16. The Lord, the Lord

Moses has just asked for something enormous. He wants to see God's glory. If you had to guess what God would do next, you might picture blazing light or a thunderclap. Instead, in Exodus 34, the LORD comes down in the cloud, stands beside Moses, and speaks his own name out loud. In Ortlund's telling, God defines his glory through his mercy and goodness. What Moses wanted turns out to sound less like a light show and more like a character.

So read verse 6 slowly, the way you would read a letter from someone who loves you, one phrase at a time. The LORD proclaims, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." Now notice the order. Before power, before judgment, before any rule, God says he is merciful and gracious. Then slow to anger. Then abounding, a word that sounds like a cup running over. Ortlund draws attention to that first move: the opening line of God's self-introduction is compassion. It is not a footnote tucked in after the serious stuff.

Then comes the part that makes many readers nervous. God is "keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation." Ortlund does not wave this away. Guilt is real, and God does not shrug at it. But look at the numbers. His steadfast love reaches thousands. The fallout of sin reaches to the third and fourth generation. Three or four on one side, thousands on the other. Mercy travels far past the damage. Notice too that three different words for wrongdoing are piled up after "forgiving," as if no kind of failure is left off the list.

Ortlund also sets Moses on the mountain next to the disciples in the boat in Mark 6. The disciples are straining at the oars in the wind, and Jesus comes toward them walking on the sea. Mark says he meant to pass by them. That sounds a lot like Moses on Sinai, where God passes before him. But the story does not end there. Jesus does not pass by. He gets into the boat. The same heart that announced its name on the mountain climbs into the storm with frightened people.

So here is the move for today. When you picture God looking at you, what does he say first? If your honest answer is a list of your failures, hold that picture up next to verse 6. In the name he gave himself, mercy and grace lead the way.