Exodus 32

Exodus 32:9

Stiff-necked signifies stubborn and disobedient, like unruly and unbroken bullocks, that will not submit their neck to the yoke

Exodus 32:19

Moses brake the tables, not in rage, but in holy zeal, to mark that their sin might justly provoke God to give up his covenant-relation to them, and deprive them of his precious laws

Exodus 32:25

They were deprived of their innocency, and of the favour and protection of their God, exposed to danger, and stained with the reproach of inconstancy among their enemies

Exodus 32:29

This holy service, for the Lord’s honour, prepared them for their sacred office

Exodus 32:32

God hath his book of unfailing remembrance; Rev. xx. 12; his book of special providential care and regard; Ps. lvi. 8. and cxxxix. 16. and lxix. 20. and lxxxvii. 6; and his book of unalterable election to everlasting life; and xiii. 8. and xx. 12.—Moses does not here wish that he might be reprobated, accursed, or damned, rather than his people should perish; but refuses to survive them, or to have his seed raised up in their stead

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XXXII.—It is highly necessary that magistrates and ministers should attend to their charges closely, lest their absence occasion mischief: for these, who reckon God’s counsels slow, readily rush headlong into rum by their own; and most men are much readier to serve the devil than God, and to sacrifice one last, pride itself not excepted, for the promoting of another still more sottish and absurd. Yes, even after the most solemn transactions with God, men quickly and fearfully stumble into sin; and the choicest saints are too apt to follow a multitude to do evil. But surely it is highly shameful when professed Christians imitate these idolaters in their mad revelling and mirth! All our wickedness is obvious and odious before God. And let professors of the true religion beware how they so corrupt themselves, lest God be ashamed to acknowledge them as his people! What a mercy is it for a guilty nation when they have powerful intercessors at the throne of grace! They have to do with a gracious God, who takes pleasure to repent himself of the evil. Holy zeal for God, when prudently manifested on proper occasions, is highly becoming: but backsliders in heart shall be filled with their own ways, and have their idols broken before their eyes. And O, what misery and shame do good men bring on nations by joining them in their wickedness! The best excuse which they can make for their conduct is pitiful and absurd: and therefore it deeply concerns all men, in an evil day, to know whether they be on the Lord’s side or on that of his enemies. It is both necessary, honourable, and useful, to employ the strictest impartiality in the matters of God, and to use the most earnest intercessions with God, to avert, even for a time, his just vengeance from falling upon a nation which is ripened for destruction. And we have here the greatest encouragement to expect a gracious answer to our prayers