And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
The Lord passed by. In this remarkable scene God performed what He had promised to Moses the day before.
Proclaimed, The Lord ... merciful and gracious. At an earlier period He had announced Himself to Moses, in the glory of His self-existent and eternal majesty, as "I am;" now He develops the grand truths implied in that name (see the notes at Genesis 2:1-25, p. 33), especially making Himself known in the glory of His grace and goodness-attributes that were to be illustriously displayed in the future history and experience of the Church. Being about to republish His law-the sin of the Israelites being forgiven, and the deed of pardon about to be as it were signed and sealed, by renewing the terms of the former covenant-it was the most fitting time to proclaim the extent of the divine mercy which was to be displayed, not in the case of Israel only, but of all who offend. The proclamation was specially designed, in the first instance, to describe the procedure of God to the Israelites under the Sinaitic covenant, in which justice would be tempered with abundant mercy-the temporal punishment of parents' crimes would, in the consequences to their families, be limited to the third and fourth generation: while the temporal rewards of piety and obedience would, in value as well as duration, far exceed what in the ordinary course of nature could be expected (see the note at Exodus 20:5-6).
Abundant in goodness and truth. "Truth" must be considered, from its relative position in this passage, as pointing directly to the fulfillment of promises and threatenings under the covenant. But some writers rather take "goodness and truth" as used here by a hendiadys, for 'sincere, real goodness.'