Exodus 32 NIV - The Golden Calf - When the people saw - Bible Gateway Exodus 32New International Version (NIV) The Golden Calf 32 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods[ a ] who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” 2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed 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,[ b ] Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings.

Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry. 7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 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 sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’ 9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 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.” 11 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? 12 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. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. 15 Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. 17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.” 18 Moses replied: “It is not the sound of victory, it is not the sound of defeat; it is the sound of singing that I hear.” 19 When Moses approached the camp 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.

20 And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it. 21 He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?” 22 “Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. 23 They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ 24 So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” 25 Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. 26 So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him.

27 Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.” 30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” 31 So Moses went back to the Lord and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” 33 The Lord replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book.

34 Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.” 35 And the Lord struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made. Footnotes: What should we learn from the golden calf incident in Exodus 32? What should we learn from the golden calf incident in Exodus 32? Subscribe to our Question of the Week : Question: "What should we learn from the golden calf incident in Exodus 32?" Answer: The story of the golden calf is found in Exodus 32:1–6. The children of Israel had been in bondage in Egypt for over two hundred years. God called Moses, the deliverer, and told him that He had heard their cries and was about to deliver them (Exodus 3:6–8). During their time in Egypt, the Israelites had apparently begun to doubt the existence of the God their fathers worshiped because Moses anticipated some hard questions from them (Exodus 3:13).

To help Moses prove the existence and power of God, he was given a number of miraculous signs to help the Israelites believe. After all of these miracles were done, including the ten plagues on the Egyptians, the Israelites came out of Egypt with a renewed belief in the God of their fathers. They passed through the Red Sea on dry land, while the Egyptian army was drowned, and they were brought to the mountain of God to receive His laws. The people of the Middle East were very religious, but they also worshiped many gods. The ten plagues God brought on the Egyptians were judgments against specific gods they worshiped and showed that the Lord was greater than all of them. Even Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, who was the priest of Midian and a worshiper of the true God, was impacted by the religious pluralism of the people around him. When Moses and the people arrived at Mount Sinai, and Jethro heard of all God’s works, he replied, “Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people” (Exodus 18:11). When God gave His laws to the Israelites, He began by addressing this religious pluralism.

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me” (Exodus 20:2–5). While Moses was up on the mountain receiving God’s laws, the people were getting anxious down on the plain. Moses spent forty days (Exodus 24:18) up on the mountain with God, and by the end of that time, the people were beginning to think Moses had died or left them. The people urged Aaron, their temporary leader, to make gods for them to follow. Since they were accustomed to having visual representations of gods, this was the natural (but sinful) result of their thinking.

Aaron took their gold earrings, which they had brought from Egypt, and melted them down to make a golden idol. The idol he crafted for them was a calf, but Aaron maintained the name of the Lord in connection with it (Exodus 32:5). He was merging the pagan practices they were familiar with and the worship of the God they were just beginning to be re-acquainted with. Aaron called the people together and told them that the golden calf was the god who delivered them from Egypt. The people offered sacrifices and then engaged in pagan rituals , including orgies (Exodus 32:25) to worship this new god. Why did Aaron do this? Scripture doesn’t give us the full answer, but we can put certain clues together and get a fairly good picture. First, the people’s long familiarity with idol worship would incline them to follow that method in the absence of clear direction otherwise. It is likely that the people had not yet received the commands against idol worship, since Moses was yet to come down with the tablets of the law. Second, they were already in the habit of merging their beliefs with those of the people around them, a practice that would continue to plague them throughout the kingdom years.

Third, Aaron was faced with an unruly crowd that placed a demand on him. The solution of making an idol and calling it by God's name seemed fairly reasonable. Why did he choose a calf/bull? His lame excuse to Moses—“It just came out of the fire like this!” Exodus 32:24)—was just a feeble attempt to dodge blame. He fashioned it with a graving tool (Exodus 32:4) and took great care to form it that way. Some have tried to show that the bull represented one of the gods of Egypt, but that doesn’t fit the text, because Aaron called a feast to the Lord (Yahweh) and said that it was the god(s) which brought them out of the land of Egypt. The bull was a symbol of strength and fertility, and the people were already familiar with bull gods from Egypt. Bulls were also typical animals of sacrifice, so to use their image as a symbol of the god being worshiped was a natural connection. Aaron’s bull was a mixture of the powerful God who delivered the people through mighty works and the pagan methods of worship that were borrowed from the people around them.

Even though there are reasonable explanations for why Aaron and the people began to worship the golden calf, those explanations do not excuse the sin. God certainly held the people accountable for their corruption (Exodus 32:7–10) and was ready to destroy them for their sin. Moses’ personal intercession on behalf of his people saved them. Moses indicated that Aaron at least should have known that his actions were sinful (Exodus 32:21) and didn’t let him off the hook. As with any other sin, the punishment is death, and the only proper response is repentance. Moses called for those who were on the Lord’s side to come stand with him (Exodus 32:26). The Levites stood with him and were commanded to go through the camp and kill anyone who persisted in the idolatry. Three thousand men were killed that day. The next day, Moses went up and confessed the people’s sins before God, asking for His forgiveness. God declared that the guilty ones would yet pay with their own deaths and be blotted out of His book.

These were the same ones who, on the verge of entering the Promised Land, would deny God’s promises and be sent into the wilderness to die for their sins. Their children would be the ones to receive God’s promised blessings. Their experiences are a lesson to us today. Even though we might justify our actions through reason or logic, if we are violating God’s clear commands, we are sinning against Him, and He will hold us accountable for those sins. God is not to be worshiped with images, because any image we make will draw more attention to the work of our hands than the God who made all things. Also, there is no way we can ever fully represent the holiness and awesomeness of God through an image. To attempt to do so will always fall short. On top of this, God is a spirit (John 4:24), and we cannot form an image of a spirit. We worship God by believing His Word, obeying it, and declaring His greatness to others.

Story | Golden Calf Bible Story: Worshiping a Golden Calf Based on Exodus 32 Retold by Paul Katula The BASIC STORY When Moses went onto Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments from God for the first time, the Israelites, whom Moses had just led out of Egypt, looked forward to his return from the mountain. Unfortunately, Moses spent 40 days on the mountain, which was perhaps a little too long for the Israelites to wait for further instructions from God. Thinking that Moses wasn't ever coming back, they just couldn't wait. They asked Aaron, Moses' brother, to make a new god for them, since, obviously, the one Moses was talking to on the mountain didn't care about them any more. Aaron told the Israelites to give him their gold earrings and other things made of gold so he could build a god for them to worship. Aaron melted down the gold and formed it into a calf, which the people praised: "Oh, great calf, you are the god who brought us out of Egypt, and we praise you most highly," they said in rituals and ceremonies around the golden calf.

These rituals included things like making burnt offerings to the calf, and the people ate, drank, and made merry in praising the calf. Some of the celebrations got a little out of control. Not a Wise Thing to Do When God saw what was happening, he became very angry. His chosen people, the ones he had just rescued from slavery at the hands of the Egyptians, actually started worshiping an idol less than 40 days after he had just saved their lives. How ungrateful is that! "Your people are a stiff-necked bunch, Moses. They have sinned a great sin against me, by casting idols out of gold," God said. "That's all I can take, so I'm just going to start over with the human race." An idol is a material or physical object that is worshiped as a god, but it is not really God. "But Lord," Moses prayed. "I beg you to remember the promise you made to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, in which you promised never to destroy your people again and to deliver them to the promised land." God listened and changed his mind, deciding not to destroy all the Israelites.

But the people still had to be punished, and it was left up to Moses to stop them from worshiping the golden calf. Hurry Up down the Mountain So, Moses rushed down the mountain. When he saw that the Lord was right about his people worshiping a golden idol, he threw down the two tablets he was carrying, on which God had written the Ten Commandments. They broke into thousands of tiny pieces. Moses was piping mad. He immediately burned the golden calf and ground it into a powder. He mixed the powder with water and made the Israelites drink it. That was their punishment, but it wasn't the end. Moses called the Levites into his home. These "sons of Levi" were the leaders in Moses' Hebrew community. "Take your sword, each of you," Moses commanded them. "And go back through the gates, from side to side in the village, to kill your brother, your friend, and your neighbor for the sins they have committed against the Lord God." About 3,000 Israelites died in the slaughter. Ordained Servants of God "Today you have ordained yourselves in the service of the Lord God," Moses told the Levites after the massacre.

"Each of you has done this but at great cost: you lost a son, a brother, a friend. Therefore, the Lord will look on you with mercy and kindness." When Moses went back to Mount Sinai to ask the Lord for mercy and forgiveness, he told God that if it was not possible to forgive the people, then God could just blot Moses' name right out of the book in which he had written it. "I will blot out the names of the people who have sinned against me," God said. "But now, lead my people on to the promised land, the land that I promised Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. When the day comes to punish those who made the calf, I will take care of that punishment." In the end, the Lord sent a plague on his people, to punish them for the sin of making the golden calf and worshiping it as if it were equivalent to God. The MORAL of the STORY Some Bible scholars believe that this story may have been added by editors during the Exile, when the Book of Exodus took its final form. These scholars say it was added to bad-mouth the religion practiced by people in the Northern Kingdom. However, there is really no good evidence to either refute or corroborate this theory.

See, for example, the golden calf worship described in the time of Jereboam I (1 Kings 12:26-33). The key to understanding the meaning of this story is Aaron, who made the calf for the people. When Moses left, he put his brother in charge. What was Aaron thinking? He basically allowed the people to worship whatever they wanted. It may be true (the Bible is extremely unclear about this) that Aaron actually intended the calf to represent the God of Israel. At least, he declared a feast to the Lord soon after he built the idol. It's because Aaron is so wishy-washy in dealing with the people that he comes out looking so bad. He doesn't stand up for his beliefs, but rather, he gives into the people's demands. Another possible lesson from this story is in Moses, who at the end tells God he is willing to sacrifice his eternal life (blot out of the "book" God has written... see Rev 20:12, 21:17; Ps 69:28; Dan 12:1). He is willing to give up that eternal life in order to bring forgiveness onto the people of Israel.

This is a direct foreshadowing of Christ who does give up his life on the cross for God's chosen people (us... see Matthew 20:28, for example). In addition, Paul was willing to be cut off from the promises of Christ for the sake of God's people (see Rom 9:1-5). Would you be willing to give up so much in order to bring your friend closer to Christ, thus saving a life? In the story, because of their sin, known as idolatry, the Israelites deserved to die according to God's law. But God provided forgiveness and a new beginning instead, thanks to Moses, who accepted God's commandment. We as Christians know the blood of Christ on the cross saved us from sin, but this story is just an example of how powerful the grace and kindness of God really are. They can overcome even the most deadly sins. We should be much more confident today in our salvation through Christ than the Israelites in Moses' time were through the Hebrew law. Another possible moral of this story concerns patience.

The Lord had done such great things for the people of Israel, leading them safely through a parted Red Sea, out of the slavery of the Egyptians, and they couldn't even wait 40 days for him to tell them what to do next! That's impatience, for sure. Jesus said to his disciples (Luke 21:17-19): "Everyone will hate you because of my Name, but not a single hair on your head will be harmed. You endurance will save you and gain your souls." How does this teaching of Jesus Christ, our Lord, relate to the golden calf story, regarding patience? Finally, concerning the grave sin of idolatry. What "idols" do you have in your life? Remember, idols don't have to be statues of cows. Idols are anything we worship, except that God himself is not an idol, of course. Some people worship money, sex, drugs, and material possessions. Instead, we should be honoring the commandment God gave us, to love one another, like spending time with our friends and families, and doing other things that show God's love to others and keep our promise to the One who created us.

We should not replace these true acts of kindness and love with false gods of money and other instant-pleasure gratification. Copyright and Contact Information Copyright ï¿½ 2005, Paul Katula (author) for Primum Agmen Christi. | Ezek22.net Home Page . However, this story may be distributed as told for educational purposes without restriction. Written in Aurora, Ill. Last updated Nov. 26, 2005. (630) 863-5871, paul@ezek22.net. Bible Contradiction 158: Is the festival of the Golden Calf a festival to Yahweh OR to other gods? [A-] [A+] The Golden Calf narrative is perhaps one of the most memorable tales from the pen of the Elohist. But the story is not as ancient as one might think. In fact, it most probably was put to pen some time in the 8th or 7th century BC. The specific contradiction presented here is not so much a contradiction between two textual traditions; rather, it is between some apparent inconsistencies in the narrative itself.

For instance, the people clamor for gods who “will go in front of us” since Moses has apparently disappeared. Aaron abides by their wishes, and melting the peoples’ gold jewelry down he “fashioned it with a stylus and made a molten calf,” and then proclaimed: “these are your gods Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” As our first textual anomaly, we notice that one calf is made, yet the text proclaims “gods” in the plural. Why? Second, and largely illogical in the larger narrative context, merely days after the Horeb revelation, the giving and acceptance of the laws by the people, one of which stipulated no images, and apparently only a short time after witnessing Yahweh’s “signs and wonders” in his destruction of Egypt, their land, livestock, plants, and all firstborns, and the parting of the sea of Reeds, it is these new gods who are proclaimed as the gods “who brought you out of Egypt.” There is much that initially does not make any sense here.

Lastly, Aaron builds an altar before the molten image and proclaims “a festival to Yahweh tomorrow!” And then we’re told that “they got up early the next day and made burnt offerings and brought over peace offerings”—that is, common sacrificial offerings to Yahweh. So, what or who exactly is being celebrated: Yahweh, the golden calf, or the “gods” who apparently brought Israel out of Egypt? Additionally, what is the relationship, that the text firmly implies, between Yahweh, the Golden Calf, and the “gods” of which it speaks? Believe it or not, these questions can all be satisfactorily answered. But let us first examine more closely the literary context within which this story finds itself, and then secondly its historical context, that is in what historical period was it written and why. The story presented in Exodus 32 is a self-contained unit and can be understood without knowledge of what preceded it and what follows.

In fact, the story fits oddly into its literary context, more so with what immediately precedes it—a long Priestly insert detailing the parts of the Tabernacle to be built (Ex 25-31), and which is then built in Ex 35-40 where Aaron and his descendants are appointed as officiating priests, in contradiction to the portrait of Aaron drawn in the Golden Calf narrative. But even if we go back to the last Elohist text in Exodus, our present story still makes no sense in its literary context.

The last E material is found in Exodus 20-24 and narrates the divine theophany on Horeb, the people’s witnessing and fearing the theophany, the giving of the covenant law code, whose first commandment is— “I am Yahweh your god who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from a house of slaves; you shall not have other gods before my face; you shall not make an image or any form that is in the skies above or that is in the earth below or that is in the water below the earth; you shall not bow to them, and you shall not serve them” (Ex 20:2-4) —and the people’s consent to follow the covenant code, and finally the ratification of the covenant through the sacrifice of burnt offerings and peace-offerings of bulls to Yahweh! The Elohist passage ends on this note: “And Moses and Joshua, his attendant, got up, and Moses went up to the mountain of the god” (24:13).

A long, and later, Priestly insert, now Exodus 25-31, tells of Yahweh’s instructions to Moses about the construction of the tabernacle, and then the Elohist source comes in again at Exodus 32:1: “And the people saw that Moses was delaying to come down from the mountain, and the people assembled at Aaron and said to him: ‘Get up. Make gods for us who will go in front of us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him!” This, they say merely days, weeks, after witnessing Yahweh’s theophany at Horeb, accepting Yahweh’s covenant, and acknowledging themselves as Yahweh’s people. Even more puzzling, this all occurs right on the heels of the Exodus, the miraculous crossing of the Red sea, the witnessing of Yahweh’s ten terrifying signs and wonders by which means he destroyed Egypt and redeemed the children of Israel. The story of the Golden Calf makes no sense within this literary context.

Even granting the people’s inclination, if you like, toward disobedience, it still makes no sense following the array of Yahweh’s awesome signs, wonders, miracles, and theophany, as well as their own verbally expressed consent to be Yahweh’s people and uphold his covenant. Like so many of the murmuring stories in Exodus and Numbers, the stories have little historical semblance and make no sense in their literary contexts (see also #222, #333, #444). Rather, the Golden Calf episode was written as an independent story with a specific message to a specific audience. It was later inserted, rather poorly it must be said, into its current literary context in Exodus. Furthermore, the meaning and purpose of this text is discernible once one understands the historical circumstances that prompted our author to write it—that is, what he was writing about. So what is the purpose and message of the Golden Calf narrative? Later biblical traditions, like the Deuteronomic, will view the Golden Calf incident as just another rebellion story associated with the hard-necked wilderness generation (Deut 9).

And we may note that like other stories of rebellion, they served a specific theological need and function: to showcase and warn about dangers, such as infidelity, that lead to national catastrophe and punishment by the deity (but see #111). But besides how later tradition might have understood this story, what else might be said about its purpose and date of composition? A good starting point is to examine the verse which exclaims “these are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt” (Ex 32:4). Recall that this is said in the context of: 1) a single molten calf, and 2) a festival to Yahweh—both of which initially make little sense. Yet there is another passage in the Bible that might clue us in to what is really going on here in the Golden Calf narrative.

In fact there is only one other place in all of the Bible that duplicates word for word the verse above, and it is found in 1 Kings 12:28: “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Could both the account in 1 Kings 12 and the Golden Calf narrative be recounting the same or similar event? Is one of these texts alluding to the other through the use of this exact phrase? It certainly seems so. The statement in 1 Kings 12:28 is claimed to have been said by Jeroboam I, the northern kingdom’s first king after its secession from Solomon’s tyranny. It must also be borne in mind that this is what the author, most likely the pro-Solomonic southern Deuteronomist, says Jeroboam says. It’s certainly a discriminating remark, and was used despairingly to depict Jeroboam as an apostate. This was, no doubt, the Deuteronomist’s intention. The reference, however, whether Jeroboam actually said this or not, has a real historical referent.

“The gods” of which the Deuteronomist has Jeroboam proclaim are actually two molten calves, or more precisely young bulls, that Jeroboam establishes at Dan and Bethel to rival the cultic center at Jerusalem. This explains the plural, “gods” in the Golden Calf narrative. As a matter of fact, the presence of “these gods” in the golden calf narrative is a direct reference to Jeroboam’s two bull altars (2 Kgs 17:16). Could the rest of the Golden Calf narrative be referring to this 9th-8th century BC northern cultic practice? The question pondered by historians is what was Jeroboam doing or thought he was doing? And secondly, can this be ascertained apart from the pejorative and biased portrait of him intended by the pro-southern Deuteronomist?

Regardless of the Deuteronomist’s biased report, the biblical and archaeological record do attest to the fact that Jeroboam erected two bull altars at Dan and Bethel, and furthermore, they were most likely intended to serve as a rival cult to the Jerusalem-centered cult of Solomon, which we should not forget worshiped Yahweh together with Baal (1 Kgs 11:5-7)! But what is unclear is what was Jeroboam doing: Was he reviving an older form of Yahwistic worship? Both the Golden Calf incident as well as the Deuteronomist’s account portray Jeroboam and his Aaronide lead cult as apostates. But many scholars think that this is far from certain, and moreover the portrait of Jeroboam meshes too well with the Deuteronomist’s ideological agenda as found elsewhere in the books of Kings. First, there are numerous biblical passages that mention Yahweh, most often El Shaddai, in connection with the bull.

Gen 49:25 identifies Yahweh-El (#27) as “the Bull of Jacob,” and similarly Psalm 132:2-5, and Isaiah 49:26 and 60:16. Compounded with the fact that bull figurines have been unearthed at many of the major cultic sites throughout Canaan the evidence strongly suggests that Yahweh-El was worshiped or associated with the young bull. Even more startling, an archaic poem preserved in Numbers 23 mentions El in the guise of the bull, as the deity who lead Israel out of Egypt: “El who liberated him [Israel] from Egypt has horns like a wild ox.” This reflects a time when Yahweh and El were viewed interchangeably. It appears therefore that Jeroboam was indeed reviving a more archaic form of Yahwistic worship. But the Deuteronomist portrays Jeroboam as an apostate, setting up new gods. In all intents and purposes, it is highly unlikely that the bulls symbolized Yahweh, but rather like the cherubim seat in the Temple of Jerusalem, they symbolized Yahweh’s throne seat.

In any event, the Deuteronomist has indeed successfully painted Jeroboam as an apostate. In fact, “the sins of Jeroboam”—namely his two bull altars—appear throughout the book of Kings like a leitmotif and is used by the Deuteronomist as a foil to theologically explain why Yahweh brought the Assyrians against Israel and finally wiped them out in 722 BC, and conversely did not destroy Jerusalem. Moreover, in 2 Kings 17, Jeroboam’s sin is referred to with exactly the same words used to describe the sin produced by Aaron in the Golden Calf narrative: “the great sin” (Ex 32:21). It might be concluded that the Golden Calf narrative is both a parody and a polemic on Jeroboam’s two calf altars in the north. The historical circumstances that prompted the writing of the Golden Calf, and what the narrative polemically targeted, was the establishment of the counter-Jerusalemite Yahwist-El cultic calve altars in the north by Jeroboam in the last half of the 9th century BC.

The only question remaining is: why is Aaron depicted as the one leading the Israelites into sin? The answer to this question gets at the roots of another contradiction—more a rivalry—namely the fierce bitterness between the Levites who traced their lineage back to Moses and the Aaronids who traced theirs back to Aaron (see #333). Both the Levite texts of the Elohist and Deuteronomist place a higher premium on Moses and the Levites. It is surmised that when Jeroboam built the two bull altars, the Levites expected to officiate the sacrifices there, but Jeroboam expelled them. We must infer from the texts that he hired Aaronid priests instead. The added narrative detail that Aaron is preparing a festival and sacrificing to Yahweh via his “calves” also plays on the parody of presenting the apostate, Jeroboam’s priests, as ‘claiming’ that their bull altars were Yahwistic shrines, which in all likelihood they were.This is a perfect example of how ancient scribes wrote archaized stories as polemical attacks on contemporary rivals.

There is another curious element that ties Jeroboam and the Golden Calf narrative together as well, the similarity of both of their punishments—tomorrow’s contradiction. October 21, 2015 at 2:10 pm When the people were led out of Egypt there was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. These are recorded as always being present. The description of events of the night of the Red Sea crossing (Ex 14:19-20) indicates both were present during that night. Is it possible the people could mistake these events with 2 different physical manifestations as 2 different gods? Also this section begins with “The angel of God.” Is it possible the people mistook the angel of God for a god. If so then actual events as described are the basis for “gods” that brought them out of Egypt. Leave a Reply Exodus 32:20 Commentaries: He took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers (20) He took the calf.—To suppress the idolatry, the first step was to destroy the idol. Moses, who must have rallied to his side at once a certain number of the people, laid hold of the calf, and ordered its immediate destruction. He had it submitted to the action of fire, whereby its form was destroyed, and the material, as it would seem, calcined. This calcined material he reduced to a fine powder by rubbing or pounding, and then had the powder sprinkled on the surface of the stream which supplied the camp with water, that so the people might seem, at any rate, to swallow their own sin. Compare the action of Josiah ( 2Kings 23:6 ; 2Kings 23:12 ). No doubt, the process of destruction took some time. It is not meant that it was completed, but only that it was commenced, before Moses turned to other matters. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 32:15-20 What a change it is, to come down from the mount of communion with God, to converse with a wicked world.

In God we see nothing but what is pure and pleasing; in the world nothing but what is sinful and provoking. That it might appear an idol is nothing in the world, Moses ground the calf to dust. Mixing this powder with their drink, signified that the backslider in heart should be filled with his own ways. Barnes' Notes on the Bible See Deuteronomy 9:21 . What is related in this verse must have occupied some time and may have followed the rebuke of Aaron. The act was symbolic, of course. The idol was brought to nothing and the people were made to swallow their own sin (compare Micah 7:13-14 ). Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 20. he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, &c.—It has been supposed that the gold was dissolved by natron or some chemical substance.

But there is no mention of solubility here, or in De 9:21; it was "burned in the fire," to cast it into ingots of suitable size for the operations which follow—"grounded to powder"; the powder of malleable metals can be ground so fine as to resemble dust from the wings of a moth or butterfly; and these dust particles will float in water for hours, and in a running stream for days. These operations of grinding were intended to show contempt for such worthless gods, and the Israelites would be made to remember the humiliating lesson by the state of the water they had drunk for a time [Napier]. Others think that as the idolatrous festivals were usually ended with great use of sweet wine, the nauseous draught of the gold dust would be a severe punishment (compare 2Ki 23:6, 15; 2Ch 15:16; 34:7). Matthew Poole's Commentary Ground it to powder; melted it either into one great mass, or rather into divers little fragments, which afterwards by a the or other instruments he, by the help of many others, might soon grind to powder, or dust of gold.

Strawed it upon the water; upon the brook which came out of the rock Horeb, Exodus 17:6 . The children of Israel; not all, which would require a long time, but some in the name of the rest; and most probably either the chief promoters of this idolatrous design, or the chief rulers of the people, who should by their power and authority have restrained the people from this wickedness. To drink of it; of the water into which that dust was cast; partly to make them ashamed of their madness in worshipping a god which now must be drunk, and cast out into the draught; and partly to fill them with terror and dreadful expectation of some ill effect or curse of God to come upon them, either by this draught, or by other means. Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire,....

Melted it down into a mass of gold, whereby it lost its form, and had no more the appearance of a calf: and ground it to powder; but how this was done is not easy to say, whether by beating the mass of gold into thin plates, and then filing them small; for this art has remained unknown; the chemists have boasted of it as only possessed of it; but it seems Moses, learned in all the learning of the Egyptians, had it: however, it is now certain by various experiments, that gold, though a very thick and heavy body, consists of parts which are separable from one another, and to be divided into infinite subtler parts: the famous Dr. Halley has shown that one grain of gold may be divided into 10,000 parts, and yet visible; and Dr. Keil has demonstrated that a cubic thumb's breadth of gold is divisible into 47,619,047 parts, which do not escape the sight: according to the computation of the said Dr.

Halley, leaf gold, with which silver threads are gilded, is not thicker than the 124,500 part of a thumb's breadth; so that a cube of the hundredth part of a thumb's breadth of the said subtle parts may contain 243,000,000 (l): and strawed it upon the water; of the brook that descended out of the mount, Deuteronomy 9:21 now called the fountain of St. Catharine; which Dr.

Shaw (m) says, after it has supplied the demands of the convent (now built on this mount) is received without into a large basin, which running over, forms a little rill: and another traveller (n) speaks of a fountain about the middle of Mount Sinai, which, though small, was found in it running water very wholesome and refreshing: but if this was a brook of running water, it seems more likely that water was taken out of it and put into a proper vessel or vessels, on which the powder of the golden calf was strewed; or otherwise it would have been carried away with the stream, and could not have been taken up and given to the people to drink, as is next said; and this shows that it must be reduced to a very small light powder indeed, to float upon the top of the water and not sink to the bottom, as mere filings of gold would necessarily do: and made the children of Israel drink of it; not the whole body of them, or every individual, but the more principal persons, and such who had been the most active in encouraging the making of the calf, and the worshipping of it: this was done not only that they might entirely lose their gold and have no manner

 of profit by it, but that the idol, which is nothing in the world, might be brought to nothing indeed, and that there might be no remains of it to be abused to superstitious uses, as well as to show them their folly in worshipping that which could not save itself; and by drinking it, whereby it passed through them and became an excrement, to express the utmost abhorrence and detestation of it; as also to show that they deserved the curse of God to enter into them, as oil into their bowels, as that water did, and be utterly destroyed: the Jewish writers, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra, suppose this water, with the powder of the golden calf in it, had the same effect and was for the same use as the water of jealousy, that it made the bellies of those that drank it to swell: and the Targum of Jonathan observes, that whoever gave any golden vessel towards the making of the calf, there was a sign appeared in his countenance: and Aben Ezra suggests the same, but neither of them say what it was: but an ancient Latin poet, quoted by Selden (o), reports from the Hebrew writers, that whoever were guilty of this idolatry

, as soon as they drank of the water their beards became yellow as gold, whereby the Levites knew who were guilty, and slew them; but as this is quite fabulous, so I have not met with it in any Jewish writer, only an author of theirs, of great antiquity and credit with them, says (p), that whoever kissed the calf with his whole heart, his lips became golden.

(l) Vid. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 2. p. 247. (m) Travels, p. 242. Ed. 2.((n) Baumgarten. peregrinatio, l. 1. c. 24. p. 61, 62. (o) De Diis Syris Syntagma, 1. c. 4. p. 156. (p) Pirke Eliezer, c. 45. Geneva Study Bible And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel {i} drink of it. (i) Partly to despise them for their idolatry, and partly so they would have no opportunity to remember the calf later. EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES) Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 20. The people are made to drink their own sin. burnt it with fire] i.e. either (cf. on v.

4) burnt the wooden core, and ground the gold plating to powder by rolling large stones to and fro over it; or, if it were wholly of gold, reduced it by fire to shapeless lumps of metal, which were then ground to powder similarly. strewed it upon the water] Deuteronomy 9:21 says ‘and I cast the dust thereof into the wâdy that descended out of the mount’—apparently to carry it away, without any mention of the Israelites being made to drink it. to drink of it] Cf. the curses to be drunk by the suspected wife, Numbers 5:24 . Pulpit Commentary Verse 20. MOSES DESTROYS THE GOLDEN CALF. The first vengeance which Moses took was upon the idol. It was probably hollow, and possibly of no great size. He might easily break it to pieces and subject the pieces to the action of fire, whereby they would be calcined, and might then be easily reduced to powder. This powder he caused to be mixed with the stream of the brook that flowed from Sinai, so that the Israelites were obliged to swallow with their drink particles of their own idol.

Compare the action of Josiah with respect to the "grove" set up in the temple precincts by Manasseh ( 2 Kings 23:6 ), which was not identical, but still was similar. It has been suggested that this portion of the narrative is out of proper chronological order; and this may be so far true that the calcining and mixing with the water were at this point commanded rather than executed; but the destruction of the idol would naturally be the first thing which Moses would take in hand, and provide for, before proceeding to anything else. Only when the "abomination" was removed and. its destruction commenced, would he turn his attention to other points. Verse 20. - Burnt it and ground it to powder. Silver and gold subjected for a short time to a white heat, which may be easily produced by bellows, readily calcine, and are then easily crushed to a fine powder. Silver becomes detonating. I am not aware whether the case is the same with gold also. Strawed it - i.e., "sprinkled it." We need not suppose Moses to have done the whole - or even any part - himself. It was enough that he directed it to be done. The water.

The article shows some particular water to be meant. We learn from Deuteronomy that it was the water of "the brook that descended out of the mount." Made the children of Israel drink of it. The brook being the only water readily accessible, the Israelites, if they drank at all, were compelled to risk swallowing particles of their "god." CHAPTER 32:21-24 Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament "And Jehovah repented of the evil, etc." - On the repentance of God, see at Genesis 6:6 . Augustine is substantially correct in saying that "an unexpected change in the things which God has put in His own power is called repentance" (contra adv. leg. 1, 20), but he has failed to grasp the deep spiritual idea of the repentance of God, as an anthropopathic description of the pain which is caused to the love of God by the destruction of His creatures.

- Exodus 32:14 contains a remark which anticipates the development of the history, and in which the historian mentions the result of the intercession of Moses, even before Moses had received the assurance of forgiveness, for the purpose of bringing the account of his first negotiations with Jehovah to a close. God let Moses depart without any such assurance, that He might display before the people the full severity of the divine wrath. Links

Question: Who made a Golden Calf from the people’s melted down jewellery?
Answer: Aaron