Yet now, if you will forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray you, out of your book which you have written.
All Commentaries on Exodus 32:32 Go To Exodus 32
Cassiodorus Senator
AD 585
What a holy man, most worthy of all praise! When he came down from Mt. Sinai to the camp and saw the people exultantly and sacrilegiously posturing before the idol, he was roused to anger, broke the tablets in front of them and ordered one or other of them to be slain by the sword. But when comprehensive disaster loomed, he prayed that he himself should be destroyed rather than that the entire nation should perish. Both attitudes were devoted and splendid. Moses was right to converse with the divine clemency, for he loved to carry out its decrees. At the same time that power is revealed by which we often escape the punishment of deserved death through the prayers of the saints. Not that anyone can change the Lord’s dispositions, but [we] must realize that the outcome is foreknown by him.
