The Golden Calf debacle prompts several intriguing exchanges between God and Moses. Here’s the first while Moses is still on the mountain:

And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. (Exodus 32.7, ESV)

That is NOT what the LORD said back in Exodus 20:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (Exodus 20.2, ESV)

Sounds like a conversation between parents: “YOUR son…”

Then God threatens to destroy them but Moses intercedes:

And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.” But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people…” (Exodus 32.9 – 12, ESV)

Moses’ prayer is based on the honor of God’s name. Also, as my friend Henry Clay says – Henry is a very powerful pray-er – God likes it when we make a case. Think of Abraham before the judgment of Sodom in Genesis 18. Or Job:

Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat! I would lay my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. (Job 23.3 – 4, ESV)

The back-and-forth between God and Moses continues in Exodus 33:

The LORD said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’ I will send an angel before you,…but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” (Exodus 33.1 – 3, ESV, emphasis mine)

…Moses said to the LORD, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” (Exodus 33.12 – 17, ESV)

Moses is clear: “If your presence will not go with me, then we don’t want to go.” And Moses’ point is something like, “If you’re not with us, in what sense are we your people?” And God responds favorably: “My presence will go with you…this very thing that you have spoken I will do…”

Did God change his mind? A deep question, but these conversations illustrate the power of prayer. Intentional, deliberate, make-a-case prayer. “LORD, you want to do this because…”

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Philippians 4.6, NIV, emphasis mine)