““The Lord also said to me, ‘I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. Leave me alone so I may destroy them and erase their name from under heaven. Then I will make a mighty nation of your descendants, a nation larger and more powerful than they are.’ “So while the mountain was blazing with fire I turned and came down, holding in my hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. There below me I could see that you had sinned against the Lord your God. You had melted gold and made a calf idol for yourselves. How quickly you had turned away from the path the Lord had commanded you to follow! So I took the stone tablets and threw them to the ground, smashing them before your eyes. “Then, as before, I threw myself down before the Lord for forty days and nights. I ate no bread and drank no water because of the great sin you had committed by doing what the Lord hated, provoking him to anger. I feared that the furious anger of the Lord, which turned him against you, would drive him to destroy you. But again he listened to me. The Lord was so angry with Aaron that he wanted to destroy him, too. But I prayed for Aaron, and the Lord spared him. I took your sin—the calf you had made—and I melted it down in the fire and ground it into fine dust. Then I threw the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain. “You also made the Lord angry at Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah. And at Kadesh-barnea the Lord sent you out with this command: ‘Go up and take over the land I have given you.’ But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God and refused to put your trust in him or obey him. Yes, you have been rebelling against the Lord as long as I have known you. “That is why I threw myself down before the Lord for forty days and nights—for the Lord said he would destroy you. I prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Sovereign Lord, do not destroy them. They are your own people. They are your special possession, whom you redeemed from Egypt by your mighty power and your strong hand. Please overlook the stubbornness and the awful sin of these people, and remember instead your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If you destroy these people, the Egyptians will say, “The Israelites died because the Lord wasn’t able to bring them to the land he had promised to give them.” Or they might say, “He destroyed them because he hated them; he deliberately took them into the wilderness to slaughter them.” But they are your people and your special possession, whom you brought out of Egypt by your great strength and powerful arm.’”
Deuteronomy 9:13-29 NLT
Moses position was a difficult one. His purpose was to show who God was to the watching world and their gods. It was also to show who God was to the descendants of Abraham. Had God been a simple elemental deity, like those of Egypt, this might have been easier, but God is not a relegated being like those gods. He is complex and sovereign in the most encompassing way. He cannot be duped but he can be reasoned with. He isn’t petty but he is rightfully jealous. As God’s servant, it is important that Moses portray him accurately. The people needed to know that intercession was, not only possible, but would need to be a regular aspect of who they were, are and would need to continue to be. Moses would need to remind the people that his position was that. Perhaps he was an old man, but this task was a common and useful task. The task of intercession was more useful than any other task the community had. God needed reasonable people to argue the case for unreasonable people.
God’s Nature: God is complex, sovereign, cannot be deceived, can be reasoned with, not petty, and rightfully jealous.
Moses’s Role: Moses’s purpose was to reveal God’s nature to the world and to the descendants of Abraham.
Intercession’s Importance: Intercession, the act of arguing on behalf of others, is a crucial and useful task, even for an old man.
JOSH McGARY.COM 