Exodus 34:7, commentary and pictures

Spoken on Sinai in answer to the prayer to see His glory, the verse is God's proclamation of His own name, goodness and character to Moses. Its glory is that He is merciful and gracious, long-suffering and patient, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands and forgiving every kind of wrongdoing. That keeping of mercy is His pledge to pardon every transgression, however great, when sinners return with true repentance, confession and forsaking of sin through faith in Christ the Substitute, for He is far more willing to pardon than to condemn. Yet He will by no means clear the guilty, for His justice in holding wrongdoers accountable belongs to His glory as truly as His mercy and is itself an expression of love. Punishment is strange and foreign to Him, so He bears long with transgressors and delays retribution to give probation and calls to repentance, and the visiting of fathers' iniquity upon children to the third and fourth generation does not mean the innocent are compelled to suffer for parents' sins but that effects continue when children imitate the example, indulge the same appetites and develop like character.

Proclamation to Moses

Exodus 34:7 is God's own proclamation of His name, goodness, glory and character to Moses, given in answer to the prayer Show me Thy glory by making all His goodness pass before him and proclaiming His name. His glory is His character, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and patient, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands and forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty and visiting iniquity unto the third and fourth generation. The revelation was given after Israel's unbelief, to be studied and lived by professing Christians who would maintain connection with God, and it declares wondrous love from generation to generation with wondrous works of majesty and power, on condition of returning with repentance, confession and forsaking of sin.

It was spoken on Mount Sinai in the cloud after Moses hewed two tables of stone like the first and went up alone in the morning as commanded, when the Lord descended, stood with him, and proclaimed His name. Moses had asked to see God's glory after pleading that God's presence would go with him, and God promised to make all His goodness pass before him, declaring that no man can see His face and live, setting him on a rock by Him, putting him in the cleft of the rock and covering him with His hand while His glory passed by. He had spent forty days and nights in the mount sustained without human help when God renewed His favor and gave the covenant again through him. Through Christ the Rock people are likewise covered to hear God reveal Himself.

It was given after Israel's idolatry at Sinai and wilderness rebellion, when God renewed His favor, gave the covenant again through Moses, promised to do great marvels for them and to show the nations His special care and love for His people. It was spoken before Moses carried out justice on the idolaters, presenting God as merciful and gracious, slow to anger and rich in loving-kindness and truth, yet as one who does not leave the guilty unpunished. It is appealed to when Moses intercedes after the rebellion at the report of the spies, when God spares Israel from pestilence and disinheritance yet in mercy bids them turn back toward the Red Sea because unbelief prevents manifesting His power over their enemies.

Hearing the proclamation, Moses makes haste to bow in adoration, worships and praises, and asks God to pardon Israel and take them as His people and inheritance. God grants the prayer and promises a covenant with Israel. When the character is comprehended as Moses comprehended it, the response is to make haste to bow in adoration and praise.

Mercy for Thousands

The glory proclaimed in the verse is character itself, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and patient, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands and forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. It belongs to the proclamation of divine goodness and name in answer to prayer, and to grasp it is to be led to worship and praise. It presents mercy, patience, goodness and truth as the attributes of the invisible King, enabling instruction in what He is like. Through the covering Rock the revelation is heard, and forgiveness is joined with refusal to leave guilt unaddressed.

Keeping mercy and forgiving every kind of wrong is a pledge to pardon every transgression when sinners return with true repentance, contrition of soul, confession and forsaking of sin. No case is too hard and no sin is too great to be pardoned, for every soul is precious and He is infinitely more willing to pardon than to condemn. He is touched with the feelings of human infirmity and knows human weakness, remembering that people are dust. Where repenting humble ones are too feeble to make thorough work, the mercy and merits of Jesus supply the deficiency and are imputed to them, His boundless goodness heals backslidings and He accepts the best they have to give in love and blessing. He loves freely while sinners are yet sinners, forgiving graciously not according to human merit, and never leaves nor forsakes one penitent soul that looks to Him in faith. His wondrous love is thus revealed from generation to generation, and His wondrous works declare majesty and power.

Its promises are gifts given on condition of obedience and faith, to be closely known, weighed, pondered and trusted. Only those who obey the commandments and return to Him have right to claim them, and they do not belong to His enemies. Pardon and imputed righteousness come only through repentance, belief and trust in Christ the Substitute, the crucified and risen Saviour, whose righteousness is imputed through faith and whose suffering satisfies justice while mercy reaches rebels with full pardoning power. Guilty sinners who refuse His merit and continue in transgression without returning in repentance and confession are not acquitted. Mercy therefore accepts sinners as they are when they come for pardon and sanctification, yet does not treat guilt as though it were innocent, giving reason for those on a wrong course to humble themselves, repent and trust for favor again.

Not Clearing Guilty

Exodus 34:7 declares that God keeps mercy for thousands and forgives iniquity and transgression and sin, yet will by no means clear the guilty or treat guilt as innocent. Mercy and justice belong together in the proclamation of His name and character as merciful, gracious, long-suffering and patient, abundant in goodness and truth. His justice in punishing wrongdoing, holding people accountable, and not leaving guilt unaddressed is as truly part of His glory as His mercy, and as much an expression of love. The atonement in which He gave His Son for fallen humanity displays both love and justice, satisfies justice while pouring rich mercy on rebels, and shows sin is not chargeable to His government through arbitrary withdrawal of grace or defect in government. That declaration refutes the charge that He is severe, tyrannical, exacting, or unwilling to receive sinners, while also teaching that consequences may extend to later generations.

Punishment is a strange and foreign act to Him in which He has no pleasure, taking no delight in vengeance or in the death of the wicked but desiring the wicked to turn and live. He therefore bears long with transgressors, nations, families, and individuals, delaying punishment and giving probation, light, calls to repentance, and offers of pardon. His long-suffering mercy has a limit when people repeatedly reject light and resist the means given for peace and salvation, and persistent rejection brings a reckoning He keeps with nations and individuals, illustrated by Jerusalem's destruction and applied to the world's final judgment. That long delay emboldens men in transgression, but it does not make punishment less certain or terrible.

His very reluctance to execute justice measures the severity of the coming retribution. When iniquity has filled its full measure and each soul has fixed destiny by choice, He vindicates the authority of His downtrodden law by terrible things in righteousness, visiting judgment unmixed with mercy upon those who oppress and destroy His people. That means all the wicked will be destroyed and transgressors cut off together, with the power and authority of the divine government employed to put down rebellion. All such retributive justice is perfectly consistent with His character as merciful, long-suffering, and benevolent, and it excludes unrepentant and ungodly sinners from heaven, where unrepentant sin would bring woe and misery fatal to the peace of the universe. Even then He does not declare the guilty innocent yet seeks to remove their guilt and redeem them rather than act vindictively, so that even the severity of His providence is directed toward the salvation of those who have gone astray.

This justice means He does not force obedience but gives His law and offers mercy while bearing patiently with rejection, desiring willing obedience rooted in understanding of His wisdom, justice, benevolence, and love for who He is. He sees and deals with sin even in favored people with greater light and responsibility, holding them strictly accountable, with the faults of the faithful recorded as warnings as well as encouragements showing that fallen sinners may recover and overcome through grace. He records deeds and oppressive words against the unrepentant for judgment, including oppression by those in positions of responsibility, and requires repentance and reform, since delayed punishment does not erase accountability. His mercy does not cancel just punishment of persistent defiance of His sovereignty, so the commanded utter destruction of the Amalekites for persistent defiance was just and obedience to God in executing His judgment, in whom He takes no pleasure in destruction. He will likewise call to account persecuting religious leaders who claimed to represent Christ while using cruelty and presuming to change His law, and those who misuse entrusted talents.

Visiting Later Generations

The warning that iniquity is visited upon the children and children's children to the third and fourth generation holds mercy, forgiveness, justice and consequences together in one revelation. It does not mean that children are compelled to suffer for their parents' sins. The son who humbles his heart will be saved, and children who serve God and do right are rewarded.

The effects reach later generations when children imitate their parents' sinful example and inherit its effects, with that influence continuing through generations. Children often copy sinful parents, indulging the same depraved appetites and developing similar characters unless renewed by grace and overcoming. When children follow their fathers' example and indulge in sin they bring destruction on themselves. Godly parents' instruction and example can likewise be followed by children and grandchildren, carrying righteous influence through generations.

This transmission works because parents who break the divine law teach disrespect and rebellion by example and instruction, inclining children to follow the same course and come under the consequences of disobedience. A parent's influence and example can transmit an evil character to a child, whose developed passions then bear fruit in further crimes. Inherited appetites and customs, especially intemperate eating and the use of intoxicating drinks and narcotics, carry worsening mental and physical ills to the third and fourth generations. Those ills result from disregard of divine laws, not from providence imposing them. Parents and children are each accountable for their idolatry, and when disobedience reaches its full measure there is a reckoning.

Long-suffering mercy has a limit when people repeatedly reject light and resist the means given for peace and salvation, and persistent rejection brings judgment. God keeps a reckoning with nations and individuals, giving a period of probation and opportunities to receive light, but when guilt is full and light is stubbornly rejected judgment comes. The delayed expulsion of the Amorites and the destruction of Jerusalem illustrate that patience does not leave persistent guilt unjudged. The prolonged famine and desperate distress of Israel in the Syrian siege of Samaria were the consequences of the sins of earlier generations. That visitation upon later generations belongs to the reckoning applied also to the world's final judgment.

Christ and the Law

Jesus came to earth to declare that name and to place the Father in a correct light by revealing His character to men. That character is merciful and gracious, long-suffering and patient, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands and forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin while by no means clearing the guilty. His mission answers Satan's false charges that God is severe, tyrannical, exacting, overbearing, condemnatory, pitiless and unwilling to receive sinners, and the author of suffering, misery and death. His sinless life in human nature, His teaching of honesty, forbearance, mercy, compassion and love even for enemies, His paternal revelation of the Father who gave His Son, and at Calvary the clear beams of the Father's glory refute those charges. This is plainly the character of the Lord Jesus Himself, and the principles on which He acts as Lawgiver, requiring loyalty to the commandments in practice and not in sentiment only, in opposition to the false philosophy by which Satan influences minds. Yet unbelief, pride and self-sufficiency blind eyes to it.

The atonement in which God gave His Son for fallen humanity displays both love and justice and shows that sin is not chargeable to His government. Rich mercy is poured out on a race of rebels with full pardoning power, while justice is satisfied in Christ as the righteous substitute. By suffering the penalty of sin He upholds the changeless law whose authority could not be set aside to save sinners, so that His death as a sinless offering both preserves the law and makes pardon and salvation possible for the repentant sinner who trusts in Him. Lucifer's rebellion therefore did not arise from an arbitrary withdrawal of divine grace or from any defect in government. Pardon through His merits is for those who repent and believe, and guilty sinners who refuse to acknowledge the merit of the crucified and risen Saviour are not acquitted, for only through faith in Christ can sinners have His righteousness imputed to them.

The verse shows law and gospel blended together, with the law condemning sin yet pointing to forgiveness and to Jesus Christ. God's character is the pattern human beings are to receive in this life for restoration to perfection, the law reflects that character, and the glory of Christ is reflected in the law. Judgment is entrusted to the Son, who will judge righteously and pass sentence on every work good or bad. That revelation of divine character shown to Moses must be made prominent with Jesus Christ as the great center of attraction, and in the third angel's message it belongs together with the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, so that Christ is not made secondary to theories and arguments. Rejecting His sacred rest day misrepresents His character, for as a jealous God He requires obedience to His Ten Commandments and keeping of His Sabbath that He sanctified for His people. Every person must take the Word and see that it declares the Sabbath is the seventh day, specified by God Himself, leaving no excuse in His Word for keeping the first day of the week or for becoming careless and indifferent and thinking it does not matter what day is kept.

The name of the Lord expresses His character. Those who follow Christ bear that name as His children, so hallowing His name means honoring the character it represents.

Worship and Likeness

The glory Moses asked to see is the goodness of God, and the divine name proclaimed on Sinai is the divine character itself — merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands and forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin while by no means clearing the guilty. When that character is comprehended as Moses comprehended it, the only fitting response is to make haste, bow in adoration, worship and praise with thanksgiving. Moses himself bowed and worshiped on hearing it, then asked God to pardon Israel and take them as His people and inheritance. Professing Christians must study this revelation and act like Christians in its light if they would maintain connection with God, presenting themselves daily with soul-hunger praying to see His glory. Beholding the loveliness of Christ, in whom this forgiving mercy is seen, attracts the soul, changes the beholder into His likeness, rolls back the mist between Christ and the soul, and fills heart and voice with praise that ends sin, doubt, grumbling and mourning, while sin, prejudice, selfishness, self-righteousness, passion and the veiling work of the adversary blind eyes to it.

The verse is God's own precious assurance to be repeated to souls oppressed with guilt and ready to sink into despair, to win them to Jesus who gave His life for them. It declares abundant goodness, mercy and love toward the unworthy and willingness to pardon, holding unsearchable riches and unspeakable love in which the soul can calmly rest without fear. Nothing is too hard for Him and no sin too great for Him to pardon, for He forgives graciously not according to human merit but in boundless goodness, healing backslidings and loving freely while sinners are yet sinners, touched with human infirmity and remembering that people are dust. Knowing its promises closely, viewing them in close light, weighing their richness, pondering their meaning, considering who speaks them and trusting the Speaker brings consolation, holy joy, communion with Christ, rest, peace, faith and the very atmosphere of heaven, removing fear of abandonment and turning unbelief to assurance. Its promises are gifts on condition of obedience, belonging only to those who obey the commandments and not to His enemies, calling for continual spiritual illumination rather than contentment with momentary flashes of heavenly light, and they are unfailing and verified in experience in feebleness and sickness, for unlike failing men God never forgets, His mercies are sure and His covenant everlasting.

The same revelation gives reason for sinners on a wrong course to humble themselves, repent, confess, forsake sin and trust that God may again look on them with favor, with abundant pardon to all who return. Joined to the call for the wicked to return, it proves His service is not gloomy hard bondage, and to misrepresent it as gloom and complaint dishonors Him. Yet mercy and forgiveness do not remove certainty of punishment, for He will by no means clear the guilty, and if men continue in transgression without returning in repentance and confession they will receive according to their works, with iniquity visited upon children and children's children to the third and fourth generation. This warns those who flatter themselves that God is not exact to punish and live in daily transgression that His word to punish is sure and steadfast. Delayed punishment does not erase accountability, for He records deeds and oppressive words against the unrepentant for judgment and requires repentance and reform, and long forbearance that emboldens men in transgression does not make punishment less certain or terrible when each soul has fixed destiny by choice.

God's character in the verse is the pattern human beings are to receive in this life, for this life is given to bring people back to perfection and to His moral image, and the law reflects that character. That character, represented in the life of Jesus Christ, is the character into which His followers are changed. God's people are called to represent that same character to the world in every place as a decided testimony, showing the fruit He desires in purity of character, holiness of life, mercy and loving-kindness and compassion, demonstrating that the law is perfect in converting the soul. This representation belongs in family life and daily dealings with others, and in institutions and sanitariums as memorials and instruments for bodily health and soul-saving, continuing the mission of Christ in doing good and healing the sick, imparting rich blessings, preparing the way for light to the whole world, making God known and restoring His moral image in humanity. It uproots selfishness by displaying mercy, loving-kindness, compassion, tenderness, sympathy and a forgiving spirit.

That standard requires another spirit in God's work than pomposity or a strong, hard, exacting, domineering spirit. It requires meekness and acting as Christian gentlemen who shine not with sparks of their own kindling but with the light of the Sun of Righteousness, representing the Redeemer in integrity, uprightness, purity and holiness in every business transaction. Those in authority must manifest the parental goodness, mercy, love, honor, righteousness, tender compassion and sympathy united in God's character, dealing as Christ would deal and going weighted with the Holy Spirit, for position makes no one greater in His sight and character alone is what He values. Harsh rule, humanly devised measures without tenderness and compassion, ruling, oppressing, forcing the will, exercising dominion and lording it over His heritage, or binding minds and talents under human judgment and control do not represent His justice. When professed servants depart from honor and righteousness in dealing with fellow men they misrepresent His justice, make Him appear a hard master, alienate souls from Him and reflect the adversary's attributes instead of God's, while confidence in God held firmly to the end with lifelong persevering effort receives grace for grace and maintains a noble spirit after Christ's holy example.