God now gives His view of the people, and it isn't favourable! God threatens to destroy the people because of their stubbornness. Instead He will make a nation out of Moses.
Moses objects to this and appeals to God. First he reminds God that He had brought the people out of Egypt by His power. If God destroys the Israelites, then the Egyptians would think that He had just brought them out of Egypt in order to destroy them.
Then Moses reminds God of His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Israel. God had promised them that He would make a nation out of them, and had promised to give the land to their descendants. How would God look if He did not fulfil this promise.
Then the Lord relented and did not fulfil His threat.
An immediate question that all this raises is did God really mean it when He made this threat? Or was He doing it to test Moses? Maybe we can view this incident as a parable of the whole salvation story. On the one hand God was perfectly justified in wanting to get rid of the people, just as all mankind are guilty before Him, and judgement is what we deserve. On the other hand, Moses stood in the gap and pleaded for the people, just as Jesus is our high priest and advocate. This analogy must not be pressed too far, for we can easily fall into the trap of the wrathful God on the one hand, and the merciful Jesus on the other. We must remember that it is the Father who sent the Son. The Father and the Son were in perfect agreement about the plan to save mankind.
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