Exodus 32

"And Jehovah repented as to the evil which He spoke of doing to His people" (Exodus 32:14).

Interesting verse. Here we have the Lord, who for some reason loves us very much. Now I cannot explain why the Lord loves us very much. I know I have done nothing to earn the love of the Lord. I do know, however, that His nature is one to love, therefore being a God who loves it seems His outlet for love is inturn poured out on us. This verse seems to contradict a lot of who we proclaim God is. Let us look at it in detail.

First, whenever you find a verse which seems to hold a contradiction, look at hte context. The context in this is in relation to the golden calf. We can back out even farther and see more context. In Genesis 3 the Lord promises a Messiah would be given. In Genesis we see numeorus promises given to Abraham. We know Abraham would bare more children than the stars! I do not think this had been accoplished yet. Finally, we know that from Abraham would come the blessed Messiah. Therefore we know God had no intension on wiping out Israel.

Let us now look at future context. We know Moses was overburdened by the people of Israel. We know he often calls out to the Lord concerning how much they whine and complain. Finally, we know that eventually he lost it and hit the rock. Therefore we know that there is this battle happening in Moses' heart.

What was God doing verses 11-14. God was showing Moses where his own heart lies. How often I come to a place where I think I could resolve the issue. How often I wish I was only given the chance to do something a different way. How often when given that chance, I find out why the leadership or previous authority did that thing the way they did. Maybe there was this battle happening in Moses' heart. He thought it needed to be done differantly, but when given the chance, Moses said "relent from this harm to your people."

I know God never harmed His people. He did punish them. Read through all the prophets and see how many chances God gave them to turn from evil. God was more than patient. In the end, due to sin, God allows them to fall captive to Babylon. Since that captivitiy, Israel, to this day, has yet to return to worshipping idols. Apparently God knew what He ws doing, though He did not want to put them through that.

Literally in Hebrew, this verse reads, "Jehovah sighed above the bad who He spoke of doing to His people." The word sigh could also mean to pity. We serve a loving God who always is taking pity on us, though sometimes He puts us through trials for our greater good. Remember, God is love, and to this there is no contradiction.