Sacrifice Day 10 The Great Rebellion: Digging Deeper

1) What was the peoples’ root motivation in deciding to craft a golden image? (verse 1)
The narrative reads, “When the people saw that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain…”, letting us know that impatience was the root heart-motivation of the Israelites in crafting an idol. Note that impatience wasn’t the sin, but, when left unchecked, it led them straight into sin. The language choice of the Israelites reveals the shallowness of both their faith while also giving us a hint of their background. “Come, make gods for us who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!” (verse 1) First, they bought the lie that an Almighty God was too hard to wait on. Perhaps they believed He was stingy, holding back on them or forgetting them. Or perhaps the idea of having a “god” they could fashion themselves was significantly more appealing than an all-powerful Being whose very presence brought the possibility of death because of the vastness of His holiness. (Exodus 20:18-19) Second, they exchanged the truth of Who God was as a singular God holding all power and authority, for a lie when they asked Aaron to make them “gods” plural. (Deuteronomy 6:4) Thirdly, the attributed the victory of freedom from 430 years of slavery in Egypt to a mere man, Moses, completely eliminating God from the equation. Every single night, a pillar of fire appeared to give Israel light and provide them with reassurance of Yahweh’s presence. Every single day, the Lord’s cloud led the way through the desert. (Exodus 13:21-22) Even now, parked at the base of Mt. Sinai, any Hebrew could cast their gaze upward to see the smoky blaze and be reminded of Yahweh’s presence. Still, they chose to abhor this God who plainly revealed Himself and exchange Him for an idol made of golden earrings. (Exodus 32:2)

2) Was Aaron trying to get the people to worship the One True God in verse 5?
The newly-freed Hebrew people had been enslaved in Egypt for 430 years and had been indoctrinated by Egyptian culture for 4 generations. Consider what you may already know about ancient African culture and you gain a few useful insights into what happened at the base of Mt. Sinai. Egyptians were polytheistic, worshipping many gods with various sacrifices required for each of them. “Worship” was often sexual in nature, involving feasting and raucous partying on one extreme, but also included child sacrifice on the other. (verse 6) This was their model of what it meant to “worship” a deity. Though belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been preserved during slavery, the Hebrews combined what had been passed down about Yahweh with what they observed in the cultural everyday life around them. Should Aaron have known better, having witnessed all the plagues, many even a result of the staff he held in his own hand? Yes. Every plague sent on Egyptian lands and people was a direct attack from the One True God to the hundreds of false gods of Egypt. Where Egyptian deities failed, only Yahweh prevailed. Was the Lord God leading them out of Egypt? Did He part the Red Sea? Did He lead His people with a cloud by day and a fire by night? Yes, yes, and yes. Yahweh was not only leading them out of physical slavery, but also out of spiritual bondage. Still, they stubbornly clung to old patterns, attempting to meld what they knew of God with what they witnessed in cultural religion.

3) What is both present and absent from the Lord’s response in verses 7-10?
When reading Scripture with the intention of truly studying it for understanding, it’s important to read it first within context of the passages around it, and secondly to read it thoroughly several times, making observations each time. Going back several chapters, we understand Moses has been in the presence of the Lord high up on Mt. Sinai for 40 days receiving God’s Laws directly from Him. Moses has been the first audience of God’s complete law as well as beginning to grasp God’s all-consuming holiness and His heart for devoted, unadulterated worship from His people. As we practice repeated observation in verses 7-10, we observe how the Lord spoke with urgency, how He called the people “Moses’ people”, citing how Moses had brought them up from Egypt (instead of Himself), and the complete, detailed knowledge God had of Israel’s sin. Once we position ourselves within these understandings, we become curious about what is absent in the Lord’s actions and speech. He did not instantly obliterate the Hebrews for their sin. Though God obviously had full knowledge of their sin when Moses didn’t, God waited until He had finished giving His law to Moses in completion before telling Moses about their corruption. God demonstrated merciful patience even in His righteous, justified anger. As I finished reading through this account through the end of chapter 32, I not only found God’s merciful delay mysterious, but also Moses’ lagging follow-through to move down the mountain curious. The Lord had urgently told Moses to “Go down at once (verse 7, emphasis mine), but Moses lingered in conversation with the Lord. He had spent 40 days with Yahweh, and he was in no hurry to leave despite the Lord’s insistence.