The worship of the golden calf and the
breaking of the two tables of stone are the closing incidents of this great
section of the book of Exodus.
The worship of the calf is in exact
correspondence with the worship of the God of Israel by the seventy (Exod.
xxiv. 9-11), and the promise of the two tables of stone with their reception by
Moses (Exod. xxiv. 12-14 & xxxi. 18):--
A | xxiv. 9-11.
Worship of God of Israel.
B |
xxiv. 12-14. Tables of stone
promised.
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B |
xxxi. 18. Tables of stone given.
A |
xxxii. 1-14. Worship of golden
calf.
When Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and
seventy of the elders of Israel ascended the mountain, we are told that “they saw
the God of Israel ... and they did
eat and drink”. Then it was that the
Lord spoke of the tables of stone:--
“Come up to Me into the mount, and be
there: and I will give thee tables of
stone, and the law, and the commandment WHICH I HAVE WRITTEN, that thou mayest
teach them” (Exod. xxiv. 12). (The R.V.
corrects the A.V. here, for the Lord spoke of the law, not “a” law and the
commandment, not “commandments”).
If this passage stood alone it would be
sufficient for all who bow before the authority of the Scriptures. The verse distinctly affirms that, before
Moses ascended into the Mount, the Lord had already written the tables of
stone. It is of course possible to
explain the passage as being merely a figure of speech, but the number of times
the fact is mentioned leaves no room for doubt.
The subject is important enough to warrant a careful tabulation of all
the references, which will now be given.
Did
God actually write
the Law?
Let us read further evidence on this vital
question:--
1.
Exod. xxiv. 12.—Already quoted above.
2.
Exod. xxxi. 18.—“And He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of
communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone,
WRITTEN WITH THE FINGER OF GOD.”
3.
Exod. xxxii. 15, 16.—“And Moses turned, and went down from the mount,
and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both sides; on the one side and the other were they
written. And the tables were THE WORK OF
GOD, and the writing was THE WRITING OF GOD, graven upon the tables.”
4.
Exod. xxxiv. 1, 28 (also Deut. x. 1-14).—“And the Lord said unto Moses,
Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; and I WILL WRITE upon these tables the words
that were in the first tables, which thou breakest . . . . . And he was there
with the Lord forty days and nights: he
did neither eat bread nor drink water.
And HE WROTE upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.”
5.
Deut. iv. 13.—“And He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded
you to perform, even ten commandments:
and HE WROTE them upon two tables of stone.”
6.
Deut. v. 22.—“These words (i.e. the ten commandments quoted in verses
6-21) the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of
the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and He added no more. And HE WROTE them in two tables of stone, and
delivered them unto me.”
7.
Deut. ix. 9, 10.—“When I was gone up into the Mount to RECEIVE the
tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you .
. . . . the Lord DELIVERED unto me two tables of stone WRITTEN WITH THE FINGER
OF GOD.”
Here are seven separate passages of
Scripture. One makes promise of the
bestowal of the tables, three record the receiving of them, and three more
rehearse the fact years after the event.
The
testimony is clear
and complete.
The ten commandments which formed the
“covenant” between Israel and the Lord were written by none other than God
Himself. The remaining commandments,
statutes and judgments, all spring from these basic commandments and were given
to Moses during the forty days, commencing with the law given in the
Mount. We may therefore declare that God
has not only spoken, but He has written, and thereby made it plain to
all His people that He will communicate in written word His will for them. In the language of Paul in I Cor. xv. 3
the reader will doubtless perceive a reflection of Deut. ix. 9, 10: “For i delivered unto you first of all
that which i also received”.
Worship.
This section, as we
have seen, begins and ends
in worship, and what is true
of this small section is true of the whole
age-purpose. The somewhat veiled
story of Ezekiel xxviii. revolves around the thought of worship. The temptation of the Lord in Matthew iv.
reaches its climax in worship.
The Beast, at the last, enables Satan to attain his end — worship
(Revelation xiii). The times of the
Gentiles begin and end with false worship (Daniel iii.,
Revelation.xiii.). Worship is the goal of the mystery of iniquity
(II.Thess.ii.4), and the word “godliness” in the phrase “the mystery of
godliness” (I.Tim.iii.16) is “good or accepted worship” (eusebeia). The Gentile apostacy was connected with
worship (Romans.i.21-23) at the beginning, and will be so at the end — “a form
of worship” (II Tim. iii. 5). The last
of all gospels stresses worship (Rev.xiv.7).
The first and all-embracing term of the
covenant of Sinai was: “Thou shalt have
no other gods before Me” (Exod. xx. 3), and the first step in transgression is
the making of “any graven image, or any likeness of anything . . . . . thou
shalt not bow down to them, nor serve them” (Exod. xx. 4, 5). Idol worship is demon worship:--
“What say I then? that the idol is anything, or that which is
offered in sacrifice to idols is anything?
But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice
to demons, and not to God” (I Cor. x. 19, 20).
The gods of Egypt, as well as the Egyptians
themselves, were the objects of God’s wrath in the plagues (Exod. xii. 12).
The
worship of the
golden calf.
“And when
the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people
gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, up, make us gods,
which shall go before us; for as for
this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not
what has become of him” (Exod. xxxii. 1).
There are two points of great importance
in this verse. The first has reference
to the word “delayed”. The word is the piel
form of the verb, which generally indicates intensity. The verb itself is bosh, meaning “to
be, or to feel, shame”, and at first sight the translation “delayed” seems to
have no connection. That bosh
does mean “to be ashamed” the following passages will show: Gen. ii. 25;
Psalm vi. 10; Isa. i. 39, and the A.V. so translates it seventy-one
times. Once, the verb is translated “become
dry” (Hos. xiii. 15), and yabesh is used in Gen. i. 9
and Exod. xiv. 16 of the “dry land”. This, rather than “ashamed”, is at the root
of the word, and the transition of the meaning is as follows: “To flag, fail, grow flaccid, limp,
spiritless”, then “to languish at long delay, to feel ashamed, confounded.” There is one other reference in the A.V.
where the piel preterite is found, viz.,
Judges.v.28: “Why is the
chariot so long in coming?”. Here
the mother of Sisera betrays her uneasiness and confusion at the delay of her
son.
Exodus xxxii. 1 therefore tells us that Israel began to flag,
to dry up, to feel somewhat ashamed at the long delay — they felt that
something ought to have been done by then, much as we may feel at being kept
waiting for an interview beyond what we may think a reasonable time. Israel did not realize that one of the first
phases of worship is expressed in the word “wait”:--
“Let not them that wait on Thee, O Lord
God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake” (Psa. lxix. 6).
“Yea, let none that wait on Thee be ashamed”
(Psa.xxv.3).
“Let me not be ashamed of my hope” (Psa.
cxix. 116).
“Hope maketh not ashamed” (Rom. v. 5).
“According to my earnest expectation and
my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed” (Phil. i. 20).
Habakkuk had to learn the importance of
waiting God’s time (Hab. ii. 1-4), and the same lesson is rehearsed in Hebrews x. 37-39. It was the evil servant who said, “MY Lord
delayeth His coming” (Matt. xxiv. 48).
Romans i.
reveals an affinity between idolatry and ingratitude:--
“They glorified Him not as God, neither
were thankful ... and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an
image ...” (Rom. i. 21-23).
Exodus xxxii. 1 shews the same connection:--
“Up, make us gods, which shall go before
us, for as this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we
know not what has become of him.”
“As for this Moses” — It does not sound
very respectful; the people fail in
their attitude both to God and man.
The idol that was made by Aaron from the
golden earrings of the women was in the form of a calf. Memphis, which was near to Goshen, and On,
which was in the midst of Goshen, were both famous for the worship of the Sacred
Bull. At the death of the Bull, whose
name was Apis, it was called Osiris, Apis or Serapis, and
a new calf, born of a cow that could have no more young, became the new
god. There is a mixture here of the
false and the true:--
“These be thy gods, O Israel, which
brought thee out of the land of Egypt.
And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said,
To-morrow is a feast to the Lord” (Exod.xxxii.4,5).
Here is confusion — “gods” and “the Lord”,
and Aaron in his answer to Moses manifests that he is a temporizer:--
“And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this
people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them? And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord
wax hot; thou knowest the people, that
they are set on mischief. For they said
unto me, Make us gods . . . . . and there came out this calf” (Exod. xxxii.
21-24).
We are warned in Scripture to judge not
lest we be judged. With all humility and
full consciousness of our own weakness and liability to err, we feel that
nothing can be put forward to justify Aarons’ action. Three thousand men lost their lives, the
whole of the people were shamed, the precious tables of stone written by the
finger of God shattered, and the initial term of the covenant broken, all
largely because one man did not stand firm for God and His revealed will. What a blessed contrast it is to turn to Galatians ii.
and see there the magnificent stand of the apostle for the truth of the
gospel, and his subjection to the popular voice “no, not for an hour”.
The statement that the people “rose up to
play”, that they were “dancing” round the golden calf, and that Aaron had made
them “naked unto their shame among their enemies”, reveals the lascivious
character of their worship. Many have
found a difficulty in understanding verse 20:
“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 drink of it”. The modern chemist
would probably use tartaric acid in accomplishing this, but the ancient
Egyptians used natron. The
resulting powder has a nauseous taste, and the action would be symbolical of
the bitter result of their folly. Should
any, moreover, feel any difficulty about the amount of gold indicated, he
should acquaint himself with the statements of archaeologist and
historian. "The rich frequently had
ornamental works, statues, and furniture of solid gold. Diodoros mentions a golden statue at
Babylon, forty feet high, weighing one thousand Babylonian talents", and a
list is given of other similar effigies "making a total of at least 690
talents, reckoned equal to L11,000,000 sterling". Thus Wilkinson in Ancient Egyptians.
Not only did Israel turn back in heart to
the leeks and the fish which they did eat in Egypt, they also turned to their
gods — yes, even after the majesty of Sinai and the meditation of Moses. The lapse of forty days was a test, and under
that test Israel failed. The number
forty is often associated with a test. How wonderfully the Lord Jesus entered into
Israel’s position, triumphing where they failed. He, too, waited for forty days; He, too, was tempted to worship Satan, but He
gloriously triumphed, giving glory to God and honouring His Word. The spies searched the land of Canaan forty
days, and again Israel failed, and for forty years wandered in the wilderness.
There is a sad parallel with Exodus xxxii.
even to-day. The great Mediator
has ascended, the time seems long;
ministers appointed by God yield to the pressure of the people; they effect a compromise: “gods” and “the Lord” are brought together,
and the One Who accomplished their redemption is slighted.
The outcome of this awful departure from
the covenant of God we must consider in our next paper. Meanwhile, let us not miss the solemn lessons
that everywhere are apparent in this chapter, for in the scriptures written to
us and about us is the warning concerning “heaping to themselves teachers”, and
“a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”. The added word,” From such turn away”, is, in
measure, an echo of Exod. xxxii.
26, where Moses stood in the gate of the
camp and cried: “Who is on the Lord’s
side? Let him come unto me”.
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