Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 32:34

"And now go, lead the people unto [the place] of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine angel shall go before thee; nevertheless in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them." — Exodus 32:34 (ASV)

Lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken — that is, continue their leader until Palestine is reached. (Exodus 3:17; Exodus 6:4–8, and following).

Mine Angel shall go before thee. —So far as the form of the expression goes, the promise is, as nearly as possible, a repetition of the original one, Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared (Exodus 23:20). But the meaning of the promise is wholly changed, as we learn from the opening paragraph of the following chapter (Exodus 33:1–3). The “angel” now promised as a guide is not to be God Himself (I will not go up in the midst of thee), but a creature, between whom and God the distance is immeasurable.

In the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them. —All sin is followed by suffering; the sequence is inevitable. God had now consented to spare His people, and to take them back into favor; but they were not to expect that matters would be with them as if their sin had not taken place. It would still be “visited upon them”—not, indeed, by instant death, but still in some way or other. The weary waiting in the wilderness for forty years may have been a part of the punishment (Numbers 14:33); but it may also have been inflicted on different persons in many different ways.