Exodus 33: 1-6, “And the LORD said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it: And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: Unto a land flowing with milk and honey: for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee in the way. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned: and no man did put on him his ornaments. For the LORD had said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiffnecked people: I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume thee: therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the mount Horeb.”
The Lord intended to bring Israel to the Promised Land all along. Even though they sinned, He gave Moses the opportunity to plead on their behalf then He kept them from the consequences that they had chosen. Now that their sin was dealt with according to the Lord’s grace and mercy, He told Moses to take them to the Promised Land. This is one of the important issues in God’ method and plan: repentance and then a return to the way that He has chosen. The Lord used an important illustration here when He called Israel stiffnecked. Bullocks are used as beasts of burden but they need to be put in a yoke so that they can pull their burdens. If a bullock has a stiff neck, it won’t submit to the burden and is completely useless to anyone. Bullocks cannot breed and if they won’t act as beasts of burden all they can do is be turned into steak. If Israel wasn’t going to be worthy of the Lord’s high calling then they were no better than the nations that were in the Land before them and deserved the same punishment. The Israelis were told to take their ornaments off because they had used some of these ornaments to make the golden calf and the Lord wanted to remove that temptation from them.
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
No comments:
Post a Comment