Exodus 32--The Golden Calf

The Golden Calf​
32 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” 6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 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.”

11 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? 12 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. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

15 Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. 16 The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. 17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” 18 But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” 19 And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20 He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.

21 And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” 22 And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. 23 For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 24 So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

25 And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), 26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord's side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. 27 And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’” 28 And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. 29 And Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.”

30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” 31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.” 33 But the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. 34 But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”

35 Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.

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I've been pointing to and hinting at this event ever since the people got to Mount Sinai around Exodus 19.  They swore they would obey everything that God commanded of them, and God sent Moses down more than once to confirm and renew the covenant with them, but they were there a very long time--this last time he was gone on the mountain for 40 days!  They assumed the worst had happened to him.  Having not been given any instructions directly from God other than "hold" and "wait" and "keep your distance,"

The people got tired of obeying this command and looked to their leaders for a "new" and "fresh" word--something that gave them something to do.  But waiting sometimes is part of being careful to do everything exactly as God has commanded of us because God usually says, "Wait and see what I will do."!

The people turn to Aaron and demand that he make idols for them to worship--the very idols that they left behind in Egypt that were unable to save the Egyptian people from the plagues there, and the very idols that God had commanded His people to never worship and never make in the first commandment and second commandment.  Remember that the Ten Commandments had been confirmed orally with God's people in chapter 24, so they knew these commandments and had sworn and agreed to follow them and their agreement was marked with sacrifices and they were sprinkled with blood--it was no trivial promise or commitment they had made.  But how long could they keep this law?  Not very long (and that's all of us, not just them).  We know our own human nature to know that they likely sinned before this, but this corporate rebellion against the Law of the LORD was the first obvious sin of the nation (God's people) and it happened before God even finished writing out the Law on the stone tablets, "before the ink dried" or "while the ink was still wet" if you will--there was no ink in this process though as we read last time that God etched the Law into the tablets of stone with His finger--I think much the same way that He has written His Law onto our hearts of stone and given everyone (but especially this people He had chosen for Himself) a conscience that was meant to work in concert with the Law of God and let men know when they were violating it, or about to violate it.

We see that the items that God had provided to the people during their Exodus that were to be used for the building of His tabernacle and for His worship were turned into making false gods and objects of paganism and debauchery.  They ascribed to the idol the works of the LORD (and remember He was known by His works, so they are giving the idol the identity of the LORD, though He's specifically told them He is spirit and has no form for them to make an idol of), and they made for themselves a god that would allow them to do as they willed and worship it in the way that they wanted and pretend that they were celebrating God while they were really celebrating themselves and their carnality.  They were choosing to make gods like the Canaanites did and worship in the way that the Canaanites did--the very people that God said to them for them to never be like.  The very influence that God has tried to keep them away from for 400 years and the very kinds of sins that God is about to judge the Canaanites for are now not only within the people that call themselves by His name, but have now been incorporated into their acts of worship.  The Hebrews were not alone in this though--this is much the same problem that the Corinthian church faced as it tried to be an "emerging church" to use today's language and tried to adapt it's methods to allow people to worship in a way they knew and felt comfortable with--but we already talked about with the altar of incense that God has a very special recipe for the worship that is offered to Him and it's not to be mixed with or substituted with or substituted for anything else.  God sets the rules on how we approach Him and what is glorifying to Him and what isn't, and that is the litmus test here--the people were out to pretend they were glorifying God while acting in a way that was completely inconsistent with His law, His nature, His character, and everything that He had done and said so far.  Therefore, they were not really out to worship God and praise His great name, they were out for some other reason--maybe to worship pleasure, or maybe to make a name for themselves, or maybe they wanted some control over God because if they made and fashioned their god then they can control it--if it does what you don't like, just melt it down and make a new one.

7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” (emphasis added)

I find it interesting here that God seems to be testing Moses to see if he yet understands that the people belong to God, not to Moses, and that it is God that lead them up out of the land of Egypt, not Moses.  Even in the days of Jesus, the Jews would get this wrong and would say that Moses gave them bread in the wilderness--that's wrong!  Moses gave them nothing unless the LORD first provided it for them.  The bread came down from heaven every morning--just enough for each day--and yet they refused to give glory to God for the daily provision they received and chose to worship and elevate the created man rather than the Creator God.

Moses responds correctly to the test and asks God why His anger burns so hot against His people the He brought up out of Egypt?  Then Moses asks God what would happen to His name and reputation among the people of Egypt and all the other nations if God would simply kill His covenant people that He had just saved and said that they were a son to Him?  Is that the God that was to be so much superior to the gods of the Egyptians and the Canaanites?  Well, surely God's wrath would have been warranted and just in this case, but it would go against the covenant that God had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--an everlasting covenant that could not be broken.  In fact, it would go against the covenant He had sworn to Noah and Adam as well, and even go against the covenant that was sworn within the Godhead before the beginning of time (the gospel) and God is not a liar and will never do anything to break His covenant with His people.  I'll say it again--God will never break covenant with His people!  The teaching that somehow God got angry at the Jews for killing Jesus and has somehow broken covenant with them and replaced them with the Church is a lie from the father of lies--the devil.  If God can so easily break His covenant with Israel, what makes you think that He can't just as easily break His covenant with you?  That is not what Jesus taught--Jesus taught that the wild branches (Gentile believers) were grafted into the Vine (true Israel, which is really Him) and that they would change the makeup of the entire organism, but it would change them and they would become one people in Christ with one Spirit moving through them all to produce good fruit.  (See John 15).

As I said, Moses responded correctly and passed the test and God "repented" here (not really because God didn't change His mind), but He did not bring about the plague that it seemed apparent He was going to bring and that He had promised the people that would come if they broke the Law they had been given--again, remember chapters 19 and 25 where the people swore that all the plagues that came upon the Egyptians should come upon them if they broke God's Law and failed to obey every commandment that He gave to them.

But then Moses had a little bit of an issue.  He experienced some righteous indignation for sure, but we know from the past that Moses is a bit of hot-head and that he's already let his temper flare up to the point of killing an Egyptian taskmaster that was beating a Hebrew slave.  In both cases, he has a right to be angry, but it is God, not man, who will bring ultimate vengeance and justice and our responses should keep us in control of our emotions and not be controlled by them.  It appears that once again, Moses lost control, and this will not be the last time that this happens--and this will be his sin that will keep him out of the Promised Land.

Joshua, who had been with Moses hears the noises the people are making in their worship of the false god and thought that there must be some great battle going on--that such noises could only be attributed to war cries of victory or shouts of agony of being overrun, but Moses corrects him and says that it is the people "singing."  Moses is so angry about what He has seen that He throws aside God's Law and the tablets are broken--the very tablets that God just spent 40 days and 40 nights to write with His own finger.  And Moses is going to make the people pay for their sin and give an answer--especially his brother Aaron.  Notice he assumes the people had to do something to Aaron to make him do this, but it appears from the account earlier that Aaron willingly complied and immediately came up with a plan--maybe in an attempt to show that he too knew how to lead and give instructions.  After all, he was Moses' older brother.  While Aaron did try to shift the blame to the people and say they had their hearts set on evil, he freely admitted that it was his plan for them to make the golden calf.  Moses grinds the golden calf to powder and spreads it out over the water and makes the people drink it.  

I love this next part (for the question, not necessarily the bloodshed)!  Moses saw that the people had "broken loose" and needed to be reined in.  He draws a line in the sand (maybe literally) and say asks, "Who is one the LORD's side?"  We have a great hymn that asks this same question which I'll post to my Facebook page today.  The sons of Levi are quick to respond (the tribe to which Moses belonged) and Moses instructs them to quickly put their swords because the LORD has commanded that the people are to die for their sin (I would assume those who would not repent since a significant number but not all of them were killed).  The tribe of Levi was asked to patrol the gates of the camp (again, assuming this was to kill anyone that was trying to desert and turn their back on Israel and God and try to escape God's justice).  About 3,000 men died at the hands of the Levites that day.  This is not the first time that we've seen the tribe of Levi take up the sword in righteous indignation--in fact we saw it play out with Levi, the son of Jacob, when he and his brother killed a whole clan of Canaanites for the sin committed against their sister.  We'll see later that a plague will come upon the camp because of a rebellion and one of the Levites will run a spear through the one who was guilty (see Numbers 25--a very similar situation where the people worship Baal, one of the Canaanite gods, and possibly the same kind of golden calf from here in Exodus, at Peor).  While the loss of 3,000 people seems extreme, remember that the whole nation deserved to die for their sin, and God spared hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people that day.  You would hope this would teach them their lesson, but as I just mentioned about Numbers 25, the people did not learn and would turn back to idols as they mixed together with the women of other cultures and religions and were "unequally yoked with unbelievers."

The next morning, after the Levites had slain the 3,000 men of Israel and ordained the Levites for the LORD's service, Moses returns to the LORD with a most unusual request.  "Forgive their sin, but if you will not forgive their sin, then transfer their sin onto my account and blot my name out of the Book of Life.  Let me be damned so that these people, Your people, may be saved."  Wow!  Have we seen such a picture of Christ and His work of substitutionary atonement yet in the Old Testament?!?!  The problem is that Moses could not pay for the sins of the people, because he had his own sins, but one day, God Himself would come in the person of Jesus Christ with no sin nature and no sin of His own to pay for to be The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world--not just the nation of Israel.  But God doesn't give Moses this hope.  God tells Moses that all sin will be judged both now and in eternity and if these people die in their sins that their names will be blotted out of the Book of Life because of their own sin.

God instructs Moses to just continue to obey Him and continue to lead the people and that God would send His angel (I've already talked about how I think this is the angel of the LORD who is the preincarnate Christ, the second person of the Trinity, in the Old Testament) before Moses and the people to lead them in the way they should go.  However, God does promise that one day He will visit them and deal with their sin and rebellion.

And the account ends with God sending a plague on His people not to destroy them, but to correct them because of the great sin and wickedness which they had committed.  We leave this portion of Scripture feeling that all hope is gone.  God's people are the walking dead because God has promised to visit them and judge them both in the here and now and in the life to come, and there is no sacrifice that could be paid for their intentional, volitional sin.  If there was, Moses would have simply offered it as atonement for the people--instead he tried to offer himself, but as I said before, he could not because he was an imperfect sacrifice.  We do get some hints that God is going to continue to be faithful and lead the people to the Promised Land, which seems to indicate that He's not going to destroy them (or at least, not all of them), but Moses probably has no idea that nearly everyone there with the exceptions of Joshua and Caleb would die in the wilderness for this sin and many others that they would commit in rebellion against God and God told them, "You shall never enter my rest."  (That was not only the land of Canaan, but the Promised Land of heaven).  We talked about this a bit yesterday in the blog about the Sabbath and heaven being our Sabbath rest from all the work of this life.