And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.
Said unto the people, Ye have sinned. Moses laboured to show the people the heinous nature of their sin, and bring them to repentance. But not content with that, he hastened more earnestly to intercede for them.
Verse 32. Blot me out of thy book which thou hast written. In the public registers, all that were born of a particular tribe were entered in the list of their respective families under that tribe. This was the Israelite Domesday book, or genealogical record; and when any one died his name might be considered as blotted out of this list. The meaning of Moses' earnest supplication is, that if Yahweh would not pardon the grievous offence of His people, and would destroy Israel as a nation, he might be permitted to die before so dreadful a calamity occurred-his name might be erased from the record of living men. What warmth of affection did he evince for his brethren; how fully was he animated with the true spirit of a patriot, when he professed his willingness to die rather than survive their destruction!
Verse 33. Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. In China the names of persons tried on criminal processes are written in two distinct books, called the book of life and the book of death; those acquitted, or not capitally convicted, are written in the former, those found guilty, in the latter. These are presented to the emperor, who has a right to erase any name from either (cf. Revelation 3:5).
This prerogative belongs absolutely to God; and hence, it is recorded that "the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me" - so as to violate the condition of the Sinai covenant - "him will I blot out of my book." I will blot him out of the register of the living, or cut him off from their number. Hence, in many passages of the Pentateuch (Leviticus 17:10; Leviticus 20:2; Leviticus 20:6; Leviticus 23:30; Numbers 16:29-34), as well as of the Psalms, wicked men are threatened with a sudden, violent, and untimely death, or with other dreadful calamities, which should bear an evident signature of being inflicted by the immediate hand of God (cf. Psalms 11:5; Psalms 34:16; Psalms 34:21; Psalms 37:1-2; Psalms 37:9-10; Psalms 37:20; Psalms 37:35-36; Psalms 37:38; Psalms 55:23; Psalms 94:23). The declaration intimates a general rule of the divine government, that a clear distinction would be made between the innocent and the guilty, and that punishment would be inflicted only on the strictest principles of justice. But the declaration primarily referred directly to the special government of Israel, in which Yahweh, as king, would deal with the people who composed that nation, in the distribution of temporal rewards and punishments, according to their respective merits; and the immediate object of making it was to assure Moses that there should not be a national destruction-that those only should be cut off, whose incorrigible and hopeless sin merited that doom, while all who had remained faithful to the covenant would be spared.