In Exodus 32, Israel failed badly, making and worshipping a gold statue of a bull, an Egyptian god (of all things!). In the violent, revenge-oriented ancient Middle East, the Israelites found it hard to grasp what God was really like. Yet, almost like an unexpected harmony in a dissonant symphony, God (unlike Egypt’s gods) showed Moses a divine character based on the profound realities of love and forgiveness.

• Neither Egyptians nor Canaanites believed their gods loved them. They certainly didn’t envision their “gods” making any good promises to them. Instead, they tended to offer sacrifices mostly to try to stay on their fickle gods’ good side, hoping to avoid the gods’ capricious, hurtful actions. Have you ever known (or been) a person who tends to see God in that way? How does that view affect our ability to love or trust God?
• By contrast, when God revealed his character to Moses, “compassionate and merciful” were the key characteristics in that revelation. In verse 10, even after Israel’s ugly failure in Exodus 32, God told Moses, “I now make a covenant.” Have any of your experiences with human “trust” relationships, good or bad, affected your ability to trust that God’s love for you is truly steadfast? In what ways have you sensed that God sticks with you through both good and bad?