Name: Kevin
Question: I was reading through Exodus recently and I came across a few verses that I never gave much thought on. Exodus Chapter 32 we have God very mad at His people for making the golden calf and worshipping it. God tells Moses he wants to destroy his people but Moses intercedes and changes God’s mind and God “repents” from the “evil” He was about to do.
My question is how does this really make sense that God himself would just act on emotions and then listen to Moses and have to repent from doing bad?
Answer: Thanks for the question Kevin.
It’s an interesting verse, did Moses really change God’s mind?
Personally, it seems hard to imagine a mere man changing God’s mind.
In fact, Malachi 3:6 tells us,
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
However, that simply means God does not change His persona or His overall plan. God cannot become evil or perform wicked deeds, but He can change directions.
Let me show you what I mean.
Numbers 14:11-12
11 And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people [Israelites] provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?12 I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.
Hey, God made this statement right after the Israelites started complaining for the thousandth time. God was ticked, and He had enough, so He was about to “disinherit” the Israelites and make an entirely new nation out of Moses!
So the Biblical facts are clear, Exodus 32:9-14 and Numbers 14:11-20 both explain that God did change His mind, twice, and the book of Psalms adds another witness to that fact.
Psalms 106:23
Therefore he [God] said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.
There’s no two ways about it, God would have destroyed the Israelites had it not been for the intervention of Moses. In a sense, this does make sense considering what we’re told in the book of Isaiah.
Isaiah 43:26
Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified.
That means God wants us to reason with Him and that’s exactly what Moses did!
If we simply read the Scriptures I cited, God was ticked, He had enough of the Israelites, and He was about to do them in. Yet, Moses himself had compassion on the people, God already exerted much compassion on these people.
So the way I see it, God changed His mind out of respect for the only guy (Moses) who was still faithful to Him. Sort of like Noah, only God went a different route there.
Honestly, God had the right idea though. The Israelites were always a disaster. Moses would later tell God to just let him die instead of being burdened with the Israelites, (Numbers 11:10-15).
Sad huh?
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By the way, when God said He “repented,” that can even mean,
“To pity, console, or comfort.”
Now, let’s get to this “evil” bit that we find in Exodus 32:14…
God is not and cannot be evil, He’s incapable of it.
We are told this numerous times in the Bible, (Job 34:12, Psalms 5:4).
So why then does the Bible use the word “evil?”
The answer, it’s the word the translators chose to use. In fact, the word “evil” as used in Exodus 32:14 can mean a plethora of things, some of which include:
“…bad, evil, adversity, affliction, calamity, grief, misery, sorrow, trouble” and so on.
So the translators felt “evil” was the best representation of the Hebrew word.
I disagree.
Nevertheless, had God destroyed the Israelites right there on the spot, it would not have been evil. It would have been warranted. God told the Israelites plenty of times to follow Him or else.
Rarely did they ever listen.
So when we get right down to it, the verses we discussed are a clear display of love and grace that God provided to Moses and the Israelites. God is willing to listen to man and even change His own mind.
It’s quite astonishing really.
It’s astonishing that He listens to any of us. We are clay, He is the potter, and He still continues to deal with us, faults and all.
Thank God for it.