The events in this passage take place later in the year of the Exodus, but it is still a passage that is very relevant for Passover.
After the revelation of the Ten Commandments on Pentecost, Moses ascends Mount Sinai to receive further instruction. While he is away, the Israelites construct a golden calf idol, breaking the covenant to which they had agreed just a few short weeks before.
Moses responds to this crisis by interceding on behalf of the people. And God forgives Israel, in accordance with his merciful character as revealed in Exodus 34:6-7: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” Israel is given a clean slate, and the covenant is renewed.
We see continual examples of God’s merciful character as his plan unfolds in the scriptures. In our study of the Minor Prophets, we have seen it when the city of Nineveh repents in response to the message of Jonah, and God spares Nineveh. We have seen it in the message of hope that is the bottom line in each prophet’s writing.
In the Gospels, we see the merciful character of God in the sacrificial death and the resurrection of Jesus that we celebrate this week. God gives us a clean slate and renews his covenant with us, as he did for the children of Israel. Praise the Lord!
Exodus 15: 11 “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
12 You stretched out your right hand;
the earth swallowed them. “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed;
you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.
14 The peoples have heard; they tremble;
pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.
15 Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed;
trembling seizes the leaders of Moab;
all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.
16 Terror and dread fall upon them;
because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone,
till your people, O Lord, pass by,
till the people pass by whom you have purchased.
17 You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain,
the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode,
the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.
18 The Lord will reign forever and ever.”
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