Then the LORD said, “I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.” But Moses tried to pacify the LORD his God. “O LORD!” he said. “Why are you so angry with your own people whom you brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand? Why let the Egyptians say, ‘Their God rescued them with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth’? Turn away from your fierce anger. Change your mind about this terrible disaster you have threatened against your people! Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You bound yourself with an oath to them, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. And I will give them all of this land that I have promised to your descendants, and they will possess it forever.’” So the LORD changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people. (Exodus 32:9-14)
I am the LORD, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed. (Malachi 3:6)
The Israelites had made a golden calf to worship while Moses was away on Mt Sinai getting the Ten Commandments and the rest of the law of God. While he was up there and God was telling him how he would be caring for his people, the people below were turning on God.
When Moses came down he was mad. Under his direction, the Levites killed 3000 people and a plague was sent by God on the rest. A great number of people died during that period of time.
God was really mad at Israel. His response, to make a new nation out of Moses and his children. Moses said no. He told God, in essence, that you knew what you were getting when you started this whole thing. And if you kill them all, it will make you look bad in the sight of all the surrounding nations.
Moses said to God: change your mind. And God did.
The future actions of God are not set in stone. If they were, prayer would be useless, nothing but a rubber stamping of all God already intended to do.
The passage in Malachi says that God is the same as he was then. If he could have his mind changed then, he can have it changed today.
I don’t know what God was thinking when he was talking to Moses. Maybe it was wishful thinking on the part of God. Get rid of the whole bunch and start again. But Moses’ family was not a lot better. It was his brother who made the calf in the first place. His sister Miriam joined in rebellion against him later and contracted leprosy as a result.
It is interesting that we know about the children of just about everybody else in the Bible, but not anything at all about Moses’ children. Were they good? Were they holy and righteous? Were they the caliber of people that would produce a great nation? We don’t know. Jacob was a great man of God, but, for the most part, his kids were not all that great. And their children were also not all that great, either.
But one thing comes from this. And it is true or the Bible is wrong. We can change the mind of God if we try. God may be able to know everything that will happen, but I do not think he chooses to. And he can change his mind about what he will do when the godly ask him to.
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