Exodus 32:31-32

This story is a simple one, Moses had gone up to Mount Sinai to receive the law, but as he was receiving it, the people who remained below in the valley were breaking it. God asked Moses to step aside while He destroyed them. Moses was horrified at the sin of the people and frightened because he knew that God meant it. He went down the Mount, dealt with the sin and then on the next day he returned with an offer that must have welled up from his heart. Nearly broken with grief, in Hebrew Moses’ words are somewhat choppy and one sentence is incomplete, possibly showing Moses’ emotion as he approached God about this on the Mount.

So here is a cry from the heart of a man who so identified with his people that he was willing to be sent to death if only it could mean their salvation. Greater love has no man than this!

Exodus 32:31-33

It is a strangled cry, a gasping sob welling up in the heart of a man who is asking to be sent to his grave if only it can mean the salvation of the people he had come to love. Moses had such a great love for his people Israel. He had seen the sin of Israel and already they had rebelled against God and against him, they had turned their back on his good leadership and would do so again, but still he loved them and wanted to save them just as Judah wanted to save Benjamin.

Exodus 32:31-32

When Moses began to speak to God again, it must have been in great anguish, because this is the prayer in which, like the prayer of Hosea, the sentence breaks off without ending. This is indicated by a dash in the New King James version, ESV, NIV, and other translations of the Bible. The prayer is a strangled cry, a gasping sob, welling up from the heart of a man who is asking for the salvation of the people he had come to love.