After Moses, with the assistance of his Levite brethren, succeeded in bringing order to the camp of Israel after the sin of the golden calf, he still had to deal with the rift that this sin had created in Israel's relationship with God. The problem is reflected in the language of Exodus 32:7 and Exodus 33:1, where God refers to "your people" and "the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt.'
Although he is angry with the Israelites, Moses expresses his solidarity with them. In Exodus 32:32, Moses says that if God is not willing to forgive the nation, then he should blot Moses' name out of his book as well. As commentator Douglas Stuart points out, Moses is not offering here to die in place of the Israelites; instead, he is offering to die along with them.
God answers that it is those who have sinned whose names will be removed from the book (verse 33).
In verses 32-33, it is assumed that God has a listing of everyone who has life, and that it is possible for God to remove names from that listing. This concept of a "book of life" appears a number of times in the Bible (Ps 69:28; Phil 4:3; Rev 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12,15; 21:27). The book of Revelation says that in the judgment, it is those whose names are in the book of life who will receive eternal salvation, while those removed from the book will suffer the "second death" (Rev 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8).
Stuart notes some theological consequences of the Bible's discussion of the book of life. For one thing, Exodus 32:33 implies that since all of us have sinned, all of us need to be forgiven in order to have a place in the book of life. Moreover, we all start out in the book of life; all have the potential to be saved (1 Tim 2:3-4; 2 Peter 3:9). And our names will remain there if we continue in faith and obedience throughout our lives.
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