Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, “Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth,
Parallel Translations
-
Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, “Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth,
-
And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
-
And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed: 'The LORD, the LORD, God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth;
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (27)
Passages linked to Exodus 34:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 86:15 But you, Lord, are a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth.
- Joel 2:13 Tear your heart, and not your garments, and turn to Yahweh, your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and relents from sending calamity.
- Psalms 103:8-13 Yahweh is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness. He will not always accuse; neither will he stay angry forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor repaid us for our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his loving kindness toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Like a father has compassion on his children, so Yahweh has compassion on those who fear him.
- Psalms 145:8 Yahweh is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and of great loving kindness.
- Nehemiah 9:17 and refused to obey. They weren’t mindful of your wonders that you did among them, but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But you are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and didn’t forsake them.
- Jonah 4:2 He prayed to Yahweh, and said, “Please, Yahweh, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm.
- Numbers 14:17-19 Now please let the power of the Lord be great, according as you have spoken, saying, ‘Yahweh is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and disobedience; and he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your loving kindness, and just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”
- Psalms 86:5 For you, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, abundant in loving kindness to all those who call on you.
- 2 Chronicles 30:9 For if you turn again to Yahweh, your brothers and your children will find compassion before those who led them captive, and will come again into this land, because Yahweh your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.”
- Micah 7:18 Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his anger forever, because he delights in loving kindness.
- Deuteronomy 5:10 and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
- Ephesians 1:7-8 in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
- Psalms 138:2 I will bow down toward your holy temple, and give thanks to your Name for your loving kindness and for your truth; for you have exalted your Name and your Word above all.
- Psalms 116:5 Yahweh is Gracious and righteous. Yes, our God is merciful.
- Psalms 108:4 For your loving kindness is great above the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
- Romans 2:4 Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
- Psalms 111:4 He has caused his wonderful works to be remembered. Yahweh is gracious and merciful.
- Psalms 57:10 For your great loving kindness reaches to the heavens, and your truth to the skies.
- Exodus 3:13-16 Moses said to God, “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” God said moreover to Moses, “You shall tell the children of Israel this, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and tell them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt.
- Exodus 22:27 for that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What would he sleep in? It will happen, when he cries to me, that I will hear, for I am gracious.
- Psalms 112:4 Light dawns in the darkness for the upright, gracious, merciful, and righteous.
- Micah 7:20 You will give truth to Jacob, and mercy to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.
- Lamentations 3:23 They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
- John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
- Psalms 91:4 He will cover you with his feathers. Under his wings you will take refuge. His faithfulness is your shield and rampart.
- Romans 5:20-21 The law came in that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly; that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
- Psalms 31:19 Oh how great is your goodness, which you have laid up for those who fear you, which you have worked for those who take refuge in you, before the sons of men!
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (17 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain This ought to be referred to the Lord, and…
This ought to be referred to the Lord, and not to Moses proclaiming: as Exod. 33:19.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Exo 34:6 And the LORD passed by before him,…
Exo 34:6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
Ver. 6. The Lord, The Lord God. &c.] These glorious titles and attributes are those back parts of God. {Exo 33:23} None can see more than these and live: and we need see no more than these that we may live.
Read full note →
Longsuffering.] Heb., Wide of nostrils; not apt to snuff at small matters, but bearing with men’s evil manners. This Averroes, the atheist, made use as an argument against the providence of God, and to prove that he meddled with nothing below the moon, because of his slowness to anger.
In goodness and truth.] God’s goodness, though great, yet here and elsewhere it goes bounded with his truth.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The Lord God: this title shows his glorious being,…
The Lord God: this title shows his glorious being, power, and authority; the following titles note his goodness to men.
Abundant in goodness and truth; in fulfilling all his gracious promises made to Abraham, and to his seed, and to all his people; wherein he is said to be abundant, because he generally is better than his word, and gives more than he promised. There is a truth in Divine threatenings, but here the situation of this word in the midst of the attributes of Divine goodness plainly shows that it is to be restrained to the promises; this being usual and reasonable, that general words have their signification limited by the context. And indeed here seems to be a hendyadis,
Read full note →
goodness and truth, for true, sincere, and hearty goodness, as mercy and truth are oft put for true and real mercy. See Psa 25:10; 57:3, &c.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And the Lord passed by before him,.... Or caused…
And the Lord passed by before him,.... Or caused his Shechinah, his divine Majesty, and the glory of it, to pass before him, as the Targums; his glory and goodness, which he had promised should pass before him, Exo 33:19 and it is but a transient passing view the greatest of men, God's peculiar favourites, have of him in this life:
and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God; the Jerusalem Targum wrongly paraphrases the words as a prayer of Moses thus, "and Moses prayed, and said, O Lord, Lord"; and so the Vulgate Latin version; but it is quite clear, and beyond all doubt, from Num 14:17 that what follow are the words of God, and not of Moses: the sense is, that the Lord, as he passed by Moses, to raise and fix his attention, declared it was Jehovah that passed by; which is repeated the more to excite his attention, and is the name by which he had made himself known to Moses, even when he sent him into Egypt; for "I am that I am" is an explanation of this name, see Exo 3:14 and the word "El", translated "God", signifies mighty and powerful, and is true of all the three divine Persons, to whom respect may be had in the use of these three words. What is proclaimed or declared concerning God is, that he is
Read full note →
merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; first "merciful", and he is so in the most tender and affectionate manner; he is rich and plenteous in mercy, freely giving it, delights in bestowing it, constantly shows it to his people; it is manifested and displayed in Christ, the mercy seat; and it lays a foundation for faith and hope, and is the spring of all good things in time, and to eternity: and he is also "gracious", good and kind to men, without any merit or desert of theirs, but bestows good things on them freely, of his own free grace, favour, and good will, as appears by various acts of his; in the eternal choice of them to everlasting happiness; in providing a Saviour for them, and giving all grace and spiritual blessings to them in him; by giving Christ to them, and for them, justifying them freely by his righteousness, pardoning their sins according to the riches of his grace, regenerating, calling, preserving, and saving them by it: likewise "longsuffering"; both towards wicked men, the vessels of wrath, by whom his patience and longsuffering are abused and despised; and towards his elect, on whom he waits to be gracious, not willing that any of them should perish, but all be brought to repentance; and his longsuffering is their salvation: and it follows, "abundant in goodness and truth"; in providential goodness to all men; in special goodness to his chosen people, which he has laid up, and wrought out for them, and shown them in Christ; in his truth and faithfulness, in fulfilling his promises, both with respect to the mission of his Son into the world, to be the Saviour of it, and with respect to all other things promised, whether relating to this life, or that to come, to grace or glory; he never suffers his truth and faithfulness to fail; his promises are all yea and amen in Christ.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain And the Lord passed by before him - Fixed…
And the Lord passed by before him - Fixed views of God are reserved for the future state; the best we have in this world are transient. And proclaimed the name of the Lord - By which he would make himself known. He had made himself known to Moses in the glory of his self-existence, and self-sufficiency, when he proclaimed that name, I am that I am; now he makes himself known in the glory of his grace and goodness, and all- sufficiency to us. The proclaiming of it notes the universal extent of God's mercy; he is not only good to Israel, but good to all. The God with whom we have to do is a great God. He is Jehovah, the Lord, that hath his being of himself, and is the fountain of all being; Jehovah-El, the Lord, the strong God, a God of almighty power himself, and the original of all power. This is prefixed before the display of his mercy, to teach us to think and to speak even of God's goodness with a holy awe, and to encourage us to depend upon these mercies. He is a good God. His greatness and goodness illustrate each other. That his greatness may not make us afraid, we are told how good he is; and that we may not presume upon his goodness, we are told how great he is. Many words are here heaped up to acquaint us with, and convince us of God's goodness.
1st, He is merciful, This speaks his pity, and tender companion, like that of a father to his children. This is put first, because it is the first wheel in all the instances of God's goodwill to fallen man. 2ndly, He is gracious. This speaks both freeness, and kindness: it speaks him not only to have a compassion to his creatures, but a complacency in them, and in doing good to them; and this of his own goodwill, not for the sake of any thing in them. 3rdly, He is long-suffering. This is a branch of God's goodness which our wickedness gives occasion for. He is long-suffering, that is, he is slow to anger, and delays the executions of his justice, he waits to be gracious, and lengthens out the offers of his mercy. 4thly, He is abundant in goodness and truth. This speaks plentiful goodness; it abounds above our deserts, above our conception. The springs of mercy are always full, the streams of mercy always flowing; there is mercy enough in God, enough for all, enough for each, enough forever. It speaks promised goodness, goodness and truth put together, goodness engaged by promise.
Read full note →
5thly, He keepeth mercy for thousands. This speaks,
1. Mercy extended to thousands of persons. When he gives to some, still he keeps for others, and is never exhausted:
2. Mercy entailed upon thousands of generations, even to those upon whom the ends of the world are come; nay, the line of it is drawn parallel with that of eternity itself.
6thly, He forgiveth iniquity, transgression and sin - Pardoning mercy is instanced in, because in that divine grace is most magnified, and because that it is that opens the door to all other gifts of grace. He forgives offenses of all sorts, iniquity, transgression and sin, multiplies his pardons, and with him is plenteous redemption. He is a just and holy God. For, 1st, He will by no means clear the guilty. He will not clear the impenitently guilty, those that go on still in their trespasses; he will not clear the guilty without satisfaction to his justice. 2ndly, He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children - Especially for the punishment of idolaters. Yet he keepeth not his anger forever, but visits to the third and fourth generation only, while he keeps mercy for thousands - This is God's name forever, and this is his memorial unto all generations.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 6. And the Lord passed by - and…
Verse 6. And the Lord passed by - and proclaimed, The Lord, c.] It would be much better to read this verse thus: "And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed JEHOVAH," that is, showed Moses fully what was implied in this august name. Moses had requested God to show him his glory, (see the preceding chapter, Ex 33:18,) and God promised to proclaim or fully declare the name JEHOVAH, (Ex 33:19) by which proclamation or interpretation Moses should see how God would "be gracious to whom he would be gracious," and how he would "be merciful to those to whom he would show mercy. Here therefore God fulfils that promise by proclaiming this name. It has long been a question, what is the meaning of the word יהוה JEHOVAH, Yehovah, Yehue, Yehveh, or Yeve, Jeue, Jao, Iao, Jhueh, and Jove; for it has been as variously pronounced as it has been differently interpreted. Some have maintained that it is utterly inexplicable; these of course have offered no mode of interpretation. Others say that it implies the essence of the Divine nature. Others, that it expresses the doctrine of the Trinity connected with the incarnation; the letter י yod standing for the Father, ה he for the Son, and ו vau (the connecting particle) for the Holy Spirit: and they add that the ה he being repeated in the word, signifies the human nature united to the Divine in the incarnation. These speculations are calculated to give very little satisfaction. How strange is it that none of these learned men have discovered that God himself interprets this name in Ex 34:6,! "And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed יהוה YEHOVAH the LORD GOD, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty." These words contain the proper interpretation of the venerable and glorious name JEHOVAH. But it will be necessary to consider them in detail.
The different names in this and the following verse have been considered as so many attributes of the Divine nature. Commentators divide them into eleven, thus: -
Read full note →
1. יהוה JEHOVAH.
2. אל EL, the strong or mighty God.
3. רחום RACHUM, the merciful Being, who is full of tenderness and compassion.
4. חנון CHANNUN, the gracious One; he whose nature is goodness itself; the loving God.
5. ארך אפים ERECH APPAYIM, long-suffering; the Being who, because of his goodness and tenderness, is not easily irritated, but suffers long and is kind.
6. רב RAB, the great or mighty One.
7. חסד CHESED, the bountiful Being; he who is exuberant in his beneficence.
8. אמת EMETH, the truth or true One; he alone who can neither deceive nor be deceived, who is the fountain of truth, and from whom all wisdom and knowledge must be derived.
9. נצר חסד NOTSER CHESED, the preserver of bountifulness; he whose beneficence never ends, keeping mercy for thousands of generations, showing compassion and mercy while the world endures.
10. נשא עון ופשע וחטאה NOSE avon vaphesha vechattaah, he who bears away iniquity and transgression and sin: properly, the REDEEMER, the Pardoner, the Forgiver; the Being whose prerogative alone it is to forgive sin and save the soul. ינקה(לו) נקה לא NAKKEH lo yenakkeh, the righteous Judge, who distributes justice with an impartial hand, with whom no innocent person can ever be condemned. And,
11. פקד עון POKED avon, c. he who visits iniquity, who punishes transgressors, and from whose justice no sinner can escape. The God of retributive and vindictive justice.
These eleven attributes, as they have been termed, are all included in the name JEHOVAH, and are, as we have before seen, the proper interpretation of it; but the meaning of several of these words has been variously understood.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Exo 34:6-7. And the Lord passed by before him…
Exo 34:6-7. And the Lord passed by before him — Fixed views of God are reserved for the future state; the best we have in this world are transient. And proclaimed the name of the Lord — By which he would make himself known. He had made himself known to Moses, in the glory of his self- existence and self-sufficiency, when he proclaimed that name, I am that I am; now he makes himself known in the glory of his grace and goodness, and all-sufficiency to us. The proclaiming of it denotes the universal extent of God’s mercy; he is not only good to Israel, but good to all. The God with whom we have to do is a great God. He is Jehovah, the Lord, that hath his being of himself, and is the fountain of all being; Jehovah-El, the Lord, the strong God, a God of almighty power himself, and the original of all power. This is prefixed before the display of his mercy, to teach us to think and to speak even of God’s goodness with a holy awe, and to encourage us to depend upon these mercies. He is a good God. His greatness and goodness illustrate each other. That his greatness may not make us afraid, we are told how good he is; and that we may not presume upon his goodness, we are told how great he is. Many words are here heaped up to acquaint us with, and convince us of, God’s goodness. 1st, He is merciful — This speaks his pity and tender compassion, like that of a father to his children. This is put first, because it is the first wheel in all the instances of God’s good-will to fallen Man 1:2 d, He is gracious — This signifies both freeness and kindness: it speaks him not only to have compassion for his creatures, but a complacency in them, and in doing good to them; and this of his own good-will, not for the sake of any thing in them. 3d, He is long-suffering — This is a branch of God’s goodness which our wickedness gives occasion for. He is long-suffering, that is, he is slow to anger, and delays the executions of his justice; he waits to be gracious, and lengthens out the offers of his mercy. 4th, He is abundant in goodness and truth — This imports plentiful goodness; it abounds above our deserts, above our conceptions. The springs of mercy are always full, the streams of mercy always flowing; there is mercy enough in God, enough for all, enough for each, enough for ever. It speaks promised goodness, goodness and truth put together, goodness engaged by promise. 5th. He keepeth mercy for thousands — This speaks, (1,) Mercy extended to thousands of persons. When he gives to some, still he keeps for others, and is never exhausted: (2,) Mercy entailed upon thousands of generations, even to those upon whom the ends of the world are come: nay, the line of it is drawn parallel with that of eternity itself. 6th, He forgiveth iniquity, transgression, and sin — Pardoning mercy is instanced in, because in that divine grace is most magnified, and because it is that which opens the door to all other gifts of grace. He forgives offences of all sorts, iniquity, transgression, and sin, multiplies his pardons, and with him is plenteous redemption. Nevertheless, 7th, He is just and holy, for he will by no means clear the guilty — The word guilty, indeed, is not in the original; but the sense requires this, or some such word, to be supplied, as it is in the Septuagint. The expression intimates, that however merciful and forgiving God is toward the penitent, yet he will not suffer his honour and authority to be trampled upon by those who wantonly abuse his lenity and forbearance. Therefore the passage is thus rendered by the Chaldee: Sparing those who are converted to his laws, and not justifying those who are not converted. It is true, Maimonides, and others after him, take these words to be a further amplification of the goodness of God, signifying, that in punishing offenders he will not utterly destroy them. For he translates, נקה לא ינקה, nakkeh lo jenakkeh, extirpating he will not extirpate, in visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children: that is, Though he chastise the guilty, yet he will not destroy them. But there appears to be no authority for translating the passage thus, unless Isa 3:26 be an instance in which the word נקה nakkeh requires to have such a sense affixed to it. Certainly the other is the common meaning of it, and is perfectly consistent with the account of God’s other perfections and the delineation of his character here given. For his justice is in perfect harmony with his mercy, and is equally a branch of his love and goodness, to curb and restrain sin, being as much an act of divine goodness as to pardon the penitent and reward the obedient. (1,) He will by no means clear the impenitently guilty, those that go on still in their trespasses. For none are pardoned but those that repent and forsake all known sin. (2,) He will not clear even the penitent without satisfaction to his justice, His pardoning mercy is never exercised but through the atonement of Christ, and by faith in him. For “without shedding of blood there is no remission.” (3,) The sin which is even pardoned is generally chastised, and the people of God themselves are corrected for the failures and imperfections of their obedience. Nay, in many cases, the children suffer for the follies and vices of their parents, and the parents may read their own sins in the disorders and miseries of their offspring. Thus, at least, does God “visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children:” yet he “keepeth not his anger for ever,” but visits to the third and fourth generation only, while he “keeps mercy for thousands.” This is God’s name for ever, and this is his memorial to all generations.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain This was the second revelation of the name of…
This was the second revelation of the name of the God of Israel to Moses. The first revelation was of Yahweh as the self-existent One, who purposed to deliver His people with a mighty hand Exo 3:14; this was of the same Yahweh as a loving Saviour who was now forgiving their sins. The two ideas that mark these revelations are found combined, apart from their historical development, in the second commandment, where the divine unity is shown on its practical side, in its relation to human obligations (compare Exo 34:14; Exo 20:4). Both in the commandment and in this passage, the divine love is associated with the divine justice; but in the former there is a transposition to serve the proper purpose of the commandments, and the justice stands before the love. This is strictly the legal arrangement, brought out in the completed system of the ceremonial law, in which the sin-offering, in acknowledgment of the sentence of justice against sin, was offered before the burnt-offering and the peace-offering. But in this place the truth appears in its essential order; the retributive justice of Yahweh is subordinated to, rather it is made a part of, His forgiving Love (see Exo 32:14 note). The visitation of God, whatever form it may wear, is in all ages the working out purposes of Love toward His children. The diverse aspects of the divine nature, to separate which is the tendency of the unregenerate mind of man and of all paganism, are united in perfect harmony in the Lord Yahweh, of whom the saying is true in all its length and breadth, “God is love” 1Jo 4:8. It was the sense of this, in the degree to which it was now revealed to him, that caused Moses to bow his head and worship Exo 34:8. But the perfect revelation of the harmony was reserved for the fulness of time when “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” Rev 13:8 was made known to us in the flesh as both our Saviour and our Judge.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain He said. Some refer this to Moses; others, more…
He said. Some refer this to Moses; others, more probably, to God, who had promised, by this signal of the name of the Lord, to testify his presence. (Calmet) --- The angel addresses God in this manner, while Moses lies concealed in the rock, covered with the hand or cloud of God’s representative. (Haydock) --- Of the eleven attributes here claimed by God, three regard his essence, six his mercy, and the last two his justice. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain the Lord passed by before him--in this remarkable scene,…
the Lord passed by before him--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" [Exo 3:14]; now He makes 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 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.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 6, 7. Proclaimed — This appears to have been…
6, 7. Proclaimed — This appears to have been a supernatural communication, in an audible voice, proceeding out of the theophany, as the ten commandments had been spoken out of the midst of the fires of Sinai. Deu_5:4. As a declaration of divine perfections it is conspicuously complete, but especially emphatic on mercy’s side. Its impressiveness is abiding, and is felt by every devout reader.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 6–8. Description of the theophany promised in Exo_33:19-23. The…
6–8. Description of the theophany promised in Exo_33:19-23. The theophany consists essentially in a proclamation of the glories of Jehovah’s moral nature, developed with special reference to the occasion giving rise to the theophany, and emphasizing the predominance of the Divine attributes of mercy above those of judgement. Echoes of this great declaration of Jehovah’s moral nature occur frequently in the later literature: Num_14:18 (a quotation), Jer_32:18, Nah_1:3 a, Neh_9:17; Neh_9:31, Joe_2:31, Jon_4:2, Psa_86:15; Psa_103:8; Psa_111:4 b, Psa_112:4 b, Psa_145:8, 2Ch_30:9. It is also probably the source of the explanatory comments on the second commandment in Exo_20:5 b, Exo_20:6.
Vv. 6–9 are not really connected with their present context: cf. McNeile, 217, 30 (a), 36 Vv. 1a, 2–5, 10–28 form one connected whole (p. 364 f.); and Exo_33:1; Exo_33:3-4; Exo_33:12-13, Exodus 17-23, Exo_34:6-9, Exo_33:14-16 (see p. 361) form another.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (6) The Lord passed by before him.—In this brief…
(6) The Lord passed by before him.—In this brief phrase we have the entire historical narrative of the manifestation to Moses of God’s glory. For details we must refer to the terms of the promise (Exo_33:21-23), which are also characterised by brevity, but still add something to the bare statements of the present passage. Moses was, no doubt, hidden and protected by God’s hand in a “clift of the rock” while God’s glory passed by. He was only allowed to look out from his hiding-place after the glory had passed, when he saw the remains of it—the “back parts;” even this was, however, so brilliant a vision that it left a permanent light upon his countenance, which he was fain ordinarily to conceal from the people by means of a veil (Exo_34:29-35).
The Lord, The Lord God . . .The new “name” of God is not a “name,” as we understand the expression; it is rather a description of His nature by means of a series of epithets. At the bush He had revealed His eternal, self-existent character; in the descent on Sinai (Exo_19:16-19; Exo_20:18-21) He had shown His terribleness; now, in the act of pardoning His people and taking them once more into favour, He made known His attribute of mercy. The more to impress this feature of His character on Israel, He accumulated epithet on epithet, calling Himself Rakhum, “the tender or pitiful one;” Khannun, “the kind or gracious one,” who bestows His benefits out of mere favour; Erek appayim, “the long-suffering one;” Rab khesed, “the great in mercy;” Notser khesed, “the keeper of mercy;” and Nose ’avon, “the forgiver of iniquity.” Still, to prevent the fatal misapprehension that He is a Being of pure and mero benevolence (Butler, Analogy, Part I., Exodus 2, p. 41). He added, to complete the description, a reference to His justice. He “will by no means clear the guilty” (comp. Nah_1:3), and will “visit iniquity to the third and fourth generation.” (Comp. Exo_20:5.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 6, 7. The Lord passed by before him.…
Vers. 6, 7. The Lord passed by before him. God did as he had promised in Exo_33:22, Exo_33:23. He made his glory pass by, Moses, as he stood in a "clift of the rock," and "covered him with his hand as he passed by," and, when he had passed, "took away his hand," and allowed Moses to look after him, and see a glorious and transcendent vision a vision so bright and radiant, and so real, that the light which streamed from it settled on Moses face, and remained there (ver. 20). And proclaimed. In his passage God proclaimed his name; not however, as in the burning bush, an actual name contained in a single word but a description in many words of his essential nature a description setting forth especially his three qualities of mercy, truth, and justice, but dwelling most upon the first of the three perhaps, as most essential, for" God is love" (1Jn_4:8) certainly, as moot needing to be prominently set forth at the time, when his favour had been justly forfeited, and but for is mercy could not have been restored. Note the accumulation of terms that are nearly synonymous
1. Merciful (or pitiful);
Read full note →
2. Gracious;
3. Long-suffering;
4. Abundant in goodness;
5. Keeping mercy for thousands: and
6. Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin
an accumulation for the purpose of emphasis to assure Moses, andthrough him mankind at large, of the reality of this attribute, on which the possibility of our salvation depends, and which had never hitherto been set forth with anything like such fulness. That will by no means clear the guilty. Some critics take this clause in an entirely different sense, translating "who in destroying will not wholly destroy" (Maimonides, Pool, De Dieu, Patrick), or, "who acquits even him who is not innocent" (Geddes); but the rendering of our translators (which agrees with the LXX, is approved by Rosenmuller, Gesenius, Kalisch, Keil, and others. It seems to have been also the meaning assigned to the passage by the prophet Nahum, who quotes it (Nah_1:3) when he is threatening Nineveh. Visiting the iniquity. See above, Exo_20:5. While setting forth his attribute of mercy in all its fulness, God will not have his attribute of justice forgotten (ver, 8).
Vers. 6, 7. The second proclamation of God"s name.
-God had proclaimed his name to Moses, when he spoke with him out ofthe burning bush. He had declared it to be JEHOVAH, "the Self-Existent One." Under this name the people of Israel had known him from the time of Moses" return to Egypt from Midian, until that of which he is here speaking. Hitherto it had sufficed for them. It had marked him as,
1. eternal;
2. uncaused;
3. unconditioned;
4. self-sufficient;
5. all-powerful.
But it had not revealed his moral nature. Something of that had always been known to man. Something more had become known to Israel through the law already given from Sinai. But in their present state of sorrow and depression (Exo_33:4-6) something further was needed. God accordingly "proclaimed his name" afresh. Of this second proclamation we may note
I THAT IT CANCELS NOTHING, BUT ADDS. The first words of the name are Jehovah, Jehovah El," or "the Self-Existent, the Self-Existent God." What had been revealed before is confirmed; nay, is still put in the fore-front, as the proper foundation of all the rest. For a true knowledge of God, we must, first and foremost, have the conviction that there is a self-existent being, eternal, uncaused, the cause of all things, and therefore of our own existence, on whom we are absolutely dependent. It follows, after this, to inquire and learn the moral character of this Eternal One.
II THAT IT SETS FORTH GOD AS, ABOVE ALL THINGS, MERCIFUL. The Jewish commentators make out thirteen epithets of God in these two verses, and say that all but one are epithets of mercy. This seems to be an overstatement of the actual fact, that the epithets of mercy form a large numerical majority. They are
1. Rakhum, "the tender or pitiful one," who is full of kindness and compassion;
2. Khunnun, "the gracious one," who bestows his benefits out of mere favour, without obligation;
3. Erek appayim, "the long-suffering one," who is not easily provoked, but "suffers long and is kind";
4. Rab-khesed, "the great in mercy" which needs no explanation;
5. Notser-khesed, "the keeper of mercy," he who does not desert those he loves, bet is merciful to them, and their children, from generation to generation;
6. Nose "avon, vapesha vekhattaah, "the forgiver of iniquity and transgression and sin the being who alone can forgive sin and give peace to the guilty soul. Moses did well to make appeal to this description of himself by God himself, when Israel had a second time provoked God to destroy them. (Num_14:17, Num_14:18) We shall do well to make our appeal to the same, whenever we have offended our Lord and Master by our faults and shortcomings, our "sins, negligences, and ignorances." Conjured by this "name," God can scarcely refuse to reply, as he replied to Moses, "I have pardoned according to thy word". (Num_14:20)
III THAT IT FURTHER SETS HIM FORTH AS JUST AND TRUE. God gives it as part of his name, that he "will by no means clear the guilty," or rather perhaps that he will not "always" do so (Kalisch). There is some guilt that he will not, cannot pardon. "There is a sin unto death I do not say that a man shall pray for it" (. (1Jn_5:16) Unrepented sin cannot be forgiven. "Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost" cannot be forgiven. God"s justice is an essential part of his nature, no less than his mercy; and is perhaps, as has been argued, a necessary consequence of his love. Again, God is true in truth" (ver. 6). There can be no trust in any being who is not true. Truth lies at the root of all moral goodness; and the truth of God is pre-supposed in any revealed religion, since without it revelation could have no force or value. Further, beth in the Old and the New Testament, God reveals himself as "true," or sometimes as "the truth." "Thy truth reacheth unto the clouds". (Psa_108:4) "The truth of the Lord endureth for ever". (Psa_117:2) "God is true." "I am the truth." It is essential to a right conception of him that we should believe in his absolute veracity. If we "make him a liar," we ruin our whole idea of him. We might as well make him non-existent.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Vers. 6, 7. The name of the Lord.
Moses had asked to see the glory of Jehovah, a request which it was possible to grant only in a very modified way. As much as Moses could bear to see he was allowed to see; and for what he was not able to see he received a most abundant and timely compensation in the revelation made to him of the Divine character. For this of course is what the proclamation of the name of Jehovah amounts to. The name of Jehovah is what we should call the character of Jehovah. It is always a great comfort and stay to know that the character of one with whom we have to deal is satisfactory through and through. Nay more, it is well to know character, whether it be good or bad; not to go to a man, uncertain of his disposition and altogether in doubt as to what we may expect. From the proclamation here made we may judge Moses to have been up to this point ignorant of certain fundamental qualities in the character of God. He might have certain guesses, certain inward promptings, which led him into supplication and conduct accordant with the Divine character; but now he is lifted above all guess-work. From God"s own lips he gets an account of all that is deepest in the disposition and relations of God toward man. He is made to see that God"s recent action towards apostate Israel was based, not on incessant importunity in supplication, but on what was a constant source of the Divine action. God was pleased to see Moses so importunate; importunity we may even say was needful to the occasion; but God bad not in him the spirit of the unjust judge, that he should be moved by importunity alone. The character here revealed doubtless gave Moses confidence in all future necessary intercession. Henceforth he knew, and knew from as solemn and authoritative a communication as could be made, what there was in the great Disposer of his movements upon which he could at all times rely. The aspect of Jehovah"s character here presented is of course one which it is important for his sinful creature man to know. God does not tell us here all that may be known of him; he singles out that, the knowledge of which we cannot do without in our hours of deepest need, and although there is thus revealed to us only a part of the Divine nature, it is a part which has the harmony of a whole. God is here made known as indescribably considerate of all the needs of men, and yet at the same time inexorably just. His mercy and love are not as human mercy and love too often are. There is a mercy which, while it may soothe present agonies and smooth present difficulties, is yet essentially nothing more than an opiate; it does not go to the root of the trouble and show how it may be entirely swept away. The" tender mercies of the wicked, it is said, are cruel; and so in another sense the tender mercies of the thoughtless and the ignorant may be called cruel. Stopping suffering for the immediate present, they may be sowing the seed of suffering a hundred times greater in the future. But God"s mercy is so offered and exercised that it needs never to be regretted. It is mercy gloriously allied with great considerations of righteousness. It is mercy for the repentant; for those who confess and forsake their sins; and although from a superficial glance this visitation of suffering upon children and children"s children may seem to contradict the mercy of God, we find on further reflection that it is a great warning against human selfishness. What a rebuke to the man who, knowing that his sin will involve posterity in suffering, yet goes on with the sin! Who are we, to indulge in aspersions on the mercy of God, when perhaps at the very moment we are sowing in self-indulgence what others must reap in pangs which our self-denial and regard for God"s wise will might have utterly prevented? Y.
HOMILIES BY G. A. GOODHART Vers. 6, 7. God is love.
A previous revelation, cf. Exo_3:14. Then the emphasis was on the name, now it is on the character of him who bears the name. Moses, in common with the people, longed after some visible manifestation of the glory of the unseen God who spoke to him. (Exo_33:18) His desire is granted; but at the same time God turns his thoughts from the visible to the invisible. "It is not," he seems to say, "what I appear to be that man has to trust to; it is what I am." Consider
I THE CHARACTER REVEALED.
1. It implies intelligence in the Being who is characterised. The name Jehovah might, conceivably, be given to "a stream of tendency." Law, irresistible and impersonal, might be described as "the eternal." You cannot, however, speak of law as "merciful and gracious," etc. There must be some one who works through law. A divine heart is the mainspring whence flow all "streams of tendency," the issues of the universal life.
2. It is not such as man could have imagined. Men do create their own gods; deifying the exaggerated and distorted shadows cast by their own characters so the mountaineer is at first awe-struck when confronted by his own gigantic shadow. Here, however, is a character which cannot he traced to such an origin; it is not man"s thought about God, it is God"s revelation of himself to man. Contrast the character of the shadow, man-created, god, with that of Jehovah. The one is revengeful, arbitrary, cruel, etc.; the other is merciful and gracious, etc. The man-made god is at best kindly with a weak and sentimental kindliness; with Jehovah, love is the heart-root of his nature, a love which will by no means clear the guilty. Nature "red in tooth and claw" scarcely suggests such a god as this; man could never have conceived him. The character is a revelation of himself, made here to Moses; made, yet more clearly, later, in the life of "the Word made Flesh.
II THE CHARACTER AS EXPRESSED IN ACTION. Men are treated by some one or some thing as God says he treats them. The "stream of tendency" makes for righteousness; it is not purposeless, it must be purposed. Though experience was insufficient to suggest the character, it yet helps us to verify the revelation. Notice, specially, the stern side of love. The latter part of the revelation seems at first inconsistent with the first part; they give, however, two aspects of the same homogeneous character. True love is quite distinct from kindliness; its brain is wisdom, and justice nerves its right hand.
1. The action which love will take, must depend upon the circumstances which call for action. Our own experience shows sufficiently that love does not shrink from giving pain. The parent wilt forgive his child, and yet, at the same time, not "clear" him; he cannot pass over without notice conduct of which he disapproves. Love may wield the surgeon"s knife; or the scourge, with a view to moral surgery. So long as the child keeps sound and well, physically and morally, love is all sunshine; with illness or danger, physical or moral, love seeking the good of the beloved object may strike and pierce like lightning. Apply the general principle and it explains:
2. A special case. Can love visit upon children the sins of their parents? Yes, for children inherit the sinful tendencies of their parents; and it is just this visitation which may best secure them against falling into sin. Sad that the drunkard"s child should be an epileptic; yet epilepsy may be a loving visitation if it guard against the confirmed drunkenness which might otherwise have mined body and soul. A warning for parents; yet consolation for the victims of their sins, when it is seen that love has inspired severity (cf. Heb_12:11)
Conclusion. Such the God revealed to Moses, and such the God revealed in Christ. Before such a Being what attitude so fitting as that of Moses? G. (ver. 8; cf. Job_42:1-6)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious.
Exo_34:6-7
The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious.
Read full note →
The name of the Lord
I. the Lord. There we lay our basis. Unless you are prepared to admit the perfect sovereignty of God, you can go no further--you will see no more.
II. Then we put it in combination--the Lord God. And oh! what a combination! We put all sovereignty with all the mystery of the Godhead--God, that unfathomable word. But amongst all those wondrous attributes which go to make the word God, there is one stands out--that name leads us to it. The root of the word is kindness--God, the good. The Lord the good; the Lord--love; God. We put the infinitude of His sovereignty in combination with the boundlessness of His affection, and we say, The Lord, the Lord God.
III. But now we come to the goings forth of that wonderful mystery of Godhead to man--mercy. You know that the strict meaning of the word mercy is--a heart for misery. Therefore the first thought is--the great Lord God stooping to the wretched, going forth to the miserable.
IV. And why merciful? Because gracious. Grace is the free flowing of undeserved favour.
V. long-suffering! It is the most marvellous part of the character of God--His patience--it is so contrasting with the impetuosity, the haste, the impulsiveness of man. He is provoked every day, but He continues patient.
VI. Now it rises--abundant in goodness and truth. Abundant is enough and something over--a cup so full that it mantles--abundant, abundant in--
VII. goodness, and--
VIII. truth.
IX. keeping mercy for thousands. There are thousands who do not yet see or feel their mercy, for whom God is now keeping it in reserve--say, persons not yet converted.
X. Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. We are getting all the more now into the work of Christ. And what distinction shall we make between iniquity, transgression, and sin? Is iniquity acts of injustice to a fellow-creature--and transgression acts of injustice towards God--and sin, the deep root of all in the human heart? Or is it thus? Is iniquity that principle of all wrongness, the want of uprightness, the acting unfairly by God or man;--and then transgression the act, whether it be to God or man, to God through man, transgression,--and then sin again the inner nature from which that transgression, which makes that iniquity, springs. I think that is the true intention--iniquity, transgression, sin. But He pardons all.
XI. by no means clear the guilty. The word guilty is not in the original--by no means clear. Whom? He will not clear any one whom He has not pardoned. Guilty means a man still subject to wrath. If a man does not accept Christ, he is still subject to wrath--that man God will never clear.
XII. And then comes that very difficult part--that he visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the childrens children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. It seems to me to be an ever-standing visible proof and monument of Gods holiness and justice. He visits sin from generation to generation. There are inherited dispensations, inherited calamities. Is it unjust? It is the principle of the greatest justice that we read of in the history of this world. For the atonement all depends upon that principle. If God does visit the sin of one in the sufferings of another, has not He also laid it down that He visits the righteousness of one in the happiness and the eternal salvation of another? And did we do away with that principle, where would be our hope? (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Gods mercy
I. What the mercy of god is.
1. That perfection whereby He assists His creatures in misery (Lam_3:22).
2. His mercy is infinitely great (Psa_145:8).
3. He is the Fountain and Father of mercy (2Co_1:3).
II. To whom God is generally and especially merciful.
1. To mankind in general (Psa_145:9).
2. He continues life notwithstanding our sins (Psa_86:13).
3. In delivering out of troubles (Psa_107:13).
4. In granting all the necessaries of life (Mat_5:45).
5. Especially is He merciful to His people (Deu_32:43).
6. In pardoning all their sins (Heb_8:12).
7. In quickening them to newness of life (Eph_2:4-5).
8. In assisting us to exercise all true grace (1Co_7:25).
9. Support under spiritual troubles (Psa_94:17-19).
10. Blessing troubles for our good (Heb_12:10).
11. Bringing to heaven at last (Tit_3:8).
III. The uses that are to be made of Gods mercy.
1. Not to abuse it to licentiousness (Rom_6:1-2).
2. We should be merciful to others (Luk_6:36).
3. Pardoning their injuries, pitying their miseries, and relieving their necessities (Gal_6:10).
4. We must attribute all our blessings to the mercy of God towards us (Psa_115:1).
5. This should teach us to love Him (Psa_106:1).
6. Cause us to fear Him (Psa_103:11).
7. And induce us to praise Him (Psa_103:2-4).
8. Gods mercies are greater than our miseries (1Jn_4:4).
9. They are sealed to us by Christs blood (Heb_12:24).
10. His mercy is only known by the influence of the Holy Spirit (Eph_1:13-14). (T. B. Baker.)
The unveiled mystery of God
There is in man a yearning after the unseen. Every one feels, even if he will not confess it, that another world lies, after all, behind this one. But the world of spirits is twofold--the kingdom of the powers of darkness below, and the kingdom of light in heaven. In man there is by nature a secret drawing to that which is below. There is the dark point of sin in us which draws us downward. Whoever follows this drawing goes to destruction. But there is in man another drawing--a drawing to light, a drawing to God. For we were made for Him. But although we have separated ourselves from Him, He has not altogether given up His connection with us. He who would paint God, must paint love--a fire of love which fills heaven and earth. But who can comprehend and describe this boundless and endless love? It has collected itself, and given itself a bodily form, in order to reveal itself to us. The heart of God has opened itself up to us--eternal love has revealed itself to us in Christ Jesus. But it is not in the New Testament that this is revealed for the first time. It is as old as the revelation of Gods eternal counsel of love. Even in the Old Testament Christ is contained, although in type and prophecy. There is darkness round about God, He is veiled in mystery, no mortal man beholds His countenance and lives; the eyes of Moses are holden by Jehovah, whilst He passes by him. But a word falls upon his ear: in this word God pronounces His nature, and this word runs thus--God is love. That is the unveiled mystery of God. Let us then consider this unveiled mystery in the threefold way in which our text sets it before our eyes.
I. In the direction of life. God orders the vast and disposes of the most isolated object. That is just His greatness--attention in what is little. But how often are our ways and Gods direction of our life a mystery to us! That He leads us happily and blessedly, we believe, although what we see often appears to us to be strange. Yet we shall one day stand upon the heights of light and look back upon our dark paths in the valley, and they will be light, and our understanding will give its judgment in the praise of love. That is the unveiled mystery of God in the direction of life.
II. We will consider this unveiled mystery in the forgiveness of sin. For our life is full of sins and guilt. The termination of our life is the seal of the forgiveness of sins. We bear the law of God written on our hearts. But our sin has broken it. We are sorry; we should like to be pious and holy. Hence we come and present ourselves before God with new resolutions: from henceforth it shall be otherwise with us. But how long does it continue till it is as before? It will not come to a really new life. We amend there and then; but our moral life remains at all times a wearying work, and never becomes a free, joyful matter, which is understood of itself--which gushes and streams fresh and gladly out of the heart. Whence is this? The failing is in the foundation. God must make such an impression upon us as to win our hearts, and to make it impossible for us to do other than love Him. By what means does God make such an impression upon us? Not by His infinite greatness and majesty, but by His gracious love. We love Him because He has first loved us (1Jn_4:19). And what love is that? It is Gods pardoning love: not the love manifested in the displays of His goodness, in His anxiety for our earthly life. This humbles us, but it does not yet touch our innermost being. The innermost point in us, where we are connected with God, is the conscience. And just here we feel ourselves separated from God. Here we must experience the love of God: that is His forgiving love. But this is the right foundation of all moral work.
III. We will consider this unveiled mystery in covenant fellowship. The covenant of God with Israel rests on the forgiveness of sins. God dwells in the midst of them, He is their God and they are His people, and He leads them on their way, and He brings them to the goal. He thus reveals Himself to them as a covenant God. But all this is only a prophecy of the covenant of God with us in Christ Jesus. This rests on the true, real forgiveness of sins. But all this is but the commencement of the completion. We wait for the fulfilment of the promise. In hope, the abode yonder is already here. But we are not yet yonder. We are still on our pilgrimage to the hall of blessedness. There for the first time will there be the right celebration of the covenant. (J. C. Luthardt, D. D.)
The moral nature of God
I. The form in which the revelation is made.
1. In the first place, it is given, not in the cold and formal terms of a merely ethical and philosophical system, but in its warm and sympathetic application to the needs of mans life. The profoundest truth is here implied. But the form of the declaration is simple, couched in the every-day speech of men, such as all men, in any and every condition, could easily and readily apprehend.
2. It is not only addressed to man upon the simplest side of his nature, but it sets in the very foreground of the Divine qualities those which have regard to mans sinfulness, and the need in which he stands, of tenderness, pity, and grace. What a recognition is this of the true state of the human heart! Gods revelation is no philosophy of the might have been, of the ought to be--dreamy, vague, hypothetic, and useless. But it is a practical dealing with what is. It takes man just as it finds him.
II. Now, let us inquire, what is the revelation which is thus made in so human and so gracious a form? God declares Himself to be merciful and gracious. By the first quality we understand pitifulness, a tenderness towards the weak and helpless, with an added sense of gentleness and forgiveness towards those that are not only weak but wicked, sinful as well as sad. And while God is this, it is all of favour, free and unmerited. He is gracious as well as merciful. But there are added qualities of mercy and grace beyond the mere broad and general fact of their possession. These might be of the Divine nature, and yet their exercise might be restrained within narrow and brief limits of occasion and duration. But God is longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth. We must not forget that these qualities of Gods moral being are related, as we have said, to human conditions, especially that of sin, and in respect of that He is longsuffering. For man is not merely a sinner, but he perpetuates the sin, he continues sinning; he is alienated from God, and remains an alien, with hard and ever harder heart, going farther away, being less accessible, increasing his rebellion ever. And yet Gods mercy does not cease. He loses no patience. He waits and watches. And of this mercy and clemency no one need doubt the power or the sufficiency. God is declared further to be abundant in goodness and truth. Goodness is perhaps an attribute of wider reach than mercy, embracing mercy for the sinner and the wretched in the beneficent relation towards all whose welfare and happiness God ever seeks. Truth is that harmony of being upon which we may ever depend. It is order and peace, it is fidelity and changelessness--everything that renders trust in the truthful God a certain thing, not liable to disappointment, change, and decay. The emphasis, perhaps, is to be placed upon the word abundant. God has enough and to spare. Then, these are by no means quiescent, inoperative attributes of the Divine nature. Men often lose themselves and the clearness of their thoughts in mere abstract statements of the qualities of God, but in this declaration of Himself, Jehovah shows how practical is the revelation which He gives. Keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. The phrase keeping mercy for thousands is a striking one. The term thousands is indefinite, signifying a very large number. It may be used in contrast with the third and fourth generation of the following clause, and if so, it indicates that the mercy of God is preserved through all the ages of mankind, and remains perpetual and ceaseless, for the universal race for ever. The forgiveness, too, how full is this! It is not merely the single sin that is pardoned. The continued habit of sin, the formed and indurated character of evil, the strong and defiant wickedness, even these may find mercy and have experience of Gods pardoning grace. It is His prerogative. It is His nature. All this is based upon the most absolute justice and integrity of righteousness. He will by no means clear the guilty. The eternal claim of moral order must be recognized, and until guilt is purged and sin is destroyed, the sinner cannot be cleared. Let us, now, gather up the great truths of this sublime passage, and lay their meaning and their power to our hearts.
1. The revelation which God grants of Himself is in the sphere of moral being.
2. This moral aspect of Deity is in complete harmony with every other side of the Divine nature.
3. The moral being of God, as it is revealed, necessarily provides a satisfaction of its claims of justice and rectitude.
4. In this completeness of revelation there is an abundance of grace and mercy which is offered to all men. This, then, is the final truth which appears in the revelation of God. Let no man despair. (L. D. Bevan, D. D.)
Gods great goodness
I. The glory of God is His goodness. When Moses said, I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory, the Lord answered, I will make all My goodness pass before thee (Exo_33:18-19; Exo_34:6).
1. We see it in nature (Psa_33:5; Psa_145:9; Psa_65:11).
2. We see it in providence (1Ki_8:66; Psa_31:19; Zec_9:16-17).
3. We see it in grace (Eph_1:7; Psa_23:6; Jer_31:14).
II. The effect of Gods goodness upon the heart of man is meant to be.
1. Sorrow at having offended God (Rom_2:4; Job_42:5-6; Hos_3:5),
2. Delight in praising God (Psa_107:8; Isa_63:7).
3. Desire to receive Gods blessings (Num_6:24; Num_6:26; Mic_7:18-19).
4. A disposition to imitate Gods character (Luk_6:36; Eph_5:2; 1Jn_6:11). (Clergymans Magazine.)
Gods goodness
The late Dr. Samuel Martin, in a letter to a friend after Dr. Davidsons death, thus speaks of that pious and devoted man, whose memory is hallowed in the minds of all who knew him:--He studied divinity at Glasgow College. Thomas and I lived together, companions and fellow-students; and I, being some years older, was considered as a kind of guardian. On looking back to that period, in reviewing fully sixty years intercourse and friendship, I ever found in him, from first to last, genuine and unaffected piety, affection, benevolence, regular, exemplary, amiable deportment. I recollect, with pleasure, the family devotions of our little society. I well remember an exclamation, on one occasion, to me, after rising from prayer--a striking proof of his characteristic humility, gratitude, and tenderness of conscience, Oh, Martin, it is the Divine goodness, of all things, that humbles me most!
Gods forgiving mercy
I once visited the ruins of a noble city that had been built on a desert oasis. Mighty columns of roofless temples still stood in unbroken file. Halls in which kings and satraps had feasted two thousand years ago were represented by solitary walls. Gateways of richly carven stone led to a paradise of bats and owls. All was ruin! But past the dismantled city, brooks, which had once flowed through gorgeous flower-gardens, and at the foot of marble halls, still swept on in undying music and unwasted freshness. The waters were just as sweet as when queens quaffed them two thousand years ago. A few hours before they had been melted from the snows of the distant mountains. And so Gods forgiving love flows in ever-renewed form through the wreck of the past. Past vows and past covenants and noble purposes may be represented by solitary columns and broken arches and scattered foundations that are crumbling into dust, yet through the scene of ruin fresh grace is ever flowing from His great heart on high. (T. G. Selby.)
That will by no means clear the guilty.
God justified in mans salvation
I. Man thinks of God as if God were something like himself: and hence he would make God a changeable and capricious Being; he would make Him connive at sin and make light of transgression, accepting a few tears, or a few resolutions, or a few alms, as satisfaction enough for him to receive pardon. All such ideas of God are base and unwarrantable, and will cover those who entertain them with everlasting confusion. The nature of God makes it impossible for Him to clear the guilty. If the positive be true, that God loves holiness, the negative must be true, that He hates iniquity.
II. And now some will probably say, why, this is contravening the very gospel; it is surely favouring the notion that none can be saved, for who can be saved, when there is no guiltless man? And if God will not clear guilty men, how is any one to meet his Maker in peace? The view I have of it is this--that God does not clear the guilty; no, but I will tell you what He does, which is infinitely more to His glory, and of necessity more for our peace--He makes the guilty guiltless, and He makes the unrighteous perfect in righteousness. He does this in virtue of the life laid down for the guilty, for all who in Him have believed; in Him all have paid the penalty, all have satisfied Gods justice, and all have perfect righteousness. (H. Stowell, M. A.)
The guilty by no means cleared
I. What is to be understood by the Lord not clearing the guilty? When He pronounces the sentence of acquittal, it will be in full accordance with justice. And yet the basis of this worlds religion is nothing more than a belief that God will clear the guilty. What are all the delusions of self-righteous workings? what are all the endeavours to put off till a more convenient season comes? what is all the resting in ordinances, forms, and external things? Just a forgetfulness that God is a heart-searching God.
II. But now observe, why is it true that God will by no means clear the guilty? Everything in God forbids it. His very faithfulness renders it impossible. Now, faithfulness is part of the Divine goodness. What forms the real substance of our hope? that through Gods grace we shall be at last in heaven? God tells me, that he that believeth shall be saved; He tells me, that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. What gives us confidence? Simply, Gods faithfulness--I believe it, because God says it. Take that away, and where is His goodness? It is no more. Now bear this in mind, that what gives stability to the promise gives stability to the threatening. The love of God is a holy love. Now the great cause of all misery is sin; and that which forbids sin is a holy love. Yes, and one may even say that the penalty, awful and fearful as it is, is one of the great unfoldings of His love.
Conclusion:
1. The subject has a very awful look, as it regards the sinner hardened in his trespasses. He will by no means clear the guilty ones.
2. The words are full of encouragement to the poor penitent spirit--He will by no mesons clear the guilty. Ah! you are ready to say, how can He clear me? I am all guilt. Thou never hadst any due conception of thine own guiltiness, and of what thy guiltiness is before God. Yet none at all hast thou. Why? Because it has all been transferred to Jesus. Because He has taken it and borne it away. He has endured it. He was not cleared, He endured the penalty.
3. How this truth should lead to--
(1) Confession of sin;
(2) holy service. (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
Union of justice and grace in God
Behold the goodness and severity of God, says the Apostle Paul. In most cases the goodness is illustrated by one kind of events and the severity by another, but in Christs work the same event of His death displayed the two sides of Gods character alike and at once, and thus pardon was never offered to the guilty without a loud protest against sin. Now the pains taken to inculcate both these qualities through the entire Scriptures seem to point at something in man, some conception of character which he needs to have impressed upon him and which he ought to realize in his own life.
I. And in pursuing this subject we remark, first, that among men he who is capable of exercising only hard, unrelenting justice is held to be far from perfection, and cannot be loved; while, on the other hand, a character in which bare kindness or goodness is the only noticeable trait secures no respect. Only where we see the two qualities united can we feel decided confidence and attachment. They do not check each other, as might be supposed, but add to each others power. The indiscriminately kind man is felt to be weak; the harsh rigorous nature may have intellect in abundance, but fails to warm the souls of men. When united they form character, a character in which there is depth, the depth of intellect resting below temper and impulse on a foundation of wisdom and true excellence of heart. There can be no moral government among men without wisdom, for he who makes men good must look not at immediate impressions, but at results: he must take long stretches of time into view, and long series and interactions of causes shaping character. When did instinctive benevolence ever fail to thwart its own wishes and to corrupt its beneficiaries? The union of these opposites, where alone wisdom can be found, ensures the best government, and as every one must be in some way a governor, of a family, or a workshop, if not of a town or state, the whole of the vast interests of mankind depend on this union.
II. If God is to be honoured and loved by human beings, He must present himself to our minds under the same twofold aspect. He must be seen in the light of those qualities which we may call by the name of justice, and of those to which we give the names of goodness, kindness, tenderness, or mercy. Sinners are recovered and reclaimed first by a sense of sin, and then by a perception of Divine love, and without the latter they would not think of their sins, or grow into that filial fear, that holy worship which the Psalmist intends. Only under this twofold aspect of God is true religion, the religion of the soul, possible.
III. We add thirdly, that it involves a very high degree of wisdom to know when to be just or severe, and when to exercise goodness or grace. It is a great problem to govern a nation; it is a greater to govern a virtuous universe; but a greater still is presented when the element of evil is thrown into the question, and the interests of the many come into conflict with the happiness of the sinful few. Especially when we look on God as training His creatures up for a higher condition; enlarging their powers, helping the strong to grow stronger, pitying the weak and revealing Himself as their forgiving God; then above all does it appear that the balances of the moral universe are exceedingly delicate, and that there is need of a hand, firm and wise beyond our thought, to hold them. No solution of the intricacies of things has been offered to man deserving of notice but that which Christ has made. The reconciliation of holiness and love in His work, its just, well-balanced training of the whole moral nature challenge our respect, our admiration, even if we will stand aloof from Christ. He is made of God unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
IV. And now, having brought your minds to Christ, I close with the remark that He united the two sides of character which we have spoken of, in their due mixture, in His one person. And it is well worthy of being remarked that their union proves their genuineness and their depth. He who could love so and forgive so, notwithstanding His deep sense of the sin, what strength of character must He have had, what a depth and truth of love, what a power of loving, what an inexhaustible richness of soul! And He who could rebuke so and show such strong displeasure against evil doing, how hard, humanly speaking, must it have been for Him to love objects so far from loveliness; and if He loved them as He did, must not His love have been of another kind than ours, one superior to personal slights and injuries, wholly unlike instinctive kindness of temper, partaking of a quality of lofty wisdom! (T. D. Woolsey.)
Universal redemption subversive of the assurance of salvation
Draw near and contemplate this Christian paradox; come, behold with us, for a time, this Christian mystery, the certainty that the guilty cannot be cleared--that God cannot do it--is the safeguard of redemption, the guarantee of the offered atonement.
I. It is true that this declaration of Gods character--of the impossibility of His clearing the guilty--shuts many large and wide doors of hope. The hearts of sinners are full of devices for salvation. They have many entrance-ways to pardon and favour.
1. There is the placability and compassion of God upon which they largely draw. The Divine anger is thus, in their imagination, a bugbear, well got up to scare transgressors, to keep them in check, but as to any ultimate and eternal condemnation resulting from it, all is set aside by their convenient doctrine of His easy and overwhelming compassion.
2. Again, there is the tempters suggestion of the changeableness of God, ye shall not surely die, opening to many a wide door. It is not that the veracity of God is actually questioned. But then He may take back or change His word. These deceitful hopes are met, and the door they open for ever shut, by the one decisive passage--and I will by no means clear the guilty.
II. Whilst this passage shuts with so decisive a hand every false door of hope, and announces in characters of light, that guilt cannot go unpunished, it yet opens a door of hope that never can be shut, and is an immovable anchor to every soul that has fled for refuge to the great propitiation. He can by no means clear the guilty, therefore am I assured He can by no means punish the innocent. In Christ I am innocent; guilt is no longer attachable to me; my soul is justified; justice, with its sword, has no claim upon me--it is satisfied; the law, with its penalties, has no demand against me; every jot and tittle of it is fulfilled. Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died.
III. We observe that the strong consolation drawn from this passage is warranted only on the supposition that, in dying, Christ died as a true and real substitute in the room and stead of His people, and for them alone. (J. Lewis.)
Justice and mercy not antagonistic
Now, there is no greater mistake than to suppose that the Divine Being, as a God of justice, and a God of mercy, stands in antagonism to Himself. Observe, I pray you, that it is not mercy, but injustice, which is irreconcilable with justice, and that it is cruelty, not justice, that stands opposed to mercy. These attributes of Jehovah are not contrary the one to the other, as are light and darkness, fire and water, truth and falsehood, right and wrong. No. Like two separate streams which unite their waters to form a common river, justice and mercy are combined in the covenant of redemption. Like the two cherubims whose out-stretched wings met above the ark, or like the two devout and holy men who drew the nails from Christs body, and bore the sacred burden to the grave, or like the two angels who received it in charge, and, seated like mourners within the sepulchre, the one at the head, the other at the feet, kept silent watch over the precious treasure, justice and mercy are associated in the work of Christ. They are the supporters of the shield on which the cross is emblazoned. They sustain the arms of our heavenly Advocate. They form the two solid, immovable, and eternal pillars of the Mediators throne. On Calvary, mercy and truth meet together, righteousness and peace kiss each other. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Visiting the iniquity of the fathers.--
The law of heredity
We are born into a life where we cannot determine the nature of the influences which we exert. We can repress some, modify others, and develop still others; but we cannot determine the effect, nor change it. A certain influence we must exert one upon another.
I. First, we will mention voluntary influence, or the capacity which we have gained of influencing our fellow-men by bringing power, or the causes of power, to bear upon them on purpose. This is the more familiar form of influence. It is the foundation of all instruction. The parent influences the child on purpose. The teacher purposely influences all the minds that are brought under his care. Friends influence friends. We draw men to our way of thinking, and to our way of acting. We persuade; we dissuade; we urge; we enforce our agency; and in a thousand ways we voluntarily draw men to and fro.
II. Then, besides all this, besides what we do on purpose, there is the other element of unconscious influence which men exert--that which our nature throws out without our volition. For I hold that it is with us as it is with the sun. I do not suppose that the sun ever thinks of raising the thermometer; but it does raise it. Wherever the sun shines warmly, the mercury goes up, although the sun and the instrument are both unconscious. And we are incessantly emitting influences good, bad, or negative. We are perpetually, by the force of life, throwing out from ourselves imperceptible influences. And yet the sum of these influences is of the utmost weight and importance in life. A single word spoken, you know not what it falls upon. You know not on what soul it rests. In some moods, words fall off from us, and are of no account. But there are other moods in which a word of hope, a word of cheer, a word of sympathy, is as balm. It changes the sequence of thought, and the whole order and direction of the mind. Single words have often switched men off from bad courses, or off from good ones, as the case may be. A simple example, silent, unspeaking by vocalization, but characterized by purity, by simplicity, crystalline and heavenly, has sweetened whole neighbourhoods. Fidelity, disinterestedness in love, pure peacefulness, love of God, and faith in invisible things, cannot exist in a man without having their effect upon his fellow-men. It is impossible that one should stand up in the midst of a community and simply be good, and not diffuse the influence of that goodness on every side. That which is true of goodness is true also of evil. Men who are under the influence of the malign passions are sowing the seeds of these passions. Sparks fly out from them as from the chimney of a forge. It is the inherent necessity of wickedness to breed wickedness and distribute it. A man is responsible, not only for what he does on purpose, but what he unconsciously does. And the load of responsibility grows as you take in these widening circles. More than this, the greater the nature, and the more ample the endowment, the more influence does a man exert both for good and for evil. The moral tone of our literature in this respect is exceedingly bad. There is almost a maxim that genius has a right to be lawless as to its method of doing right things. Every man is responsible for duty; and duty, and responsibility for it, augment in the proportion of being.
III. Our influence is not merely voluntary, or involuntary and unconscious, but it becomes complex, because it is compounded with the lives and the added influence of others. We are are social. We come into relations with men. Our freedom touches theirs. We inspire them. But we do not change their nature. We, as it were, sow germs in their soil. These germs go on and become forces in their hands. So that that which we do to single ones, they propagate. But mens influence is not limited to their voluntary action, nor to the complex social relations which they sustain, and by which their influence is propagated indirectly.
IV. In some respects men hold in their hands the history of the future. The very solemn declaration of our text--Visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, and upon the childrens children, unto the third and to the fourth generation--this is the mystery of ages. If it were but on the one side; if men, having the power of beneficence, had the power to perpetuate it, we should admire that; but if it is a fact that men have the power of transmitting corruption, and so of influencing after times, who can fail to marvel at that? If that is a law, men may well stand appalled in the presence of such results as must fall out under it. And it is a law, it is a fact. We must learn this great hereditary law, and we must include in our purposes of benevolence the wise selection, the perpetuity and the improvement of the race, by the observance of this great law of hereditary transmission. The malignity of sin is a terrible malignity, as it is revealed by this great law of the transmission of influence to posterity, either directly and voluntarily, or indirectly and unconsciously. There are multitudes of men that are careless of themselves. They are said to be their own worst enemies. They are men that are free and easy; that squander their money; that pervert their disposition. And because they are good-natured and genial, people say of them, They are clever fellows; they are kind men; they do no harm; at any rate they are their own worst enemies. Now, a man that is spending his whole life to destroy himself, cannot stop with himself. And the better fellow he is, the more likely is he to exert an influence. More than that, it is not himself alone that is destroyed. The babe in the cradle is cursed. The daughter unborn is cursed. The heir and sequent children are cursed.
V. I will add but a single consideration more: and that is a caution and a warning to all those who abe consciously bearing in themselves the seed of transmissible disease. I think there is no crime and no misdemeanour, to those that are instructed, greater than that of forming marriage connections under such circumstances. (H. W. Beecher.)
The organic unity of the race
I. Let us, in the first place, observe the natural fact we may almost call it, of the unity and solidarity of the race. The method of the preservation and reproduction of the species, which God has appointed, is that of parentage and offspring. The relations of the different parts of this prolonged species are such, as to involve a certain unity. Birth and nurture, the family relation, the law of similarity, the limits of variation, by which the children cannot diverge from the parental type beyond a certain mark of liberty, all these are what we may call physical and bodily elements of unity in the race. This unity is found, as we rise to the human race, to involve the descendant in the conditions of the parent, to a degree that is much more striking than in lower species. The human infant remains longer in dependence upon the parent; the years of education extend farther; the conditions of life for the offspring, in proportion as civilization and culture make life more complicated, and more deeply affected by the parent. That this unity of the race is taught by Scripture, no one can doubt. It is further illustrated by the Divine treatment of individual cases, and by the development of the Divine purpose throughout the sacred history . . . If there be lessons in history, this lesson at least is clear. God has bound men into the unity of their descent, and deals with man along the lines of his generation.
II. Our text does more than merely reveal the truth which we have stated and illustrated; it further shows us that this organic unity of the race is of a moral quality and involves moral discipline. God declares that He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the childrens children, unto the third and unto the fourth generation. We are not bound by the mere number of the descents to which the visitation will be applied. The very form of the phrase suggests indefiniteness. It may be that, as a matter of fact, only one generation shall suffer, or, on the other hand, the dread judgment may descend beyond the third and fourth line of the posterity. The law is one of the generalities of human life, not to be measured by the accuracies of arithmetic. Man needs not to be exalted to presumption, nor cast down to hopelessness, by the words of this revelation. And, as we interpret the duration of the penalty in the general sense, so we may find, in the words of judgment, something more than the mere formula of doom. If there be a visitation of the fathers sin, there surely must be also a benediction from the fathers virtue. These words therefore reveal to us the moral quality of the races organic unity. That which is involved in the descent of child from parent is not by way of mere natural cause and effect. It is indeed part of the material conditioning of the universe. But it is superintended by the God who governs, and governs not only by physical law, but also with moral and spiritual ends. He reveals Himself as administering it, and we know therefore that if it be a Divine visitation, it is done with wisdom and regulative grace, it is done for the higher purposes of character, for the evolution of good, and for the final extinction of evil, and therefore, it must hold, blended with it, not only the designs of moral law and the vindication of justice, but also the sublime issues of grace and salvation, inasmuch as God is a Father as well as a Ruler, a Saviour as well as a Judge. It is, then, not a doom, but a discipline. It is not to work itself out like some physical mechanical law, catching you as a machine catches the unwary or the blundering operative, and then never letting him go, until it has dragged him through all its terrible course of wheels and rollers, cogs and crushing pistons, to throw him out, at length, a torn and mangled dismembered, slaughtered travesty of life and power. This is your philosophic view of human descent, but this is not the Divine. God visits the sins of the fathers on the children. We know then that He does it to discipline the race. My Father is a husbandman, said Jesus, teaching us the same blessed lesson under a beautiful figure. What, may we now ask, is the practical outcome of all this truth, mans organic relation, this relation divinely regulated and applied to the discipline of the race?
1. In the first place, will it not give us a fresh sense of the responsibility of life? We are links in the chain of human life. We receive the influences of our fathers, we hand these on to our children.
2. Shall we then not deeply consider the tremendous responsibility with which we are freighted? We may involve a long line of descendants in the result of our living.
3. The import of this lesson becomes all the greater when we consider it as it bears upon family life, and the relations which subsist between the parent and the child. What a sanctity has not God given to the family! Nothing must break the bond which binds society into its essential and formative elements--the circles of home.
4. Let us, then, seek to render this Divine law of great potency in the building of our Church and the furtherance of the kingdom of Christ as it is given to us. To you and to your children is the promise.
5. And finally, let me ask you to reflect upon your relation to Jesus Christ in the light of this organic unity of the race. (L. D. Bevan, D. D.)
The iniquity of the fathers visited upon their children
1. That this passage has no reference whatsoever to Gods treatment of mankind in a future state. It does not mean that God will punish children in a future state for the sins of their parents; but the visitation which it threatens is exclusively temporal (see Eze_18:20).
2. That God never visits children even with temporal judgments for the sins of their parents, unless they imitate, and thus justify their parents offences. Hezekiah, Josiah, and many other pious men were the children of exceedingly wicked parents; but as they shunned the sins of their fathers, and were supremely devoted to God, they enjoyed His favour in a very high degree, and were visited with no marks of displeasure on account of their progenitors. There is, however, one apparent exception to these remarks, which must be noticed. It is evident from facts, that even pious children often suffer in consequence of the wicked conduct of their parents. If a father be idle, or extravagant, his children, and perhaps his childrens children, may suffer in consequence; nor will any degree of piety always shield them from such sufferings. It must, however, be added, that the sinful example and conduct of wicked parents has a most powerful tendency to prevent their children from becoming pious, to induce them to pursue vicious courses, and thus to bring upon them Divine judgments.
3. That our text describes Gods method of proceeding with nations, and civil or ecclesiastical communities, rather than with individuals. I do not say that it has no reference to individuals, but that it refers principally to nations, states, and churches. That we may perceive the justice, wisdom, and propriety of this method of proceeding, it is necessary to consider the following things. It is indispensably necessary to the perfection of Gods moral government that it should extend to nations and communities as well as to individuals. This, I conceive, is too evident to require proof; for how could God be considered as the moral governor of the world if nations and communities were exempt from His government? Again, if God is to exercise a moral government over nations and communities by rewarding or punishing them according to their works, the rewards and punishments must evidently be dispensed in this world; for nations and communities will not exist, as such, in the world to come. In that world God must deal with men, considered simply as individuals. Further, it seems evidently proper that communities as well as individuals should have a time of trial and probation allowed them; that if the first generation prove sinful, the community should not be immediately destroyed, but that the punishment should be suspended, till it be seen whether the nation will prove incorrigible, or whether some succeeding generation will not repent of the national sins, and thus avert national judgments. Now it is evident that if God thus waits upon nations, as He does upon individuals, and allows them a season of probation, a space for repentance, He cannot destroy them until many generations of sinners are laid in their graves. Besides, by thus suspending the rod or the sword over a nation, He presents to it powerful inducements to reform. He appeals to parental feelings, to mens affection for their posterity, and endeavours to deter them from sin by the assurance that their posterity will suffer for it. (E. Payson, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
Exodus
GOD PROCLAIMING HIS OWN NAME
Read full note →
Exo 34:6.
This great event derives additional significance and grandeur from the place in which it stands. It follows the hideous act of idolatry in which the levity and sinfulness of Israel reached their climax. The trumpet of Sinai had hardly ceased to peal, and there in the rocky solitudes, in full view of the mount ‘that burned with fire,’ while the echoes of the thunder and the Voice still lingered, one might say, among the cliffs, that mob of abject cowards were bold enough to shake off their allegiance to God, and, forgetful of all the past, plunged into idolatry, and wallowed in sensuous delights. What a contrast between Moses on the mount and Aaron and the people in the plain! Then comes the wonderful story of the plague and of Moses’ intercession, followed by the high request of Moses, so strange and yet so natural at such a time, for the vision of God’s ‘glory.’ Into all the depths of that I do not need to plunge. Enough that he is told that his desire is beyond the possibilities of creatural life. The mediator and lawgiver cannot rise beyond the bounds of human limitations. But what can be shall be. God’s ‘goodness’ will pass before him. Then comes this wonderful advance in the progress of divine revelation. If we remember the breach of the Covenant, and then turn to these words, considered as evoked by the people’s sin, they become very remarkable. If we consider them as the answer to Moses’ desire, they are no less so. Taking these two thoughts with us, let us consider them in-
I. The answer to the request for a sensuous manifestation.
The request is ‘show me,’ as if some visible manifestation were desired and expected, or, if not a visible, at least a direct perception of Jehovah’s glory.’ Moses desires that he, as mediator and lawgiver, may have some closer knowledge. The answer to his request is a word, the articulate proclamation of the ‘Name’ of the Lord. It is higher than all manifestation to sense, which was what Moses had asked. Here there is no symbol as of the Lord in the ‘cloud.’ The divine manifestation is impossible to sense, and that, too, not by reason of man’s limitations, but by reason of God’s nature. The manifestation to spirit in full immediate perception is impossible also. It has to be maintained that we know God only ‘in part’; but it does not follow that our knowledge is only representative, or is not of Him ‘as He is.’ Though not whole it is real, so far as it goes.
But this is not the highest form. Words and propositions can never reveal so fully, nor with such certitude, as a personal revelation. But we have Christ’s life, ‘God manifest’: not words about God, but the manifestation of the very divine nature itself in action. ‘Merciful’:-and we see Jesus going about ‘doing good.’ ‘Gracious,’ and we see Him welcoming to Himself all the weary, and ever bestowing of the treasures of His love. ‘Longsuffering’:-’Father! forgive them!’ God is ‘plenteous in mercy and in truth,’ forgiving transgression and sin:-’Thy sins be forgiven thee.’
How different it all is when we have deeds, a human life, on which to base our belief! How much more certain, as well as coming closer to our hearts! Merely verbal statements need proof, they need warming. In Christ’s showing us the Father they are changed as from a painting to a living being; they are brought out of the region of abstractions into the concrete.
‘And so the word had breath, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds.’
‘Show us the Father and it sufficeth us.’ ‘He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father.’
Is there any other form of manifestation possible? Yes; in heaven there will be a closer vision of Christ-not of God. Our knowledge of Christ will there be expanded, deepened, made more direct. We know not how. There will be bodily changes: ‘Like unto the body of His glory.’ etc. ‘We shall be like Him.’ ‘Changed from glory to glory.’
II. The answer to the desire to see God’s glory.
The ‘Glory’ was the technical name for the lustrous cloud that hung over the Mercy-seat, but here it probably means more generally some visible manifestation of the divine presence. What Moses craved to see with his eyes was the essential divine light. That vision he did not receive, but what he did receive was partly a visible manifestation, though not of the dazzling radiance which no human eye can see and live, and still more instructive and encouraging, the communication in words of that shining galaxy of attributes, ‘the glories that compose Thy name.’ In the name specially so-called, the name Jehovah, was revealed absolute eternal Being, and in the accompanying declaration of so-called ‘attributes’ were thrown into high relief the two qualities of merciful forgiveness and retributive justice. The ‘attributes’ which separate God from us, and in which vulgar thought finds the marks of divinity, are conspicuous by their absence. Nothing is said of omniscience, omnipresence, and the like, but forgiveness and justice, of both of which men carry analogues in themselves, are proclaimed by the very voice of God as those by which He desires that He should be chiefly conceived of by us.
The true ‘glory of God’ is His pardoning Love. That is the glowing heart of the divine brightness. If so, then the very heart of that heart of brightness, the very glory of the ‘Glory of God,’ is the Christ, in whom we behold that which was at once ‘the glory as of the only begotten of the Father’ and the ‘Glory of the Father.’
In Jesus these two elements, pardoning love and retributive justice, wondrously meet, and the mystery of the possibility of their harmonious co-operation in the divine government is solved, and becomes the occasion for the rapturous gratitude of man and the wondering adoration of principalities and powers in heavenly places. Jesus has manifested the divine mercifulness; Jesus has borne the burden of sin and the weight of the divine Justice. The lips that said ‘Be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee,’ also cried, ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ The tenderest manifestation of the God ‘plenteous in mercy . . .forgiving iniquity,’ and the most awe-kindling manifestation of the God ‘that will by no means clear the guilty,’ are fused into one, when we ‘behold that Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.’
III. The answer to a great sin.
This Revelation is the immediate issue of Israel’s great apostasy.
Sin evokes His pardoning mercy. This insignificant speck in Creation has been the scene of the wonder of the Incarnation, not because its magnitude was great, but because its need was desperate. Men, because they are sinners, have been subjects of an experience more precious than the ‘angels which excel in strength’ and hearken ‘to the voice of His word’ have known or can know. The wilder the storm of human evil roars and rages, the deeper and louder is the voice that peals across the storm. So for us all Christ is the full and final revelation of God’s grace. The last, because the perfect embodiment of it; the sole, because the sufficient manifestation of it. ‘See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 34:6 compassion and mercy (see 20:5-6; 33:19 and study…
34:6 compassion and mercy (see 20:5-6; 33:19 and study notes): The Creator who was revealing himself to the Israelites, and through them to the world, is a God of grace. Neither his justice nor his sovereignty are underlined here, as true as those attributes are. If God were merely just, the Old Testament would have ended at this point, or it would have picked up and started again with an entirely new family. This did not happen because God, in his unique character, is slow to anger and full of unfailing love and faithfulness. These qualities were the basis for his renewal of the covenant.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.