It was not long before, recorded for us in Exodus 24 in the early verses, that the people had said that they would obey The LORD. It didn’t take long for them to go back on their word.
Moses had been away forty days, and the people probably thought that he wasn’t doing back. Maybe he had seen God and died. Whatever the reason, they went to Aaron and said to him “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for 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.” (v1)
I’ve often said that God answers prayer in one of three ways – Yes, No and Wait. Perhaps waiting is the most difficult, but God’s delays or not necessarily denials, in fact, usually the opposite, they could be times of testing or preparation for His ‘Yes or No’. Remember Abraham, he waited 25 years for God to fulfil His promise of a son and during that time he and Sarah became impatient and tried to give God a helping hand. As a result, Ishmael was born and to this day his descendants have been a thorn in the side of God’s people.
It wasn’t twenty-five years, in this case it was 40 days but, sadly, the outcome was the same, sin. There was no truth in the statement that Moses had delayed coming down the mountain, it wasn’t his timing at all, it was God’s timing, there was much to instruct Moses in for their future good. We can do two things in God’s delays – we can lapse into sin, or we can mature spiritually as we wait His timing. Sadly, they lapsed into sin and even got Aaron to assist them. He should have known better.
It is dangerous to pander to the wishes of people, we must be faithful to God. We have His Word to guide us but even Christians can lapse into doing what the flesh tells us and fall into satisfying our feelings rather than seeking the Will of God, which we have in His Word.
They wanted gods to go before them. Surely, they hadn’t forgotten that The LORD God Almighty had brought them out of Egypt and fed them in the wilderness and they had even witnessed this great God every day and night of their journey in the cloud and pillar of fire. They had even heard His voice so what has changed?
Their persuasion led to Aaron acceding to their request (v2-4) and said, “Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” They did so and he fashioned and made a golden calf. That was one thing, but they even went further and said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!” It was one thing to say that this god would lead them into the Promised Land, but to say that this god, who hadn’t even been made, had brought them out of Egypt!
Aaron should have immediately condemned this idolatry, but he was weak. He went further (v5,6), in that when he saw it, he built an altar before it and proclaimed a feast to the LORD. They got up early next day, offered burnt offerings and peace offerings and sat down to feast and got up to play.
Shame on Aaron who organised the worship of this lifeless idol thinking that tomorrow they could have a feast to The LORD. They couldn’t worship both. They had heard the Ten Commandments which clearly began with, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods but/beside Me.’ Aaron seemed to be saying that they could. The word ’play’ in the Hebrew indicates sex-play. Their ‘worship’ included eating, drinking and sexual immorality, probably drunken orgies. How could they fall so low in such a short time?
Sadly, it still happens amongst Christians too.
Make no mistake, God knew exactly what was going on even if Moses didn’t and He didn’t have to ask one of those questions, rather, He told Moses to get down the mountain (v7,8) “For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’”
It is interesting that God called them ‘your people’. If they were worshiping another god, they weren’t God’s people. We cannot serve more than one even if there was more than one. All our words are known to God, even our thoughts and actions. God knew precisely what they had said and done. Nothing escapes His gaze and knowledge. God sees it all, so we must never think that we can get away with anything.
He confirms this in v9-10, And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.”
God was angry and asked Moses to allow Him to exercise His wrath on the people and annihilate them. What a request to Moses? It seemed that He was asking Moses’ permission, but He is also promising that He would make a great nation of him. Some say that He wasn’t asking Moses’ permission but simply saying that if Moses did not intercede on behalf of the people, He would do it. Of course, God could have done this without reference to Moses, but He shows His great mercy to him.
All this was taking place whilst Moses was still in the presence of God up the mountain. God was telling him what had happened even though Moses couldn’t see it. Sure enough, Moses did plead for them (v11-13) and said, “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? Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’”
Moses knew God’s plan and His love for His people through the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel). He knew that God kept His word, but he also knew that God had every right and power to do what He wanted and to work out His plan in any way He chose. However, he pleaded with God for His (God’s) people, they were not Moses’ people, and God had brought them out of Egypt and kept them in the wilderness thus far, not Moses. He recognised that it was all God’s doing and pleaded with Him not to wipe them out. He recognised that it was all for God’s glory by saying that Egyptians would mock them and their God, and he was concerned for God’s great name, perhaps even more than the welfare of the people.
There is a pattern here for our prayers. Make God the Highest Authority in our lives and praise Him for His greatness. Thank Him for what He has done, even remind Him, or perhaps, remind ourselves of what He has done for us and plead for His constant grace and mercy. Without it we would be lost.
Moses could have let God have His way, they certainly deserved it, but he showed his love for God’s people and came before God in contrite supplication. And God relented (v14) ‘repented’ (KJV). Did God have to repent? Did He change His mind? In Numbers 23:19 it says, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor the son of man, that He should repent. Has He said and will not He do.” Some think that there is a contradiction here between Exodus and Numbers. Theologians say Moses was describing the actions of God as they appeared to him as a man. Moses’ prayer did not change God’s mind, but it changed the standing of the people in God’s sight – the people were now in the place of mercy, whereas before they were in a place of judgment. Moses prayed just as God wanted him to pray.
The LORD was moved with compassion to save His people (Septuagint).
Spurgeon said that we have to speak in the manner of men because we could not understand it any other way.
Moses went down the mountain with the two stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments written on both sides by the hand of God. He obviously teamed up with Joshua again and when Joshua heard the noise of the people, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” But he said: “It is not the noise of the shout of victory, Nor the noise of the cry of defeat, But the sound of singing I hear.” (v15-18)
As they approached the camp, Moses saw the calf and the dancing. In his anger he threw the two tablets and broke them. He took the calf and burned it, ground it to powder and scattered it in the water and made Israel drink it (v19-21).
It is suggested that he broke the tablets as a gesture that they had already broken God’s law. Moses may have had a problem with anger, but I suggest that this was righteous anger. He asked Aaron how he had been persuaded by the people to do this despicable thing in making an idol. Remember God had told him what was taking place, so it didn’t take him by surprise but the intensity of it angered him greatly. He had spent forty days in the presence of the One true God leaving Aaron in charge and it must have disappointed him greatly. He had experienced the mountain top and now he came back to the valley experience.
Aaron’s excuse was pathetic (v22-24) “Do not let the anger of my lord become hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods that shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ And I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, let them break it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out.”
Whereas Moses had previously restrained the people from sin, it was clear that Aaron was so weak that he had contributed to it. He said that he just cast the gold into the fire and out came this calf, just like that! How stupid did that sound? He has moulded it and fashioned it; it was no miracle nor magic. Aaron apparently did not consider the enormity of his sin.
Deuteronomy 9:20 tells us that The Lord was so angry with Aaron that but for the prayer of Moses, God would have destroyed him.
Moses turned his attention to the people and saw that they were unrestrained. Aaron had not restrained them, and they had become a shame to their enemies (v25,26). Obviously, others had seen them and were probably surprised by their actions. These were supposed to be the people of God, why are they behaving like this? As we have already said, Aaron should have known better but, in his weakness, he gave in to them and let them do what they wanted. When we cast off restraint it leads to shame and disaster. It is important that we have rules, that’s why we have God’s law. Someone once correctly said ‘Freedom has fences’. If we have no rules or guidelines we end up with anarchy and as the book of Judges (17:6) states, “Everyone did that which was right in their own eyes”. In other words, we would say, ‘we become a law to ourselves.’ Hence the chaos. And in Proverbs 4:12 we read, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
Sadly, we live in a day when restraint is being cast off. We all want our own way, and, without doubt, we are reaping the consequences.
Moses did what Aaron should have done, he issued a challenge to the people, “Whoever is on the LORD’s side, come to me. “(v26)
It seems that the only group to make a stand were the Levites. There was no sitting on the fence, this was serious, it was God’s side or evil. God ordered the sons of Levi to slay the others and around three thousand men were killed. It can be difficult taking our stand for The Lord, but certainly not as dangerous as failing to take our stand. It required courage on the part of the Levites, not only to take their stand, but also to kill their brothers (v27-29).
Moses still intercedes for the people (v30) – He told them quite clearly that they had sinned greatly, and he would go to The LORD and try to make atonement for their sin. He had already done this earlier in this chapter, but he went again. One assumes that it was for the people who were left, as maybe they had killed the ones who were most prominent in the idolatrous acts. Moses knew the seriousness of the situation. The penalty for idolatry was death (see 22:20).
He plainly stated to God that the people had sinned greatly, but he pleaded that God would forgive their sin (v31,32). He also recognised that God may not forgive them and makes an astounding statement, “Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” Astounding and yet very courageous!
It displayed his love for God and for His people. He recognised that God was a Holy God and couldn’t look upon sin. He appealed to the mercy of God and even went to the point that if God would not forgive them, He should blot his name out of His book. It was as if he was saying, ‘let me die on their behalf’. God said ‘no’ to his request, but we can see here a foreshadowing of one who would come and actually give Himself for the sin of the people, your sin and mine. The Lord Jesus Christ who paid the full price for our sin, the One, final sacrifice for sin.
And the LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book. Now therefore, go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you. Behold, My Angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment upon them for their sin.” So the LORD plagued the people because of what they did with the calf which Aaron made. (v33-35)
God reiterates His promise to go before them to the land promised. However, those who had sinned will not go unpunished. It is suggested that the plague was the killing of the 3,000 but the final punishment was that none of the people would enter the Promised Land. We know that this came true except for Joshua and Caleb. Even Moses did not enter because of his later sin.
Sin is serious and we must never underestimate it. The Bible tells us that ‘the soul that sins shall die’. ‘The wages of sin is death’, but the good news is that the ‘gift of God is eternal life.’
