Exodus 34:9-26 - Homiletics

The covenant renewed.

That God should have consented to renew the covenant with Israel after it had been violated so flagrantly is evidence of two things:

1 . His faithfulness towards his true followers, which makes him "merciful unto thousands of those that love him," and renders him tender to the children for the sake of the fathers;

2 . The value that he sets on intercessory prayer, when offered earnestly by a believer. In the renewal itself we may notice:—

I. THAT THE PROMISES NOW MADE EXCEED ALL THOSE WHICH HAD BEEN MADE TO THE PEOPLE PREVIOUSLY . Leadership had been promised; help in driving out the nation had been promised; the possession of Canaan had been promised. But not "marvels such as had not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation" ( Exodus 34:10 )—not an enlargement of the nation's boundaries beyond the limits of Canaan ( Exodus 34:24 )—not security against their land being invaded when they went up to the three great festivals ( ibid. ). These, so far as the people were concerned, were new and additional pledges. God is apt "to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think." He ties himself down to perform certain promises; but he does not tie himself down not to do more than he has promised. He will give to man ultimately, not only more than he is bound to give, but more than "it has entered into the heart of man to conceive."

II. THAT THE PROHIBITIONS ARE IN SOME CASES MORE STRINGENT THAN BEFORE . According to the former covenant, idolatrous images were not to be spared; according to this neither images, nor altars, nor groves ( Exodus 34:13 ); according to that, the Sabbath rest was not to be infringed, as a general rule—according to this, not even on account of the most necessary operations of husbandry ( Exodus 34:21 ); according to that, treaties were not to be made with the Canaanitish nations—according to this, neither treaties nor matrimonial alliances. To balance the greater favours, there were imposed greater obligations, whereby was inculcated the lesson that the two are correlative.

III. THE PRECEPTS REIMPOSED WERE , IN ADDITION TO THE DECALOGUE , CHIEFLY THOSE CONNECTED WITH WORSHIP . It was the attraction of a corrupt worship which had caused Israel to fall away. Their best security against a second similar fall would be careful and constant observance of the pure worship prescribed to them. If they kept properly the Sabbath, the great festivals, the laws of sacrifice, of redemption, of first fruits, and whatever was similar to these, it might well content their religious aspirations, and leave no such vacuum in their lives as they had hoped to fill with their calf-worship. True, that many of the precepts could not be observed until they reached Canaan; but, as a compensation, they would have in the wilderness the daily worship—morning and evening—of the tabernacle, and the near presence of God in the pillar of the cloud, not henceforth to be withdrawn from them. The true spiritual life could be amply sustained on these—it was only a pseudo-spiritualism that the calf-worship would have exercised.