SHALLOW ROOTS AND A GOLDEN CALF: ISRAEL STEPS INTO SERIOUS SIN

By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé

 

With great insight into this storied Exodus Chapter 32, Michael says,

 

“The Israelites created another god within moments.”

 

The entire passage of time from the inception of the idea to replace the one true God, the Creator of the Universe, with an idol, a golden calf, took place quite precipitously. How is this?

 

Like all sin, it began, as Michael said, within moments, in the minds of the Israelites: It is recorded so well here:

 

“When the people saw that Moses was late in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and they said to him, ‘Come on! Make us gods that will go before us, because this man Moses, who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.”

(Exodus 32:1) Torah

 

This passage sets the stage for so many critical and fascinating points.

 

First, when Moses left to speak with God on Mount Sinai and to receive the Tablets of the Ten Commandments, this was, to the spiritually shallow-rooted Israelites, tantamount to God having departed. These people had made Moses their god. His physical presence was, therefore, utterly necessary for them to feel secure.

 

How tempting it is to require a visible human leader when all the power rests with our invisible God.

 

Secondly, and so interestingly, they wanted “gods that will go before us.” What had the true God’s words been to them?

 

“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way…My angel will go ahead of you…”

(Exodus 20:20,23) NIV

 

Anytime a person attempts to replace God with an idol, there is always an element of the counterfeit about it. Instead of the angel God had sent, the Israelites were willing to substitute this powerful being, as noted last week, probably Michael the Archangel, with a god of their own creation — in this case a powerless golden calf – an absurd counterfeit of God.

 

Finally, this paragraph contemplates another highly significant premise. To whom did the Israelites turn in the absence of Moses? They turned to Aaron, Moses’ spokesman much of the time in Egypt, as negotiations went on with the Pharaoh in an effort to release the Israelites from slavery. As you recall, Aaron supplanted Moses, himself, in the beginning.

 

Going all the way back to the Burning Bush. God tried time and again to persuade MOSES to be His sole spokesman with the Pharaoh. It was only after His attempts failed, that God acquiesced and allowed Aaron to assume a co-leadership role. Aaron was always Plan B for God, and Plan B in His eyes will always have repercussions down the road. It is so important for us to remember this.

 

Michael always says that the Bible is made up of lessons for us to learn about the failures and victories of the people in Biblical times. There is hardly a more significant one than to always avoid God’s Plan B in our own lives.

 

For now, we can see one of the reasons why: God in his omniscience saw what Scripture is about to reveal to us — Aaron’s response to the Israelites’ request for a god, an idol:

 

“Aaron answered them, ‘Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing and bring them to me.’ So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed to him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

(Exodus 32:2-4) NIV

 

Oh, for heaven’s sake! What is this! Michael describes it so well:

 

“Two million Israelites were persuaded so easily and so easily swayed Aaron.  NOBODY appreciated God’s efforts to deliver them to Him.”

 

On their face, Israel’s actions seem inconceivable to us. What renders them less surprising are two central considerations:

 

First, we must never lose the context that the Israelites had been in Egypt for over four hundred years. In Egypt, where people were worshipping many gods, including deities which were animals, they had been widely exposed to these practices, and at a time when they were not allowed to worship the true God. Based on this, it was just not much of a stretch for them to replace God with the worship of a ridiculous golden calf.

 

Mankind will always worship a “god” in our lives. We were designed by our Creator for worship. The only question is what or whom it will be. This is where the backdrop of our lives, learning and experience enter the picture. For the Israelites of this era, idol worship had been widespread in their Egyptian community.

 

Of course, God clearly saw this. It would seem that it is the reason why He so began The Ten Commandments, which he gave the Israelites as He spoke to them through Moses, a few chapters ago:

 

“And God spoke all these words:

‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery,’

‘You shall have NO OTHER GODS before me.

You shall not make for yourself an IMAGE in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. YOU SHALL NOT BOW DOWN TO THEM OR WORSHIP THEM.”

(emphasis added)

(Exodus 20:1-5) NIV

 

But, as you recall, the Israelites rejected God Himself, as He was giving these commandments. They said to Moses,

 

“Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”

(Exodus 21:19) NIV

 

We have to ask ourselves whether they were even planning on obeying God when He spoke these commandments. It is reasonable to believe that they were not listening, to begin with.

 

After crafting the golden calf, as bad as this was, what did they do? We go from the base of Mount Sinai where they were gathered with Aaron and the golden calf. Now, we are on the mountain where God has seen the Israelites’ idolatry and is relating all to Moses, who is with Him:

 

“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

(Exodus 32:7-8) NIV

 

In short, God was extremely angry and told Moses that he wanted to destroy the Israelites.

 

“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?”

(Exodus 32:11-12) NIV

 

Michael reminds us that,

 

“Moses, like Abraham before him and Jehoshaphat after him, negotiated with God.”

 

Moses also asked God to remember Abraham, Issac and Israel. and, in the end, God relented.

 

Having lessened God’s anger, Moses had more trouble controlling his own. When he arrived at the bottom of Mount Sinai, carrying the two stone tablets inscribed, front and back, by God, His own work, with the Ten Commandments, Moses was enraged.

 

Joshua, who had not engaged in the idolatry of the golden calf,

 

“…heard the noise of the people shouting. He said to Moses, ‘There is the sound of war in the camp’

Moses replied:

‘It is not the sound of victory,

It is the sound of defeat;

It is the sound of singing that I hear.”

(Exodus 32:17-18) NIV

 

In fact, when Moses arrived,

 

“…and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he THREW THE TABLETS OUT OF HIS HANDS, BREAKING THEM TO PIECES AT THE FOOT OF THE MOUNTAIN.”

(emphasis added)

(Exodus 32:19) NIV

 

Confronting Aaron, Moses demanded to know how the Israelites had persuaded him to be a full on co-conspirator with them in forming this idol. Aaron answered,

 

“You know how prone these people are to evil. They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us…So I told them, ‘Whoever has gold jewelry, take it off’ Then they gave me the gold and I threw it into the fire and OUT CAME THIS CALF!”

(emphasis added)

(Exodus 32:22-24)

 

What a miracle! A golden calf just materialized on its own! It is certain that Aaron is just no Moses, fabricating this story in an effort to cover his own tracks. How clearly we can see why God was so angry back at the Burning Bush when He was left no alternative but to put Aaron in a position completely out of his depth.

 

Back on scene with the Israelites and the golden calf,

 

“Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughing stock to their enemies.”

(Exodus 32:25) NIV

 

There was, immediately, a penalty of the loss of three thousand Israelite lives.

 

The next day, Moses returned to God on the mountain and pleaded for Him to forgive the Israelites’ sin. God sent a plague as the price of worshipping the golden calf, but He did not give up on His people. He said to Moses:

 

“Now go lead the people to the place I spoke of and MY ANGEL WILL GO BEFORE YOU.”

(emphasis added)

Exodus 32:34) NIV

 

What was the place God had spoken of? It was the Promised Land. In God’s words to Moses:

 

“…up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants. I WILL SEND AN ANGEL BEFORE YOU.”

(emphasis added)

(Exodus 33:1-2) NIV

 

God is a promise-keeping God. He is an angel-sending God. He is a trust-inspiring God. Surely, we would follow no other. Surely, He leads to our Promised Lands, the only places that will count in one hundred years.

 

Postscript:

 

As Michael points out, a question may arise as to where these Israelites, who had, for centuries, been poor Egyptian slaves, got all the gold that was needed to make the golden calf. The answer is found in Exodus 12:33-36, NIV which recounts the time when the Israelites were leaving Egypt:

 

“The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. ‘For otherwise,’ they said, we will all die!’…The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.”