Book of Exodus question

[Ontheway]

In Exodus 32 verse 12 Moses asks God to “repent”. (RSV) Later on, verse 14 reads:
“And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people”.

The question I have is - how can Moses ask God to repent and before whom does God repent?
Is this just an unfortunate translation or am I misunderstanding something here?

My Douay-Rheims uses the phrase “be appeased upon the wickedness of thy people”, and later, “And the Lord was appeased…”

To my ears, this sounds more acceptable. Can anyone help with this?

 

[10gr8kids]

I’ve heard that repent can mean to “turn away”. It would make sense in this context. Moses asking God to turn away from His wrath. And God did turn away and didn’t do the evil He had thought to do to His people.

 

[sirach2v4]

We believe that God is unchanging like in this case or in the case in Genesis of testing Abraham’s faith, to sacrifice Isaac.

As Pope Benedict XVI stated in the first volume of his series on Jesus of Nazareth, we have a right and duty to ask God for our spiritual and physical needs, and needs in general. It appears God wanted Moses to intercede, so he could demonstrate his nature and particularly his mercy.