Exodus 32:1-14 (NRSV)
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as f
or this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” 6 They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.
7 The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” 9 The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10 Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”
11 But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with 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 consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” 14 And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
Exodus 32:1-14 is the incident of the golden calf. It will raise the obvious question of idolatry. I will want to raise the question of how we as modern readers may still have a problem with idolatry. In an indirect way, it raises the question of the extent to which spiritual leaders accommodate the beliefs and values of the surrounding culture. It raises the question of the anger or wrath of the Lord and the extent to which it determines divine action. It even raises the question of boldness in intercessory prayer. I hope you will want to explore these matters for a few moments.
Exodus 32:1-6, 15-24, and 30-35 relate the incident of the Golden Calf. In I Kings 12:26-32, we find Jeroboam (d. 910 BC) making two calves of gold and telling the people of the northern kingdom that their gods are here. These gods brought them out of Egypt. He then put one calf in Dan and one in Bethel. He had a festival in which he appointed priests that did not come from the tribe of Levi. He made sacrifices to the calves he had made. The relationship with Exodus 32 is obvious, but scholars will debate which way the influence goes. Hosea (750-730) says in 8:5, that the Lord rejects the calf while the anger of the Lord burns against them. In 10:5, he says the people of Samaria long for the calf of Beth-aven, its people mourn for it, its idolatrous priests wail over it, for the glory has departed from it. Clearly, the northern kingdom had worship that included the golden calf. In Nehemiah 9 (from post-exilic period), an account of the history of Israel, their ancestors even made a calf out of molten metal and said this was the God who brought them out of Egypt. They committed monstrous impieties. Yet, in compassion, the Lord did not abandon them in the desert. In the incident in Exodus, we find the first two commandments already broken. In the context of the J story, the first human beings fall away, humanity before the flood falls away, and now Israel falls away.
In the context of the Exodus account, Exodus 32:1-6 show us that instead of a unified people, they were once again just a motley group of runaway slaves, complaining all the way. To be blunter, the people of the Lord in every age see the mighty deeds of the Lord and still wonder if the Lord is present in this moment. 1When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; 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.” It almost seems as if the length of time Moses spent with God on the mountain became a sign that Yahweh was gone as well. It is possible that Aaron himself had convened a convention of the people in the off chance that they’d declare him their leader by acclamation in the absence of Moses. 2 Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” The puzzling thing here is that Aaron caves without a fight. The people speak and he obeys. He does not even show any hesitation or reluctance. He may well have welcomed the power he seems to have. He seems willing and even eager to accommodate the popular demand. Today, we might think of the sub-culture to which we belong. Let us say one is progressive in political thought. It can be quite tempting for the Christian among them simply to join with the chorus of progressive thought, giving the progressive group what it wants from anyone who is among them. The danger for the Christian in this scenario is that progressive thought has become the means to any influence you have. Thinking progressively helps you to fit in with the crowd. You become like Aaron. Now, what I have said about the progressive sub-group is something I could duplicate in many other sub-groups in America today. 3 So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” This at least suggests arrogance and pride. If gods they have made delivered them from Egypt, then the people of Israel are the source of their deliverance. 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” Aaron may have thought all of this was harmless act, given he wants to make the next day a festival to Yahweh, of all things! 6 They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel. As was typical of such offerings in Israel, the people ate and drank together, and then partied the rest of the day. Jeroboam appointed a festival as well (I Kings 12:32). Calling for a "Festival to Yahweh" might have been a nice gesture — but it was a little like rolling a half dozen kegs of beer into a rowdy crowd at a rock concert and then announcing that you expect everyone to behave like ladies and gentlemen. Was Aaron really surprised when, after all the sacrifices were offered and the people's bellies were filled, that the people "rose up to revel" — the NRSV's discreet way of saying a wild, sexual, cultic orgy broke out.
This reminds me of a quite different little story that might help illustrate the shock of this event. One day, after a college economics professor had gone over an exam taken by the class, a bewildered student approached him and asked to have his test re‑evaluated. As tactfully as possible, the student pointed out that the professor must have made a mistake. He deducted thirty points on a question that was valued at twenty‑five points. The professor looked over the paper and then handed it back with a pained expression: “But you were so wrong,” he told the student.
Aaron and the people were so wrong in their considerations that led them to make the golden calf. They were wrong in every way possible.
We can distance this event from our experience quite easily. We do not fashion gods to worship in a religious setting. Such actions are for pre-modern times and for primitive people. We have no temptation to engage in idolatry of that type. For this, we can have some gratitude for the continuing influence of Judaism and Christianity. Yet, we rightly ponder whether we have found other ways to engage in idolatry.
A god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need. To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe him with our whole heart. As I have often said, the trust and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust are right then your god is the true God. On the other hand, if your trust is false and wrong, then you have not the true God. For these two belong together, faith and God. That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your god.[1]
“Idolatry” implies supplanting the true object of worship with something false. We have a sense that our fragmented and isolated lives depend upon their connection to something much larger. At some level, we serve and worship that larger whole of which are simply a part. The question before humanity is whether we worship truly. When we fashion gods that are comfortable to us, make us feel good, allow us to indulge in pleasure, power, materialism, then we fashion gods to our liking. We may have made an idol of progress, nation, race, family, and science. We can make an idol out of our worldview, political philosophy, or ideology. We may make an idol out of some generally good things, such as the Bible or tolerance. Such gods are little more than our desires and hopes, with an exclamation mark. Such gods we make in our image. When we turn aside to this way of worship, we show our kinship with people throughout history who have rebelled against what God wants. Yet, the content of what or whom we worship matters for how we live. If we do not worship truly, we will not live truly. Martin Luther once said, “Superstition, idolatry and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a-begging.“ Clearly, we will need to receive a revelation from God. True worship relates us to the God who engages us in the journey of life. God wants us to be part of a faithful community of people, bound in covenant to God and to each other. God cares enough about us that God is angry when we are not faithful to that covenant. Yet, mercy and grace cause God to keep working with us, as disobedient as we may become, to shape us into a people that honor the covenant.
So, what else is new? We humans have been inventing our own god for as long as we have been around, and then tailoring our worship to match our invention. Some of us may need an image, I suppose. We may need to take that path in order to experience God. Yet, we must always be ready to have that image broken, so that we can worship the true God. I know it is easy to criticize these ancient people. Yet, are we engaged in our own version of “it seemed like a good idea at the time” inventions, spiritually?
What have we invented lately? Have you said or heard someone else say something like this: "Well, if God is a God of love, surely he wants me to be happy and won't condemn me for ____________." That blank is usually filled in with some self-centered behavior that God probably would not condone. When we do that, we are talking about a god of our own creation. We are quite willing to worship that god, but since we have set up this god with our own conditions, we should not be surprised if we, too, go off the rails when it comes to how we live. Many of us may never heal or experience liberation unless the concept of God we have developed is put away We may imagine a god who is mostly judgmental. We imagine a distant god.
Some scholars say that Jesus looks to us like we are "at the moment of our looking at him." I need to tread lightly here. God meets us at the point of our need, and so this is natural at one point. Yet, part of discipleship is to keep expanding our view of God. If we are preoccupied with survival, then Jesus becomes an expert in eternal life. If we want to learn things, then Jesus suddenly becomes a professor whose main task is to teach us what to think. In my case, I wanted guidance. I early found that guidance in the Bible, the church, Christian friends, spiritual guidance, and prayer. If we are lonely, then Jesus becomes a friend. If we are insecure, then Jesus takes charge and puts us through some strict regimen or other. If we are having trouble with our freedom and choices, then Jesus becomes a steely‑willed model for our lives. If we are looking for a little beauty in life, then Jesus suddenly becomes quite artsy (especially in liturgies). If we are looking for a sense of action and accomplishment, then Jesus becomes a hard‑charging organizer of worthy causes.
At a given moment in your life, God may be any one of these things. Yet, our images of God are never adequate.
Exodus 32:7-14 read like an insertion by the Deuteronomic Historian into the narrative regarding the Golden Calf.
Exodus 32:7-10 give Yahweh's perspective on the sin of the Israelites at Sinai. For some scholars, this passage is an insertion by the Deuteronomic historian into the story of the golden calf. 7 The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, the Lord possibly saying this with a wink and a smile, so to speak, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” Surprisingly, or maybe not surprising, instead of being people of the Lord, the Lord says (with a wink and a smile?) they are now the people of Moses. They are behaving like ignorant heathens. They have already broken the first two commandments. They are far from forming an obedient and loving community. 9 The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked, headstrong, and obstinate they are. The people of the Lord of every generation exhibit how resistant they are to giving full allegiance and loyalty to the Lord. This people also wondered if the Lord led them out of Egypt only to have them slaughtered at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:11-12). The Lord established a covenant with them in Exodus 19. 10 Now let me alone, implying that Moses can restrain the Lord from destroying this people, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; we can see here the contrast between the burning of the wrath of God here with the persistent patience and love of God. Such wrath has a strong connection to the holiness of God. The intercessions of Moses are reasons for repentance or self-control with which the gracious will of God overcomes the workings of wrath.[2] And of you I will make a great nation.” The Lord will fulfill the promises to the patriarchs to make of their descendants a great nation through Moses. The Lord is willing to make of Moses someone like Noah. The Lord is willing to start over in forming a new people of the Lord. Thus, we can see that this incident brings everything in the biblical story of the covenant into question. The entire notion of the election of a people for a covenant with the Lord based upon grace is now in question. These people are to be separate from the nations in the sense that the Lord has chosen them to fulfill a divine mission. The existence of Israel is at risk.[3] However tempting it might have been, Moses is still the mediator for the people. The mind of the Lord changes, but now both are aware of the task that lies ahead. Moses and God now face the task of leading "a stiff-necked" people who are far from being an obedient and loving covenant community.
Have we forgotten who God is? They have quickly turned aside from the covenant at Mount Sinai. They are already breaking the first two commandments, elevating a god above Yahweh and fashioning an image. The Lord cares enough for the people of the Lord to be angry with them when they start going down a self-destructive path. Yet, it will “burn,” which suggests that it will flame up and die out. Our image of God may well need some expansion here.
Exodus 32:11-14 offers a prayer of Moses. We see a close parallel in Deuteronomy 9:25-29, which means the Deuteronomic Historian has inserted this text here or is quoting J in Deuteronomy. In response to the anger of the Lord, Moses prayed a bold prayer comparable to the prayer of Abraham, Job, or the prophets. His prayer is for the people at whom the Lord is angry. He mounts a multifaceted plea. Israel is the procession of the Lord. On whose behalf the Lord has invested much effort. Thus, destroying this people, the possession of the lord, would injure the reputation of the Lord among the nations. The Lord has an obligation to the ancestors of Israel, who were loyal servants of the Lord. In contrast with the people, Moses recognizes Yahweh as the one who delivered the people of the Lord. 11 But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, Moses responding back to the Lord with a wink and a smile, reminding the Lord that they are not the people of Moses but the people of the Lord, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Moses counters the disassociation from Israel in verse 7, for what the Lord has invested in Israel would be for naught if the Lord were to destroy them. 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? the most daring argument he makes is that annihilating Israel would damage the reputation of the Lord in the world. The Lord would appear diabolical and lose stature that the Lord gained from the exodus. The argument assumes that the Lord cares about the reputation the Lord has in the world. The specific intercessory prayer of Moses is Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind (repent) and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” by destroying the Israelites, the Lord would violate the oath to the patriarchs to give them countless descendants and eternal possession of the promised land (Genesis 12:7, 13:15-16,, 15:5, 17:7-8. Even the violation of the conditional covenant made at Sinai would not justify destroying this people, since the earlier covenant with the patriarchs was unconditional and irrevocable (Genesis 17:7, Deuteronomy 4:31). This idea will form the basis of the merity of the ancestors in Jewish prayers after the biblical period, which suggests that even when the Jewish people lack merit, the merits of their ancestors can sustain it and the Lord may grant mercy for their sake. The result of his prayer, surprisingly, 14 And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people. The Lord agrees not to destroy the people, as requested in verse 12, but to the request regarding bringing Israel to the promised land in verse 13. Full reconciliation will require several further please by Moses. The Lord and Moses now face the task of leading “a stiff-necked” people. Moses has been liberator, a messenger from the Lord, a lawgiver, and a prophet. Now, he plays the role of mediator. He is the one who speaks with God face to face, as a man with a friend. Paul will speak in Romans 9:3 in a comparable way as does Moses here. He discusses the giving of the Law, its breaking, and its renewal, under the theme of the pride of humanity and the grace of God.[4] This is why theologically wrath is not an attribute of God, for in this case, the intercessions of Moses and the prophets can cause a change of mind that we can translate as divine repentance and self-control.[5]
The idea that God is swayed by human intercession is an idea put forward by many biblical writers. Repeatedly, patriarchs such as Abraham (Genesis 18:22-33) and Moses succeed in changing God’s mind. Other biblical stories portray God as regretful concerning a course of action previously decided upon (such as the decision to make Saul king, 1 Samuel 15:11). Having a God who reconsiders, who yields to mercy when justice is really called for, is one of the unique features of Israelite religion. Unlike the implacable gods of Mesopotamia or Egypt, Israel’s God is motivated by the emotions of compassion and love. While having a god who never changes was a high priority for some cultures, Israel allowed God to interact with and be profoundly affected by the actions of humanity. God responds, reacts, and can be appealed to. As troubling as a prayer that changes the mind of the Lord might be, it says something important to us about the wrath or anger of God. Anger does not determine the acts of God. The anger of the Lord is more like a sudden outburst that burns when the people scorn the holiness of God and fall away from God.[6] Thus, anger is not an attribute of God, for God can exercise a change of mind or even self-control concerning anger.[7] We would not think of asking God to repent of goodness, love or compassion (I hope), for these are attributes of God. The burning of the wrath of God is for a moment, but the persistent patience and love of God abide. Through the intercession of Moses as he appeals to the covenant righteousness of God and the helplessness of the people of the Lord when confronted with divine wrath, the gracious will of God overcomes the momentary working of wrath.[8] Yes, such behavior on the part of the Lord startles us. However, we should not view it as a sign of divine weakness. Rather, we need to see it a sign of divine grace. The grace of God got the best of the justifiable anger of God. In this way, the story is microcosm of the biblical pattern. Judgment is never the final word from the Lord.[9]
It seems that the quest to know God is part of human history from its beginning. I recall a cute joke about this. A child is drawing seriously. “What are you drawing?” “I am drawing a picture of God.” “But son, no one knows what God looks like.” “They will when I am done.” Now, I admire the creativity of the child. It is a good idea for a child. As adults, we need to think about these matters differently.
We cannot look for God the way we do other things in the world. God is so far beyond all that, and closer than all that. Granted, the quest can be hard. Worship of God involves truth, yet, truth is notoriously difficult for us to handle. In fact, when confronted with it, we often back away.
Sometimes, we can produce some beautiful pictures of God. Michelangelo had a beautiful picture of God. The Hubble Telescope had a picture of a portion of the universe that had a title, “hand of God” and another “eye of God.” As grand as these pictures are, they cannot embrace God. God is infinite, and therefore embraces this huge universe. God is eternal, and thus embraces time.
At this point, we need to hear again of the grace of God. Grace is unmerited favor. Grace is the startling act of God working on behalf of the very ones who have violated the covenant and substituted gods of their own making for him. When human beings fail to live up to their part of their covenant, God remains faithful. Any image of God we have that leaves that out is a calf of gold.
We know God through the event of revelation. If we are inventing, then what we invent says far more about us than it does the true God. At the same time, when something arrives in history that claims to be revelation from God, we wisely recognize it, turn toward it, and by faith embrace its truth. We will then have committed ourselves to the lifelong project of conforming our lives to the event of revelation.
Here is a simple story. Writer Kathleen Norris tells of being at an airport departure gate one day where she noticed a young couple with an infant. The baby was staring intently at other people, and as soon as he recognized a human face, no matter if it were young or old, pretty or ugly, bored or happy or worried looking, he would respond with complete delight. She says it was beautiful to see. The drab departure gate had become the gate of heaven, she says. As she watched that baby play with any adult who would allow it, she realized that this is how God looks at us, staring into our faces to be delighted, to see the creature God made and called good, along with the rest of creation. As Psalm139 puts it, darkness is as nothing to God, who can look right through whatever evil we have done in our lives to the creature made in the divine image.
God can look right through our guilt trips, our failures and our agonies, our phoniness, our invented deities, and our sins, and see someone he loves. Call that divine ability the grace of God. Now, that is a really promising idea, one that will last.
[1] Martin Luther, "The Large Catechism," The Book of Concord, Theodore G. Tappert, ed., Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959, p. 365
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[9] Anthony Spina
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