God, His inheritance, redeemed by His mighty hand. They are stubborn, stiff-necked, wicked. One all-important contrast suggests itself the moment we open the Scriptures. They do not set forth the history of man seeking for God, but of God seeking for men. In the Book of Exodus we have very distinct records of the life of Moses, but no one could possibly think that it was the object of that book to give us a biography of him or of any other man. Moses is called out by God to know His name and to do His work; that is the account which he gives of himself. This was his holiness; he was separated, set apart by God to act as His minister. He who set him apart revealed to him His character--showed him that righteousness, and not self-will, was governing the universe. To separate Moses the righteous man from Moses the deliverer of the Israelites is impossible. He could not have been righteous if he had not fulfilled that task, he could not have been righteous if he had not testified in all his acts and words that God, not he, was the deliverer. We miss the whole meaning of the story--the saintship of Moses disappears altogether--if we try to conceive of him apart from his people. It was a holy nation because God had called it out, had chosen it to be His, had put His name upon it. The family of Abraham was signed with God’s covenant, and was declared to be holy. Was it not so actually? Was it only so because Jacob was the head of it, or because Joseph was a member of it? The Scripture is careful to preserve us from any such feeble notions. It forces us to see that Joseph was better than his brethren, just because he identified himself with the family, and they acted as if they did not belong to it; because he believed that God had chosen it, and they forgot that He had; because he did, and they did not, believe it to be holy. The nation of Israel was told that the invisible God was actually their king; that He had brought them out of the house of bondage; that He was with them in the wilderness; that He would be with them in the promised laud. Supposing any Israelite to believe this, he was a strong, brave, free man; he could overcome the enemies of his land; he could tread his own underfoot. See, then, how reasonable the prayer was which I have taken for nay text. Because Moses regarded the Israelites as a holy and chosen people, redeemed by God’s own hand; because he believed that this description belonged to the whole covenant people at all times; therefore he felt with intense anguish their stubbornness, their wickedness, and their sin. Had they not been a holy people he would not have known in what their sin consisted. It was the forgetfulness of their holy state--the choice of another--which he confessed with such shame and sorrow before God; it was because they had gone out of the right way, forgetting that they were a nation, each man preferring a selfish way of his own--each thinking that he had an interest apart from his neighbour, apart from the body to which he belonged--that they needed his intercession and God’s renewing and restoring mercy. And Moses could ask for that restoring mercy; he had the power to pray, because he was sure that he was asking according to God’s will, because he was sure that he was asking that that which resisted His will might be taken away. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)
Moses at the highest level of his ministry
Here we learn what Moses was--in spite of his imperfections--in the sight of God and men; and to what place of honour he attained among that great cloud of witnesses whose lives pass before us in Scripture. In this part of his history which he recounts he stands conspicuous.
I. In his zeal for the Divine honour.
1. Moses had been, forty days and nights on Sinai in the Divine presence, receiving revelations of God’s mind and will The people had become impatient, had forgotten the near presence of God, and fell away from Him. When Moses came near the camp, on descending from the mount, the idolatrous Scene that met his gaze roused him to anger, and he broke the tables of the law which he had brought from the mount, and only at his intercession the people were saved.
2. God has given His people many proofs of His goodness, condescension, etc. But around are many evidences of languor, of lukewarmness, and even of apostasy. If not outwardly, then in heart many, have turned back from God. Should not a holy indignation fill the breasts of God’s true servants; should not they, and all who belong to the Lord, strive against this defection, call those sins by their right names, etc.? There are situations in which such a zeal should characterise the office-bearers of the Church and all true members of the same.
II. In his earnest entreaty for his people.
1. “He fell down before the Lord,” etc., in earnest prayer for the people, as he had often done. So earnest that he asked that he himself might be blotted out of the book God had written if their sins were not forgiven (Exodus 32:32). And his “effectual fervent prayer” was answered.
2. How like in spirit to the great apostle’s prayers was the prayer of Moses! (Romans 9:3.) If we go through the books of holy writ we see what may be done through prayer. The prayers of a Samuel, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Daniel, and the prayers of our Lord (Hebrews 5:5-7) all encourage to earnest prayer. Oh, that we could pray as earnestly and believingly as a Monica, a Luther, etc., or as Moses here prayed for his people! that we could wrestle in prayer for the lost and erring, for every soul sunk in sin, and remind God of His gracious promises, etc.! In these days, where means and ways must be considered whereby the channels of a true spiritual and moral life may be laid among the people, prayer and supplication are chief means. Let us use them earnestly. (Albert Kyphe.)
Yet they are Thy people and Thine inheritance.
The history of the Jews a convincing argument in favour of Christianity
It is related of a certain royal chaplain, that being asked offhand by his sovereign to give a concise and convincing argument in favour of Christianity, he replied in two words--“The Jews.” He could not have given a better answer. You may question, if you will, every single prophecy in the Old Testament; but the whole of the history of the Jews is one continuous prophecy, more distinct and more articulate than all. You may deny, if you will, every successive miracle which is recorded therein; but again, the history of the Jews, from first to last, remains one stupendous miracle, more convincing than all. Look, first, at the capacities of the people themselves. They had no remarkable gifts which might have led us to anticipate for them this unique distinction. Nor does their land help us to solve the enigma. Palestine does, indeed, occupy a very large space in our imagination, but it is a very minute and insignificant spot in the map of the world. It was, moreover, incapable of expansion; for it was bounded on all sides either by the sea or by mountain ranges, or by vast and impracticable deserts. It is largely made up of barren and stony mountains; and even this meagre and contracted territory was not all their own. The sea coast would have been a valuable acquisition to a people gifted with commercial instincts; but from the sea coast they were almost wholly excluded; the Phoenicians on the north, the Philistines on the south, occupied all the most important harbours. And this territory, so small, so inexpansive, so unpromising, appears at a still greater disadvantage when compared with the surrounding people. The Jews were environed on all sides with the most formidable neighbours. What chance has Israel? Must it not be crushed, ground to powder, annihilated by its foes? But, at all events, it might be supposed that the Israelites would at least be united amongst themselves; loyal to their country; faithful to their laws and institutions; true to their God. But what do we find as a matter of fact? Their national history is one continuous record of murmurings, of rebellions, of internal feuds, of moral and spiritual defection. Not once or twice only, when the Almighty Archer had strung His weapon, and pointed His shaft, His aim was frustrated by Israel’s disobedience, His chosen instrument swerved in His hands, “starting aside like a broken bow.” So then, however we look at the matter, there is nothing which affords ground of hope; and when we question the actual facts we find that they correspond altogether to the expectations which we should have formed beforehand from the character and position of the people. Never has any people lived on this earth which has passed through such terrible disasters. Never has any people been so near to absolute extinction again and again, and yet has survived. Again and again the vision of the prophet has been renewed; again and again the valley of the shadow of death has been strewn with the bones of caresses seemingly extinct. Again and again lookers-on have despaired, and even the most hopeful, when challenged by the Divine call, could only respond, “O Lord God, Thou knowest.” But again and again there has been a noise and a shaking, and the bones have come together bone to bone, and they have been strung with sinews and clothed with flesh, and the breath has been breathed into them, and they have lived, and stood up an exceeding great army. .. And do we ask what it was which gave to the Jewish people this toughness, this vitality, this power? The answer is simply, “They are Thy people, and Thine inheritance.” It was the consciousness of their close relation to Jehovah, the omnipotent and ever-present God; it was the sense of a glorious destiny marking them out as the teachers of mankind; it was the conviction that they were possessors of magnificent truths, and that these truths must in the end prevail, whatever present appearances might suggest--this was the secret of their strength notwithstanding all their faults, this was the ever-sustaining breath of their life despite all their disasters. And do we ask, again, how it came to pass that when Israel called to the Gentiles, the Gentiles responded to the call, and flocked to the standard set up in Zion? Here, again, the answer is simple: “Because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel.” The Gentiles had everything else in profusion, but this one thing they lacked--this knowledge of God their Father; and without this all their magnificent gifts could not satisfy or save them. Therefore when at length the cry went forth, “He, everyone that thirsteth,” etc., they hurried to the fountain of salvation to slake their burning thirst. (Bp. Lightfoot.).