Then the LORD passed by in front of [Moses] and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” (Exodus 34:6–7)

A bad rap is what nominal Christians and non-Christians alike place on the God of the Old Testament. It usually sounds something like this: The OT God is angry, vicious and capricious, but God in the NT is kind, loving and gentle—a turn-the-other-cheek sort of God. Hardly could this be further from the truth.

To be sure, the God of both Testaments is one and the same God, and His character does not change between the two. Indeed, NT passages like Matthew 25:41, Luke 12:48, Hebrews 10:27 and 12:29, 2 Peter 3:7, and the prophecies of Revelation all show God’s character in depictions of His burning anger. However, the God of the Bible is not a deity who flies off the handle at the least provocation or on a whim. He is “slow to anger,” as our passage above points out. This is God’s own assessment.

Remember, God had told the first humans that in the day they ate from the forbidden tree, they would die. However, when that fateful time came, He did not snuff out their lives, but delayed the punishment. He was gracious in not allowing them to eat of the tree of life, so that they would not live forever in a fallen, rebellious state. All along, God showed Himself to be slow to anger. The interaction with Moses following the people’s turn to idolatry is a case in point. While God was in fact angry with them for their bold-faced rejection of Him and their turning to other so-called gods, He could have snapped His finger or merely spoken them into oblivion. But instead, He engaged Moses in conversation to contextualize His character. He is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger.”

Throughout Israel’s history of rebellion—lip service to Yahweh and continuous forays into idolatry, not to mention their treatment of the poor and disadvantaged—God kept stalling to give them time to repent. From the time of David through the 20 kings of Judah, only a few (three) were godly kings, yet it wasn’t until the last one that God finally sent them into exile. Yes, God is slow to anger, slow to act on His anger. I am so glad—otherwise you and I would be long gone to judgment.

Lord, help me never to take Your slowness to anger for granted. For You are quite capable of terrifying wrath, but have graciously held it back from me.