Commentary on Harmony of the Law Volume 2 Complete John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
29. Yet they are thy people, and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power, and by thy stretched-out arm.
29. Ipsi autem sunt populus tuus, et haereditas tua, quam eduxisti fortitudine tua magna, et brachio tuo extento.
7. Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst In order to reprove the ingratitude of the people, Moses here briefly refers to some of their offenses; but he principally insists on the history of their revolt, in which their extreme and most detestable impiety betrayed itself. He therefore narrates this crime in almost the identical words which he had previously used in Exodus. He begins by urging them often to reflect upon their sins, lest they should ever be forgotten; and this constant recollection of them not only tended to humiliate them, but also to teach them at length to lay aside their depraved nature, and to accustom themselves to become obedient to God. Afterwards he proceeds to the history itself, shewing that God had been provoked by their idolatry to destroy them. If a question be here put, how it was that God was prevailed upon by Moses to change His intention, our curiosity must be repressed, lest we should dispute more deeply than is fitting respecting the secret and incomprehensible decree of God. Sure it is that God did not act otherwise than He had determined; but Moses goes no deeper than the sentence that was revealed to him; just as we must assuredly conclude that destruction is prepared for us when we transgress; and that God's anger is appeased when we fly to His mercy in true faith, and with sincere affections. The rest has been already expounded.
17. And I took the two tables, and cast them out Moses here accuses himself of no transgression; he does not, therefore, give us to understand that he was urged to break the tables by the impetuosity of excessive anger; but rather he again repeats what they had deserved, and consequently that he discharged the office of a herald, 391 so as to denounce, not by word of mouth only, but by a solemn rite also, that God's Covenant was broken and made void by their perfidiousness. For which reason also he cast down and broke the tables before their eyes, in order that being alarmed by so awful a punishment, they might more earnestly betake themselves to the expiation of their sins.
18. And I fell down before the Lord The order of the narrative is confused; for this fact of which he speaks did not precede his second ascent into the mount, when he was commanded to prepare the second tables. If so, he
Lat. "Fecialis munere;" alluding doubtless to the custom of the Roman Feciales, in throwing a bloody spear into the territories of others as a declaration of war. See Liv. 1:32.