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was to be cut off. Pitying their distress, Moses promised to plead once
more with God for them.
“Ye have sinned a great sin,” he said, “and now I will go up unto
the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.” He
went, and in his confession before God he said, “Oh, this people have
sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now if Thou
wilt forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy
book which Thou hast written.” The answer was, “Whosoever hath
sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book. Therefore now
go, lead the people into the place of which I have spoken unto thee:
behold, Mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless, in the day
when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”
In the prayer of Moses our minds are directed to the heavenly
records in which the names of all men are inscribed, and their deeds,
whether good or evil, are faithfully registered. The book of life con-
tains the names of all who have ever entered the service of God. If any
of these depart from Him, and by stubborn persistence in sin become
finally hardened against the influences of His Holy Spirit, their names
will in the judgment be blotted from the book of life, and they them-
selves will be devoted to destruction. Moses realized how dreadful
would be the fate of the sinner; yet if the people of Israel were to
be rejected by the Lord, he desired his name to be blotted out with
theirs; he could not endure to see the judgments of God fall upon those
who had been so graciously delivered. The intercession of Moses in
behalf of Israel illustrates the mediation of Christ for sinful men. But
the Lord did not permit Moses to bear, as did Christ, the guilt of the
transgressor. “Whosoever hath sinned against Me,” He said, “him will
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I blot out of My book.”
In deep sadness the people had buried their dead. Three thousand
had fallen by the sword; a plague had soon after broken out in the
encampment; and now the message came to them that the divine Pres-
ence would no longer accompany them in their journeyings. Jehovah
had declared, “I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiff-
necked people: lest I consume thee in the way.” And the command was
given, “Put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do
unto thee.” Now there was mourning throughout the encampment. In
penitence and humiliation “the children of Israel stripped themselves
of their ornaments by the mount Horeb.”