The Golden Calf
February 11, 2020
Exodus 32:1 – 34:35
The people of Israel got restless after Moses was on the summit of Mt. Sinai for forty days. They didn’t know if he was ever coming back.
“As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Exodus 32:1
Things at Mt. Sinai were quiet while Moses was alone with God. The people had grown accustomed to hearing regular messages from God and the silence was disturbing. They asked Aaron to give them something new to focus on.
Aaron agreed to do it. He collected gold jewelry from the people, melted it down, and carved a golden calf and the people embraced it immediately.
“Then they said, ‘This is your god, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’” Exodus 32:4b
Aaron and the Golden Calf
We shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Aaron intended to build an idol for Israel. He never agreed that the calf was a god; it was the people who called it the god who brought them up from Egypt. Aaron was alarmed when he saw Israel’s response to the statue. He built an altar of sacrifice to God in front of it and called for a festival to the Lord the next day.
Early the next morning the people brought burnt sacrifices and fellowship offerings to the altar. At first, their worship followed the pattern Moses and Aaron had shown them, but then their hearts began to stray. After they sat down to eat and drink, dark impulses entered their minds and they started a revelry that turned into an orgy.
After Moses saw what had happened, he confronted Aaron and asked, “What did these people do to you that you led them into such great sin?” (Exodus 32:21) Aaron gave a questionable explanation of what happened, then admitted that he had given into pressure from the people when they were at their worst. He let the situation get out of control.
Some ancient Bible cultures built statues of animals as a sort of pedestal for God to stand on. It was a way to meet the invisible God in a particular location. These statues were often shaped like bulls because they represented power, strength and fertility.
Stephen A. Geller of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York has this to say:
“Modern scholarship suggests the possibility that Aaron’s intention may have been honorable: the calf may have been intended to be the pedestal for God’s Presence, like the cherubim over the ark.”
Regardless of Aaron’s intentions, the people used the golden calf as an occasion to practice idolatry.
God Takes Notice
Moses was still on the mountain when God said, “Go down, because your people, whom you bought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt.”
Notice that God referred to Israel as Moses’s people here. They had broken the covenant they had just ratified with God. When they put another god before the one true God, they broke the first of his Ten Commandments. Israel was barely recognizable as his people anymore.
God was ready to destroy Israel, and he was completely justified in that decision.
Moses Intercedes for Israel
“Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” Exodus 32:10
“But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘why should your anger burn against your people whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth?’ Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by yourself: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky . . .’” Exodus 32:11-13
“Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.” Exodus 32:14
A Lesson in Intercession
What an illustration of an intercessor using prayer to temper the wrath of God.
Moses knew that Israel was in sin and deserved to be destroyed. He didn’t try to convince God otherwise, but he appealed to God’s reputation with the Egyptians whom he had just defeated. Egypt would never understand that destroying Israel was a righteous act on God’s part.
God really didn’t have to be concerned about what the Egyptians thought; they were like grasshoppers in his eyes, but Moses was zealous for God’s reputation. He pleaded with God for God’s own sake.
Moses also reminded God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob whom he loved, and he recalled the promises God made to them. Moses didn’t want God to start fresh, even it meant Moses himself would become the Patriarch. He respected the fathers who came before him and he loved their descendants.
Moses demonstrated three great qualities of an intercessor.
- He put God’s glory before everything else.
- He sought to restore the relationships between God and people.
- He prayed using God’s own words so he knew he was praying according to God’s will.
This kind of prayer pleases God and as the Apostle John said later,
‘This is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him.” 1 John 5:14-15
The Broken Stone Tablets
It was easier for Moses to pray for Israel up on the mountain, than it was when he came into the camp and caught them sinning.
He stood at the foot of Sinai and threw the stone tablets God had given him to the ground, smashing them to pieces. Israel had broken their covenant with God and the shattered pieces of his commandments symbolized that.
Moses threw the golden calf into the fire and collected the gold as it melted away. He ground it into powder and scattered it over the water source for the camp. Every time the Israelites went to fill their water jugs they found flakes of gold in the stream, a reminder of their shame.
Moses thought of the Amalekites who had attacked Israel recently and realized his people must have become a laughingstock to them. The people God set apart for himself had become a disgrace.
Moses Challenges the People
Moses strode to the entrance to the camp and called out, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” Exodus 32:26
All of the Levites scrambled to him and Moses sent them on a mission to kill anyone left in the camp who had not chosen for the Lord. Three thousand idolaters died that day.
Moses Returns to God
Moses went back up to speak with God the next day.
“Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin – but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” Exodus 32:31-32
God was not going to blot Moses out of his book; that action was reserved for people who persisted in sinning against him. He was willing to forgive Israel, but only after he sent a plague to purge the camp of those who remained unrepentant for their idolatry.
The Tent of Meeting
Moses saw that the people needed a place to go to seek God. He pitched a tent outside the camp and called it the Tent of Meeting. Anyone who wanted to talk with God could go there.
Moses went there often himself and when he did, all the people stood up and watched until he entered the tent. As God’s presence settled over the tent in a pillar of cloud, the people would stand in front of their tents and worship.
Inside the tent God spoke with Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. When he was done praying, Moses would return to the camp. But his young protégé Joshua lingered there with God.
Moses Asks God to Go with Him
God had agreed not to destroy Israel, and he agreed to send them on to Canaan with an angel in the lead, but he didn’t want to be with them anymore. They aggravated him so much he was likely to destroy them along the way. Exodus 33:1-3
Moses couldn’t bear this.
“If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and your people unless you go with us?” Exodus 33:15-16
God answered that question in the last part of today’s reading, but we are going to save it for tomorrow. We are going to enjoy that great meeting between God and his friend Moses.