Moses' other 40 days
audacious intercession
One of the great things when reading the Bible is to come across things you've forgotten or never really noticed before. I was reading Deuteronomy the other day as we came across this:
9:18 Then once again I fell prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and so arousing his anger. 19 I feared the anger and wrath of the Lord, for he was angry enough with you to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me. …
25 I lay prostrate before the Lord those forty days and forty nights because the Lord had said he would destroy you. …
10:10 Now I had stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I did the first time, and the Lord listened to me at this time also. It was not his will to destroy you. (NIV)
The events here relate to Ex 32, when Moses comes down from the mountain after 40 days, sees the Golden Calf, smashes the two tablets, and then intercedes for Israel lest God destroy them. However, you have to read on to Ex 34:28 to find any mention of Moses spending another forty days and nights fasting on the mountain. Here in the Deuteronomy account, vv 18, 25, and 10:10 all underline the idea that Moses spend those forty days and nights prostrate, fasting, in order to avert God's judgment on Israel through his intercession.
I find this fascinating. Moses already spent forty days and nights in the presence of God, in which time he presumably is being taught the ways of YHWH and the regulations of what will be the Covenant at Sinai, and that was enough to bring the Israelites to the point of fashioning the Golden Calf. Moses comes down, sees what’s going on, ‘loses it’1, and then returns and spends another forty days and nights in the presence of God, fasting, and interceding for Israel.
Not only this, but we are told the content of his prayer:
9:26 I prayed to the Lord and said, “Sovereign Lord, do not destroy your people, your own inheritance that you redeemed by your great power and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin. 28 Otherwise, the country from which you brought us will say, ‘Because the Lord was not able to take them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.’ 29 But they are your people, your inheritance that you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.” (NIV)
Notice these things: firstly, the audacity of Moses. His relationship to YHWH is such that he can, and regularly appears to, speak quite frankly with God and ask him things we would probably shrink from.
Secondly, the basis for his plea rests on reminding God of his own words and deeds: that Israel are God’s people, God’s inheritance, God’s redeemed; that he made promises to the patriarchs and he ought to keep them; that the honour and reputation of God as a god among the nations is at stake; and finally he returns to the claim that they are God’s people, inheritance, and redeemed.
Thirdly, I’m struck by the sheer dedication of Moses. Even when God essentially says to Moses, “hey, I’m pretty done with these clowns. I’ll just wipe them out and start over with you and your descendants. Kay?” and Moses says, “Look, I know they all are a bunch of buffoons, but could ya just give them another chance?”
Fourthly, 10:10 contains the answer for the why: “It was not his will to destroy you.” It doesn’t explain the why behind the why, though. Why did the Lord listen to Moses? Why was it not his will? All we know, honestly, is what Moses knows, and that’s that it wasn’t the Lord’s will to destroy them. How does Moses know that? Because the Lord doesn’t destroy them.
How can you know that your prayers with God will find favour and receive a favourable answer? Sometimes you just don’t, until you receive the answer. And then you know the Lord’s will.
Depends on your definition of ‘lose it’.