The
Master’s Seminary Journal 12/2 (Fall 2001) 149-166.
Copyright © 2001 by Masters Theological Seminary. Cited with permission.
THE OPENNESS
OF GOD:
DOES PRAYER CHANGE GOD?
William D. Barrick
Professor of Old Testament
A proper understanding of two OT prayers, one by Hezekiah
and one by
Moses, helps in determining whether prayer is the means by which
God gets His
will done on earth or the means by which the believer's will is
accomplished in
heaven. A chronological arrangement of the three records of Hezekiah 's prayer in
2 Kings, 2 Chronicles,
and Isaiah reveals the arrogance of Hezekiah in his
plea
for God to heal him. Because Hezekiah missed the opportunity to
repent of his
self-centered attitude, God revealed that his descendants would become
slaves in
children and grandchildren. His pride further showed itself in his
inability to trust
God for defense against
the Assyrians. God healed Hezekiah,
not so much because
of his prayer, but because of the promises that God had made
to Hezekiah 's
ancestors about sustaining the Davidic line of kings. Hezekiah 's prayer changed
Hezekiah, not God. Moses' prayer in Exodus 32 sought a change from God's
expressed intention of putting an end to
Moses. This suggestion
was not something that the Lord ever intended to occur;
such a course would have voided His expressed purpose for the
twelve tribes of
twelve tribes; He rather altered His timing in order to keep His
promises to them.
What He did in response
to Moses' prayer cannot be taken as normative action.
His "change of
mind" was a tool to elicit a change of response in Moses. Moses’
'prayer
changed Moses, not God.
Introduction
Two very different views of prayer
pervade the church today. The first
view teaches that prayer is one of the means by
which God gets His will done on
earth: "Effective prayer is, as John said,
asking in God's will (John 15:7). Prayer is
not a means by which we get our will done in
heaven. Rather, it is a means by which
149
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Master's Seminary Journal
God
gets his will done on earth.”1
The second view proclaims that
prayer is one of the instruments by which
the believer's will is accomplished in heaven. This
view holds that prayer can
change God:
Prayer affects God more powerfully
than His own purposes. God's will,
words and
purposes are all subject to review when the mighty potencies of
prayer come
in. How mighty prayer is with God may be seen as he readily
sets aside
His own fixed and declared purposes in answer to prayer.2
This
view sees prayer as changing God's mind or helping Him decide what to do,
since He does not know everything.3 In his book The God Who Risks, John
Sanders
writes, "Only if God does not yet know the outcome of my journey can a
prayer for a safe traveling be coherent within the
model of S[imple] F[ore-
knowledge].”4 In other words, an individual has
reason to pray about a journey
only if God does not know where that person is going
or what will happen to him.
If
God already knows where someone is going and what is going to happen, open
theism believes there is no need for prayer regarding
the journey. The prayers of
Hezekiah
and Moses are among the passages whose interpretation is contested by
these two views.
Hezekiah's Prayer (2 Kgs
20:1-11; Isa 38:1-8; 2 Chr
32:24)
Open theists present the prayer of
Hezekiah as an example of prayer
changing God's mind.5 Error in open
theists' approach to this prayer is partially
due to their failure to examine all three records
of Hezekiah's prayer (2 Kgs 20:1-
11;
2 Chr 32:24; Isa 38:1-8) in
their respective contexts.
Hezekiah's Arrogance
King Hezekiah repeatedly manifested
an arrogant mindset. What was
admirable about Hezekiah was that, in spite of
that arrogance and egotism, he was
1 Norman L. Geisler, Creating God
in the Image of Man? (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1997) 86.
2 E. M. Bounds, The Reality of Prayer (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1980) 41.
3 Gregory A. Boyd, God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction
to the Open View of God
(
based on passages like Gen 22:12. ". . . [S]ometimes God tells us that things turn out differently
than he expected" (59)--based on passages like Isa 5:2-4. "Scripture teaches us that God literally
finds out how people will choose when they
choose" (65)--based on passages like I Sam 15:11.
"God
is also perfectly certain about a good deal of what is actually going to take
place in the
future" (150). Clark H. Pinnock,
"Systematic Theology," in The Openness of God: A
Biblical
Challenge to the
Traditional Understanding of God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity,
1994)
122:
"In saying ‘perhaps,’ God also indicates that he does not possess complete
knowledge of the
future"--based on passages like Jer 26:3.
4 John Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of
InterVarsity,
1998) 205.
5 See Boyd, God of the Possible 82; Sanders, The God Who Risks 70-71, 271.
The Openness of God:
Does Prayer Change God? 151
yet sensitive to the leading of God through the
words of the prophet Isaiah. The
king allowed himself to be rebuked, would
demonstrate a sincere change of mind,
and turn to God in faith. Close scrutiny of the
order of events in Hezekiah's
fourteenth year reveal the king's arrogance as well
as his moments of faithfulness.
Old
Testament scholars recognize that the biblical records of Hezekiah's
reign are not in chronological order.6
Prior to his illness, Hezekiah had already
been on the throne for 14 years of his 29-year reign
(2 Kgs 18:2, 13).7 At the time
God
granted him healing and an extended life, He also promised to deliver both
Hezekiah
and
therefore, that deliverance had not occurred prior
to Hezekiah's healing. When
Merodach-baladan, king of
restored Hezekiah (Isa
39:1), the proud king showed them his stored treasures
(39:2-4).
Thus, the stripping of
have taken place subsequent to that event. Careful
reconstruction of the events of
Hezekiah's
fourteenth year as king reveals that it was a very busy year:
1. Sennacherib
invaded
2. Hezekiah
became mortally ill (2 Kgs 20:1; 2 Chr 32:24; Isa 38:1-3).
3. Hezekiah
was healed and granted an additional 15 years of life (2 Kgs
20:5-
6; Isa
38:4-22).
4. Merodach-baladan's envoys bring Hezekiah a letter and gift
because
5. Hezekiah
showed off his wealth to the Babylonian envoys (2 Kgs
20:13-15;
Isa
39:2).
6. Isaiah
informed the king that one day his own descendants would serve in
the
7. Hezekiah
constructed the Siloam water tunnel, strengthened the walls of
8. Weakening
in his faith,8 Hezekiah stripped both the
treasuries
to pay tribute to Sennacherib at
This wealth was what God had given to Hezekiah (cf. 2 Chr 32:27-30).
9. Sennacherib,
sensing Hezekiah's fear and weakness, sent his officers to
demand the unconditional surrender of
2 Chr
32:9-19; Isa 36:2-37:7).
10. The
Assyrian officers left
Kgs
19:8; Isa 37:8).
11. Rumor
of the Ethiopian king's intent to attack Sennacherib resulted in
renewed
pressure upon Hezekiah to surrender (2 Kgs 19:9-13; Isa
37:9-13).
12. In what the writer of 2 Kings and Isaiah
both present as a significant act of
6 John C. Whitcomb, Jr., Solomon to the Exile: Studies in Kings and
Chronicles (
Baker, 1971) 125.
7 Cf. T. R. Hobbs, 2 Kings, Word Biblical Commentary, vol.
13 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1985) 288-89.
8 Whether this was just a
weakening of his resolve to resist Sennacherib or a ploy to buy time
or further strengthening of
upon his own actions rather than upon the living
God's protection.
152 The
Master's Seminary Journal
faith,
Hezekiah took the letter demanding surrender into the
and prayed for deliverance
(2 Kgs 19:14-34; 2 Chr
32:20; Isa 37:14-
20).
13. Isaiah prophesied about the Assyrian king's
removal from
Kgs 19:20-34; Isa 37:21-35).
14. Assyrian troops surrounded
intervention; and Sennacherib
returned to
2 Chr
32:21-22; Isa 37:36-37).
15. The people bestowed such an abundance of
gifts on Hezekiah that even
the nations around
Why is the order of the record in 2 Kings and
Isaiah so confused? It
appears that with chapters 36 and 37, Isaiah
intended to wrap up the prophecies he
had begun in chapter 7 concerning the Assyrian era.
Starting at chapter 38 and
continuing through at least chapter 48, he is
dealing with the Babylonian era. The
writer of 2 Kings was probably well aware of Isaiah's
order and chose to follow it
himself. A summary of each king's life was a
characteristic part of the formula
employed by the writer of Kings. In 2 Kgs 18:3 the summary declared that Hezekiah
"did right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that
his father David had done."9
After
describing the revival under Hezekiah's rule (v. 4) and his piety (vv. 5-6),
his
political achievements are listed (vv. 7-8). The
most prominent of these was the repelling
of the Assyrians. Therefore, the writer proceeds
to describe it in detail (vv. 9-37).
Then
he reveals another side of Hezekiah that God did not choose to hide from His
people. Hezekiah was not a perfect saint.
Hezekiah's illness probably was due to divine
chastening for his arrogance.
Fourteen
years prior to becoming mortally ill he had repaired the
ordered the cleansing of the
29:3-36).
He also had reinstituted the observance of the Passover (30:1-27) and a
revival broke out in the nation (31:1). Then he
led the people in the provision of
tithes and offerings for the
had to be prepared for storing them in the
32:1
sound ominous: "After these acts of faithfulness...."
One indication of the king's arrogance appears
in the self-centered
character of his plea for God to heal him. A
comparison of Isa 38:3 with 37:16-20
reveals that Hezekiah's emphasis in the former was
upon his own deeds ("I have
walked before Thee in truth and with a whole heart,
and have done what is good in
Thy sight"). By contrast, the latter
prayer focused upon God Himself ("Thou art the
God,
Thou alone, . . . Thou hast made ... Incline Thine ear ... open Thine eyes
...
that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou alone, LORD, art
God"
).10 Further
evidence of the king's arrogance is obvious in that even after his
healing, Hezekiah was chastised for arrogance:
"But Hezekiah gave no return for
the benefit
9 Unless otherwise indicated, all
Scripture references are taken from the New
American
Standard Bible (1977).
10 Cf.
The Openness of God:
Does Prayer Change God? 153
he received, because his heart was proud;
therefore wrath came on him and on
God gave Hezekiah the opportunity to show that
his mortal illness and
divine healing had changed his attitude (2 Chr 32:31). Finding no such change,
God
sent Isaiah to prophesy that Hezekiah's descendants would become slaves in
an indignity. He showed no concern for his
children or grandchildren (2 Kgs
20:19;
Isa 39:8).
Hezekiah was one of the most truly human of the
kings, and his portrait
here accords with what is
recorded elsewhere. He was a man whose heart
was genuinely moved towards
the Lord but whose will was fickle under the
pressures and temptations of
life. Like the David who was his ancestor, and
unlike the greater David who
was his descendant, his first thoughts were for
himself. On hearing of his
imminent death his only cry amounted to ‘I do
not want to die’ (38:2-3),
and on hearing of a dark future for his sons his
private thought was ‘There will
be peace ... in my lifetime’ (39:8).11
Perhaps
Hezekiah's first words ("The word of the LORD which you have spoken
is
good," Isa 39:8a) were merely a public show of
yielding to God's will. However,
the Lord knew the king's true thoughts in the
matter (v. 8b). "The clay feet of
Hezekiah
are now apparent."12 Assuming that
Hezekiah did not hide such
feelings from Manasseh, it is no wonder the son
turned out to be so antagonistic to
spiritual things Hezekiah lacked the capacity to
trust God totally for his and the
nation's deliverance from the Assyrians. The fact
that he sent tribute to
Sennacherib
seems to indicate as much. Isaiah had exposed Ahaz's
dependence
upon
followed in his father's footsteps and merited
the prophetic accusation that he
made plans and alliances apart from the Lord
(30:1-5, 15-17; 31:1). There was
truth to the accusations made by Rabshakeh
that Hezekiah had sought help from
Lord
looks on the heart. Sennacherib would not have come had Hezekiah kept
himself free from the worldly expedient of arms,
alliances and rebellion."13
Therefore, with Whitcomb, the conclusion must be
"that if II Kings 20:1
were expanded, it would read: ‘In those days was
Hezekiah sick unto death
because Jehovah chastened him for the pride that
was rising within his heart after
so many years of prosperity and blessing.’”14
In addition to the prosperity, there
was also the matter of Hezekiah trusting more in his own
ingenuity at preparing
the defenses of
11 J. Alec Motyer,
The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction &
Commentary (
12
13 Motyer,
The Prophecy of Isaiah 291.
14 Whitcomb, Solomon to the Exile 126.
154 The
Master's Seminary Journal
Hezekiah's Ancestry
Why did God heal Hezekiah? One possible reason
would be that Manasseh,
who began his reign at the age of 12 when his
father died (2 Kgs 20:21-21:1), might
not have been born yet. However, that has been
disputed. The Israelite system of
coregencies makes it possible that
Manasseh ... was probably a co-regent with his
father-perhaps for 10 years-
since his 55-year reign is
difficult to fit into the history without such a co-
regency. Hezekiah appears to
have failed to provide Manasseh with
sufficient reason to be a godly
kin. However, he may have played a part in
Manasseh's later repentance (2 Chr 33:12-13).15
Oswalt takes a line in Hezekiah's psalm (Isa 38:19, "It is the living who give thanks to
Thee,
as I do today; a father tells his sons about Thy faithfulness") as an
indication that he was still heirless at the time
of his healing.
As Young notes, if it is correct that Hezekiah
had no heir at this time (see on 38:3),
then the opportunity to
declare God's faithfulness to his children
through the added years of life
would have been a special blessing. Given
Manasseh's apostasy, one can only wonder whether
Hezekiah then missed
the opportunity when it was
given him.16
Whether or not Manasseh had not yet been born,
there was a greater reason
why God prolonged Hezekiah's life. Divine action
was founded upon the Lord's
covenant with David. That motivation is clearly
declared in regard to God's promise to
rid Jerusalem of Sennacherib ("I will defend
this city to save it for My own sake and for
My servant David's sake," 2 Kgs 19:34). "It also makes clear that, in spite of his
piety
and his prayers, Hezekiah played a minor role in
the deliverance. Yahweh acted because
of his promise to David.”17 The Davidic
factor is "emphasized by the use of the self-designation
of Yahweh as YHLX
jybx
dvd ('lhy
dwd
15 Ibid.,
127.
16 John N. Oswalt,
The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1-39, New
International Commentary on the
Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1986) 689.
Herbert Lockyer concurs: "His prayer was
heard and his tears seen. God added fifteen years to
Hezekiah's life, during which time a son was
born to him, Manasseh, who became an abomination
unto the Lord. It might have been better for
Hezekiah
had he died when the divine announcement reached him. There are occasions when
God
grants our request, but with it comes leanness of soul" (All the Prayers of the Bible [Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1959] 80). Cf., however, "Nor
did God punish Hezekiah by giving him the
full measure of his `wrongful prayer' as some have
suggested. Indeed selfish, misdirected prayer
(James
4:3) and petitions that are contrary to God's will are not granted (cf. Deut
3:23-26; 2 Cor
12:8
with 2 Chr 7:14; John 15:7)" (Richard D.
Patterson and Hermann J. Austel, "1, 2
Kings," in
The Expositor's Bible
Commentary,
ed. by Frank E. Gaebelein [
Regency/Zondervan,
1988] 4:274).
17
The Openness of God:
Does Prayer Change God? 155
'byk, "the God of David
your father").18
David
as Hezekiah's "father" is followed by the promise to add to
Hezekiah's days
(2
Kgs 20:6) because the "only commandment with a
promise attached grants
length of days for honoring parents."19
In other words, the answer to Hezekiah's prayer
had more to do with the
welfare of the nation and with sustaining the
Davidic line than with the prayer of
Hezekiah.
"It is a sobering thought that when God answers one's prayer, He can
also be considering others in the larger picture,
not just him."20 Oswalt seconds
this concept: "Hezekiah's recovery is not
merely because God has changed his
mind but because of his willingness to keep faith
with those to whom he has
committed himself in the past (Deut. 4:37,
38)."21
Did Hezekiah's Prayer
Change God's Mind?
God did not change His mind because of
Hezekiah's prayer. Nowhere in
the text of 2 Kings 20, 2 Chronicles 32, or Isaiah
38 is the claim made that God
changed His mind. Absence of such a statement in
Scripture does not, however,
prevent open theists from making that claim.
Their claim flies in the face of all that
the Scripture has to say regarding God's
relationship to the Davidic line.
1 Sam 15:29 affirms that Yahweh's choice of
David and his dynasty is
irrevocable, unlike his choice of
Saul. Nathan's statement to David in 2 Sam
7:15 concurs. 1 Sam 24:21; 2 Sam 3:9-10; 7:12,
16; Pss 89:4-5, 36-37;
132:11 all connect Yahweh's irretractable
oath to his promise to David and
his descendants. Thus, I
Sam 15:11, 29, and 35 all come from the same
Davidic circle, which advocated that whereas
Yahweh repented over his
choice of Saul, he would never
repent of his choice of David and his
dynasty.22
"It seems clear," as Bruce Ware points
out, "that the divine repentance, in
such cases, functions as part of a tool for
eliciting a dynamic relationship with
people, a means of drawing our responses which God
uses, then, to accomplish his
ultimate purposes."23 The change
was not in God. The change was in Hezekiah.
How
can the reader of Scripture ascertain whether the change was first in
Hezekiah rather than in God? Within this context the
reader is repeatedly
reminded that the
18 Ibid.,
287.
19 Ibid.
20 James E. Rosscup, unpublished manuscript on prayer, 36.
21 Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah
677.
22 John T. Willis, "The ‘Repentance’
of God in the Books of Samuel, Jeremiah, and Jonah,"
Horizons in Biblical
Theology
16/2 (December 1994):173, referring to the reasoning of Joachim
Jeremias, Die
Reue Gottes: Aspekte alttestamentlicher Gottesvorstellung, Biblische Studien 65
(Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1975) 34-36.
23 Bruce A.
Ware, God's Lesser Glory: The
Diminished God of Open Theism (
Crossway, 2000) 97.
156 The
Master's Seminary Journal
focus is not really Hezekiah. "I will defend
this city to save it for My own sake
and for My servant David's sake" (Isa 37:35) does not include "for your sake."24
God will never contradict what He has said or
promised elsewhere. He
knew what He had promised in the Davidic covenant
and would not violate it.
Divine
provision and care for the nation and for the Davidic dynasty superseded
any immediate death sentence on Hezekiah, no matter
how much it might have
been justified. The illness was designed, not to
kill Hezekiah, but to humble him.
Its
purpose was to teach the arrogant king that he was insignificant in God's
overall plan. Likewise, there was no change in
anything that the Lord had planned
with regard to the length of Hezekiah's life (cf. Ps
139:1625). As far as Hezekiah's
limited grasp of reality was concerned, God had
added the 15 years at the time of
his prayer. The Lord spoke of them from Hezekiah's
standpoint.26
A reprieve had been granted to Hezekiah.
However, that reprieve was
primarily for
"only a temporary one. And it is conditional. The life of a
man or of a city is solely
in the hand of God."27
Interestingly, God's specific declaration that
Hezekiah's life would be
extended 15 years is, in itself, inconsistent
with Open Theism.
God granted to Hezekiah fifteen years of
extended life--not two, not twenty,
and certainly not
"we'll both see how long you live," but fifteen years
exactly. Does it not seem a bit
odd that this favorite text of open theists,
which purportedly
demonstrates that God does not know the future and so
changes his mind when Hezekiah
prays, also shows that God knows
precisely and exactly how much
longer Hezekiah will live? On openness
grounds, how could God know
this? Over a fifteen-year time span, the
contingencies are staggering!28
Moses' Prayer (Exod 32:1-35)
Exodus 32 is another passage contested by the
two views of prayer
introduced at the beginning of this essay. Open
theists parade it as evidence that
prayer changes God's mind.29 The chapter
describes the role of Moses' prayer in
24 Isa
38:6's parallel in 2 Kgs 20:6 adds a nearly identical
statement: "I will
defend this city for My own sake and for My servant
David's sake."
25 Boyd tortures the text in
order to gain support for his opinion that the length
of one's life may be altered (God of the Possible 40-42).
26 Rosscup,
Manuscript on prayer, 36.
27 Oswalt,
The Book of Isaiah 673. Oswalt
introduced this declaration with an
astute observation regarding the theme of Isa
38: "the major thrust of the chapter,
including the psalm (vv. 9-20), is upon the
mortality of the flesh."
28 Ware,
God's Lesser Glory 95.
29 Richard Rice, "Biblical
Support for a New Perspective," in The Openness of God: A
Biblical
Challenge to the
Traditional Understanding of God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity,
1994) 27-
29.
The Openness of God: Does Prayer Change God? 157
God's
dealing with
Sinai.
That idolatry aroused God's anger. As a result,
He spoke of putting an end
to the nation and starting over again with just
Moses (Exod 32:10). Did the Lord
make a legitimate offer to Moses? Is it possible
that God had only made an
announcement, not a decree,
therefore He was free to change His mind about its
implementation?30 Could the Lord nullify
the prophecies concerning the
individual tribes of
12:1-3)
in order to produce a new nation from Moses? Did Moses' prayer
permanently remove the sentence of death from the
nation?
Unlike the biblical accounts concerning
Hezekiah's prayer, Exodus 32
specifies that "the LORD changed His
mind" (v. 14). What is involved in God
changing His mind or relenting? Is it the
retraction of declared punishment in an act
of forgiveness? Parunak31 offers
parallelism, idiom, and context as indicators
for determining the meaning of MHn (nhm,
"He changed His mind"). Are these
sufficient for determining the meaning in this
text? Since a postponement of
inevitable judgment would allow time for the rise
of a new generation of Israelites
to replace the one to be destroyed, was the change
of mind a matter of expediency?
Who was changed? God or Moses?
How does prayer relate to the
petitioner's will and God's will? Is
prayer a means of training leadership and/or
testing leadership? Is prayer the means of human
participation in God's program?
If
so, what kind of participation? Does anthropomorphic interpretation apply well
to the concept of God changing His mind or
regretting His actions?32 In such
matters, is there anything to Graham Cole's
comment that "it may not be so much
a matter of God being anthropopathic
(human like) but of our being theopathic
(God
like) as bearers of the divine image"?33
In this examination of Exodus 32 the text itself
is enlisted as the primary
witness. Therefore, the study will be organized
according to the order of the text.
Donald
Gowan makes the important observation that the Book
of Exodus "reaches
its theological conclusion with chapters 32-34, for
they explain how it can be that
30 Robert B. Chisholm, Jr.,
"Does God ‘Change His Mind’?," BSac 152/608
(October 1995):396.
31 H. Van Dyke Parunak, "A Semantic Survey of NHM," Biblica 56/4
(1975):512-32.
32
"The Scriptures, however, which come to us as a revelation from God, often
bear an
anthropomorphic character. All our
speaking of God must, in fact, be anthropomorphic. We need
not, on that account, devaluate Scripture's
ascription of longsuffering to God. To do so
consistently would be to rob
Scripture of much of its own vocabulary" (G. C. Berkouwer, The
Providence of God, Studies in Dogmatics [reprint of 1983 ed.;
73-74).
Berkouwer is discussing the forbearance of God in the
days of Noah when God patiently
held back judgment for a time while the call to
repentance was given. This same discussion of
anthropomorphism could be equally
applied to concepts of God "regretting" or "repenting" of
his
actions.
33 Graham A. Cole, "The
Living God: Anthropomorphic or Anthropopathic?" The Reformed
Theological Review 59/1 (April 2000):24.
158 The
Master's Seminary Journal
the covenant relationship continues in spite of
perennial sinfulness."34 Thus the
context itself emphasizes the Lord's
faithfulness in spite of
While Moses was on
idol for themselves and attributed to it their
deliverance out of
had deliberately committed the sin of idolatry;
therefore they deserved to die (cf.
Deut
7:4; 8:19; 29:17-20; 32:15-25). By his later actions, Moses demonstrated that
he recognized the justice of the death sentence
for his people because of their
wickedness (Exod
32:27-29).35 When he had seen for himself what the Lord had
already seen, Moses' actions mirrored those of God:
anger, determination to
remove the idolatry, and ordering the execution of the
idolaters.
The Divine Declaration
of Judgment (32:7-10)
"Go down at once, for your people ... have
corrupted themselves" (32:7).
When
the Lord revealed the crisis to Moses, He changed the possessive pronoun to
indicate "that he was disowning
Then
He proceeded to offer Moses the opportunity to start over with a different
people who might not be so stubbornly disobedient. Gowan claims that the offer to
Moses
reveals the "vulnerability" of God.37 He quickly adds,
Having said that, I must immediately emphasize
that in this passage God's
vulnerability is set alongside strong
statements concerning his
sovereignty.... Yet this sovereign
God, who is fully in charge, . . . is also
represented as a God who will
change his plans as a result of human
intervention, and more than that; he
indicates that he has subjected
himself to some extent to the
will of Moses.38
The implications of "Now then let Me alone" (32:10) have been variously
construed by the commentators and theologians.
Kaiser viewed it as God's way to