Exodus 32:14

14 ADONAI then changed his mind about the disaster he had planned for his people.

Exodus 32:14 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 32:14

And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do
unto his people.
] He did not do what he threatened to do, and seemed to have in his thoughts and designs, but did what Moses desired he would, ( Exodus 32:12 ) not that any of God's thoughts or the determinations of his mind are alterable; for the thoughts of his heart are to all generations; but he changes the outward dispensations of his providence, or his methods of acting with men, which he has been taking or threatened to take; and this being similar to what they do when they repent of anything, who alter their course, hence repentance is ascribed to God, though, properly speaking, it does not belong to him, see ( Jeremiah 18:8 ) . Aben Ezra thinks that the above prayer of Moses, which was so prevalent with God, does not stand in its proper place, but should come after ( Exodus 32:31 ) for, to what purpose, says he, should Moses say to the Israelites, ( Exodus 32:30 ) "peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin": if he was appeased by his prayer before?

Exodus 32:14 In-Context

12 Why let the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intentions that he led them out, to slaughter them in the hills and wipe them off the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce anger! Relent! Don't bring such disaster on your people!

13 Remember Avraham, Yitz'chak and Isra'el, your servants, to whom you swore by your very self. You promised them, 'I will make your descendants as many as the stars in the sky; and I will give all this land I have spoken about to your descendants; and they will possess it forever.'"

14 ADONAI then changed his mind about the disaster he had planned for his people.

15 Moshe turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets inscribed on both sides, on the front and on the back.

16 The tablets were the work of God; and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.