The Faithfulness of the LORD

Exodus 34. Moses has already completed his forty day trip onto Mount Sinai. The people have forsaken the Lord and worshipped the calf that Aaron molded for them. The first set of the Ten Commandments has been broken and the idol ground to dust. Israel has experienced the plague of God's wrath and now...God still gives Moses His covenant.

Again, the Lord writes His laws upon tablets of stone and now, after Israel's terrible forsaking, He proclaims His name. In Israel, your name was more than what you were called; it told something of your character. By telling Israel His name, God was revealing part of Himself to them. This is what He said as He passed before the averted eyes of Moses:

"The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will be 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."

Even after Israel had already shown their inconstancy, God reveals Himself to Moses, show him His glory, and proclaims this title. Even after Israel has abandoned Him for a god of their own hands, He calls Himself slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. We serve a God who is not like us, a God who forgives long after we would have punished, a God who never wavers or changes, and a God who is both perfectly just and perfectly merciful.

He does not depend on our faithfulness, He does not leave us when we sin, even when we disobey, He remains. He will punish, but even when we are chastised, it is in love (Proverbs 3:12). He saves us all on His own, praise be to God!