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Exodus 32

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The Whosoever Study Bible
Whosoever will, may come.
the second book of moses, called exodus
Moses · c. 1446–1405 BC
Chapter the Thirty-second
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.
And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD.
And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:
They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?
Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.
Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.
And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.
And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.
And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear.
And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.
And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?
And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief.
For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.
And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)
Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the LORD’S side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him.
And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.
And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.
For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves to day to the LORD, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day.
And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.
And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.
Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.
And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.
Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them.
And the LORD plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made.
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Chuck Smith on Exodus 32

Verse by verse, the C2000 series. Permission granted by The Word For Today.
Verses 1-3 Now when the people saw that Moses had delayed coming down from the mountain, they gathered to Aaron, and they said unto him, Get up, and make us gods, that shall go before us; for as for Moses, we don't know what's happened to him, he brought us out of the land of Egypt, but what's become of him, we don't know. ["He's been gone now for almost forty days."] And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received them at their hands, and fashioned with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf ( Exodus 32:1-4 ): So he melted down the gold, and then he fashioned it with a graving tool, a little golden calf. Notice that carefully, because you're gonna find that Aaron's a classic liar. He took this graving tool and carved out this little golden calf. Remember he's the high priest, which might be a warning unto you, that not all who are in the ministry of the gospel are totally honest in all of their dealings. You might get some computerized letters that are filled with hypocrisy, deceit and lies. Ooh, I could get going again. So the people broke off their golden earrings, he took a graving tool; he carved out this little molten calf. and he said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt ( Exodus 32:4 ). Verse 4 Oh, how quickly these people forget. You know to me the constant, constant burden in my heart is the fact that there are some people that just migrate towards every stupid doctrine. Every wind of doctrine, every concept that's going on, people just "ooh", trailing on after it. I wish that the true doctrine, sound doctrine could spread as rapidly as false doctrines. But man, these false doctrines seem to have wings and they spread so rapidly. The latest one being this prosperity cult. "God wants all of His children to be prosperous and healthy. If you're not prosperous and healthy, there's something wrong with your relationship with God." God help us; what a cruel, corrupt doctrine. But oh, how it is spread. Sad. The people, so quickly-Paul wrote to the Galatians and he said, "Oh, foolish Galatians. Who has bewitched you that you should so soon turn away from the truth? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now gonna be made perfect in the flesh? Foolish Galatians. You turned from the truth so quickly"( Galatians 3:1 , Galatians 3:3 ). "Foolish Israelites, you turned from the truth so quickly. God is drawing you to Himself to worship the holy living true God, and now here you are with a little golden idol before you." "This is your god that brought you out of Egypt", and the people demanding "Make us a god that we might worship it." This is the result. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and they rose up to play. And the Lord said to Moses, Get down; for thy people, which you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves ( Exodus 32:5-7 ): Verses 5-7 Notice the Lord isn't even claiming them at this point. "Thy people, which you brought out of the land of Egypt corrupted themselves." And they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: and they have made them a molten calf, and are worshiping it, and have sacrificed unto it, and they have said, These are the gods, O Israel, which have brought you out of the land of Egypt. The Lord said unto Moses, I have seen the people, behold, they are stiffnecked: Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, that I may consume them: and I will make thee a great nation. ["I'll wipe them out and I'll make a great nation out of you, Moses. We'll start over again."] And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why does your wrath wax hot against thy people, ["Not mine Lord, don't put them on me."] which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and a mighty hand? [Nobody wants to claim them at this point.] Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swearest by thine own self, and said unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people ( Exodus 32:8-14 ). Verses 8-35 Now, faced with a problem. For in Num 23:19 we read that, "God is not a man that He should repent", or "God is not a man that He should lie, nor the Son of man that He should repent has He not spoken, shall He not do it?" What does it mean, "the Lord repented"? The obvious reading of the scripture looks like God is angry, ready to destroy the children of Israel, and Moses uses some good logic and reasons with God to spare them. "Look if you wipe them out, the Egyptians are gonna say, Look you just brought them out of the land to destroy them here. They're gonna speak evil against You. Why should they speak evil against You, God? Lord, now turn from Your fierce anger, don't do this." God is just angry, ready to wipe them out. Moses was the cool head, and he's pulling God off. Now remember Moses wrote this. But our problem, our problem is that we have to describe God's actions in human terms. Therein lies the problem. The actions of an infinite God cannot adequately be described in human language. But we have to describe in human terms, the activities of God. So we use the word "God repented", but in reality God does not and can-has no need to change or to repent, which it means "to change" or "to turn from". But from the human standpoint, how can I describe the fact that the judgment of God is due these people, but the judgment of God doesn't come upon these people. "So, God changed." No, He didn't change. Again we see Moses standing there interceding, holding God off. But who put it in the heart of Moses to intercede? Who put it in the heart of Moses to pray? Who put a love for these people in the heart of Moses? It was God's work in the life of Moses to begin with. The inspiration of Moses' prayer came from God Himself. All true prayer begins with God. Thus, God was the inspiration behind the prayer. Now God knows all things from the beginning. He knew that the children of Israel were gonna mess things up. He knew they were gonna be worshiping this calf. In fact, He knew it before they ever did it. God is speaking to Moses about their sin in need of judgment. Moses is now inspired of God to plead for their salvation. But it's difficult to describe the activity; it's impossible to describe the activities of God in human terms, but we have nothing else to describe them. Thus, we have to have human terms to describe what are apparent activities of God, but yet the human terms fall short and cannot adequately describe God's actions here. Let it be said if God had determined to destroy them, He would have destroyed them, and nothing Moses could've said could have changed Him. The fact that they weren't destroyed only indicates that God had no intention to destroy them in the beginning. But Moses is having to describe the anger of God against these people and the deserving justice that was coming to them in the human terms, and yet the justice of God doesn't fall upon them. Thus, I have to describe that also in human terms, and give some sort of an explanation why these people were able to survive this great sacrilege against God. I only have human terms to do it, but I'm dealing in those mysterious, divine inner councils of God of which I have no clear understanding at all. God said, "My ways are not your ways, My ways are beyond your finding out" ( Isaiah 55:8 ). But yet I only have human terms to describe the activities of God, and thus I have to use terms that do not adequately describe what God has done, but only describes the effect of the actions in human terms.

Commentary on Exodus 32

Whosoever Will · the Seven Threads Commentary

Exodus 32:1

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:2

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:3

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:4

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:5

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:6

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:7

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:8

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:9

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:10

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:11

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:12

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:13

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:14

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:15

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:16

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:17

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:18

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:19

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:20

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:21

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:22

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:23

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:24

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:25

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:26

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:27

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:28

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:29

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:30

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:31

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:32

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:33

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:34

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10

Exodus 32:35

Moses is on the mountain for forty days receiving the pattern of the Tabernacle. The people below see the delay and demand Aaron make gods to go before them. The calf is made. The feast is held. And God interrupts Moses's lesson with a report and a proposition: your people have corrupted themselves; they have made a calf and worshipped it; now leave me alone that my wrath may burn against them and I will make you into a great nation. Moses refuses. He intercedes. Three arguments: the Egyptians will say God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, your reputation, LORD. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: your covenant, LORD. You swore to multiply them and give them the land, your oath, LORD. Moses appeals not to Israel's merit but to God's own character and commitments. And the LORD relented, vayyinnachem YHWH. The nacham-word. The same verb used in Genesis 6:6 (it grieved/relented him that he had made man), in Jonah 3:10 (God relented of the disaster), in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (the potter who changes his plans when the clay changes). The relenting is genuinely responsive to Moses's intercession. If it were not, the intercession was meaningless, Moses's three arguments were theater, and the whole exchange was predetermined. Thread 1 is in the intercession itself and in the relenting: the God who cannot stop reaching is reached by genuine human intercession and responds. Thread 4 is in the people's genuine failure: they genuinely made the calf, genuinely worshipped it, genuinely broke the covenant, and in Moses's genuine choice to intercede rather than accept the offer of personal greatness.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents, vayyinnachem YHWH. One of the most theologically significant verbs in the OT; genuine human intercession produces genuine divine response, and the relenting is not theatrical.
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ (vayyinnachem YHWH al ha-raah asher dibber laasoth le-ammo): and the LORD relented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people: vayyinnachem (Niphal of nacham, to be comforted, to relent, to change one's settled mind; the Niphal is the reflexive-passive: the relenting happens to God himself; Terence Fretheim: nācham is God's genuine responsiveness to genuine human acts within his sovereign knowledge of all outcomes); the relenting is real, not theatrical, otherwise Moses's intercession was performance and the whole event was scripted
threads t1 · t4 · see Genesis 6:6 · Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10
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