How Would God Describe Himself?

What Exodus 34:6-7 reveals about God's character, mercy, and justice.

By Pastor John Erickson | Exodus 32-34

If I asked you to describe God in five words, what would you say?

Powerful. Holy. All-knowing. Perfect. Eternal.

Those are good words. But in Exodus 34:6-7, God gives Moses a description of His own character. He speaks of compassion, grace, patience, steadfast love, faithfulness, and forgiveness. He also says that guilt will not simply be left unpunished.

It's a beautiful passage. Then you reach the part about judgment and think, Couldn't we have ended the reading a little earlier?

The setting helps us understand why both parts belong there.

God speaks after a spectacular failure

Israel has been rescued from Egypt and brought to Mount Sinai. God is forming a covenant with them. Then, while Moses is on the mountain, the people make a golden calf and worship it (Exodus 32).

It is a staggering betrayal in the middle of a relationship that has barely begun.

Imagine a groom asking to pause the wedding ceremony so he can go cheat on his bride, then returning and saying, "Okay, let's get married."

The absurdity helps us feel something of the breach. This wasn't a minor misunderstanding about the order of service.

Moses intercedes for the people. Across Exodus 32-34, we see the seriousness of their failure and God's willingness to continue with them. When God proclaims His character, He is dealing with people who have given Him every reason to walk away.

Compassion and grace are being shown in the middle of that story.

Mercy gets much harder when somebody else needs it

I want God to be just when people are being oppressed. When someone is cruel or destructive, I want Him to care and act.

When I'm the one who is guilty, my enthusiasm for judgment becomes considerably more restrained.

That tension helps explain why this passage can unsettle us. We want a God who confronts evil and a God who forgives. But holding those together gets difficult when we start deciding who deserves which response.

Exodus 34 gives us one description of one God. He forgives wickedness, rebellion, and sin. He also takes the damage of evil seriously. His patience is not permission to keep betraying the relationship.

What about the children and later generations?

Verse 7 raises a difficult question when it speaks about punishment extending to later generations. Does that mean a child is personally guilty simply because a parent sinned?

Ezekiel 18:19-20 explicitly rejects transferring a parent's guilt to a child who does what is right. We need to keep that passage in view as we read Exodus.

Sin can have consequences that reach far beyond the person who commits it. We know that from families and communities. But suffering the effects of somebody else's choices is different from personally committing their wrongdoing. Later generations also face their own choices about whether to continue those patterns.

That doesn't make every question about Exodus 34 easy. It does keep us from treating one difficult phrase as though the rest of Scripture had nothing to say.

Notice the larger contrast in the passage, too: love maintained to thousands alongside judgment described in terms of a third and fourth generation. Mercy has not become a footnote to God's character.

Which picture of God comes with you when you pray?

Some people approach God as though His patience ran out last Tuesday. Every prayer begins with the assumption that He's disappointed and would rather not hear from them.

Others imagine He doesn't care much about how anybody lives.

Exodus 34 challenges both pictures. The Lord who speaks to Moses is compassionate, forgiving, faithful, and just. Those qualities belong together.

In Jesus, we see God's mercy move toward people and His truth confront what harms them. Romans 5 reminds us that Christ came to us while we were still sinners. We don't have to repair ourselves before asking for His grace.

Read Exodus 34:6-7 slowly this week, with the golden calf story in mind. Which part of God's description is hardest for you to believe? Which part challenges the way you treat someone else?

Let the God who speaks for Himself question the picture you've been carrying.