Chapter LIII.—The Love of Moses Towards His People.

Ye understand, beloved, ye understand well the sacred Scriptures, and ye have looked very earnestly into the oracles of God. Call then these things to your remembrance. When Moses went up into the mount, and abode there, with fasting and humiliation, forty days and forty nights, the Lord said unto him, "Moses, Moses, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people whom thou didst bring out of the land of Egypt have committed iniquity. They have speedily departed from the way in which I commanded them to walk, and have made to themselves molten images." ^[4283] And the Lord said unto him, "I have spoken to thee once and again, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people: let me destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make thee a great and wonderful nation, and one much more numerous than this." ^[4284] But Moses said, "Far be it from Thee, Lord: pardon the sin of this people; else blot me also out of the book of the living." ^[4285] O marvellous ^[4286] love! O insuperable perfection! The servant ^[4287] speaks freely to his Lord, and asks forgiveness for the people, or begs that he himself might perish ^[4288] along with them.