Exodus 32.1-35

The Golden Calf

Moses has been on Mount Sinai since chapter 24, when he left Joshua halfway up the mountain (Ex. 24. 13) and went up to receive instructions from God. When last we left Moses, he received two stone tablets from God. What follows is a story of parallel thoughts and actions

The Golden Calf: Exodus 32.1-35

Moses has been out of the picture for a whole eight chapters, and the Israelites are starting to get antsy. Just before Moses went up the mountain, the Israelites twice promised to obey the Lord's command. Now Moses their leader has been gone for a whole eight chapters! What are they to do? The Israelites gather around Aaron and say 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."
(Ex. 32.1)

It seems that God has disappeared along with Moses. The Israelites do not say that God brought them out of Egypt, as stated in the First Commandment, which the people of Israel have already heard: "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" (Ex. 20.1). Rather, it is Moses that brought the people out of Egypt, and as he disappears, so does the God associated with them.

The people should remember God, but the dialectical tension (the difference between God's desire and Israel's desire) prevails. The people here, having been rescued by God and having lost their leader, search for a new god - and a new leader.

For someone that has seen firsthand the power of God and been granted the ability to perform miracles, Aaron is quick to forget about the God of his brother. Perhaps he is just a pushover, because he quickly decides to create idols, disobeying Commandment Two.

Aaron tells the Israelite to collect gold earrings worn by the women and children - perhaps the same earrings that the Israelites took from the Egyptians as they left Egypt. Aaron melts down the gold and forms and image of a calf. He tells the Israelites, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" (Ex. 32.4). That is not a correct statement, but perhaps what it is the Israelites, who believe they have lost their leader in a thick cloud on a trembling mountain, wish to hear. Suddenly Aaron finds he is the greatest authority of the Israelites - quite a bit of power has suddenly been bestowed upon him. And, as Peter Parker would say (quoting his Uncle Ben), "With great power comes great responsibility."

Aaron continues to parody the true Lord and the rituals of Israelite religion, building an altar before the calf and declaring that tomorrow will be the festival of the Lord. The next day people offer burnt offerings and other sacrifices, eat and drink, and then "revel" (with a sexual connotation). The practice of Israelite worship, of course, is entirely free of sex.

The Lord tells Moses to return to the Israelites:

The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 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 worshipped it and sacrificed to it, and said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” ’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 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.’
(Ex. 32.7-10)

The Lord's sentiment parallels that of the Israelites. Just as the Israelites divorce themselves from God and emphasize Moses' role in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, God divorces himself from the Israelites, calling them "your people," and emphasizes as well Moses' role in leading the Israelites. Moses is caught in the middle as a negotiator between God, who is having trouble keeping his followers, and the Israelites, who are having trouble keeping faith in God.

Moses intercedes on behalf of the Israelites in a scene reminiscent of Abraham interceding on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah. The difference is that Abraham was essentially imploring God for the sake of Lot and his family. Moses implores God for the sake of all the Israelites, who have lost their way. He makes an appeal to reason, asking God why God would destroy the people that he just brought out of Egypt, thereby having the Egyptians to believe that God is an evil God. Moses then invokes the divine covenant of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel - the covenant of land and progeny. Moses' argument is strong enough that the Lord decides not to bring disaster on the people.

Moses goes down the mountain carrying the two tablets of the covenant, both written on both sides by the hand of God. He encounters Joshua who says that the noise is like the sound of war. But Moses knows better:

It is not the sound made by victors,
or the sound made by losers;
it is the sound of revelers that I hear.
(Ex. 32.18)

When Moses sees the calf and the people dancing, his anger burns hot (paralleling God's burning wrath). Moses throws the tablets from his hands, breaking them at the foot of the mountain. This symbolic action has Moses destroying the embodiment of the word of God in front of the people who have disobeyed God's commands. That is, the commands that have been broken figuratively by disobedience are broken literally into fragments of text because of the disobedience.

Unlike God, Moses punishes the Israelites for their sins. Moses burns the calf and grinds it into a powder, puts it in the water, and has the Israelites drink it

What follows is a conversation between Moses and Aaron that parallel the previous conversation between God and Moses. The role have been transposed: Moses, who as a representative of the people calms God, now is calmed by Aaron, who is the new representative of the people.

Aaron seeks to calm his lord's burning anger, bringing the dialectical tension into the forefront, which God did in God's conversation with Moses:

And Aaron said, ‘Do not let the anger of my lord burn hot; you know the people, that they are bent on evil. They said to me, “Make us gods, 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.” So I said to them, “Whoever has gold, take it off ”; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!’
(Ex. 32.22-24)

That's Aaron, removing the blame from himself. The bible is laconic, but Aaron should not be presumed innocent due to a lack of detail. Aaron's defense obscures the fact that he created the calf himself, and characterizes him as a liar, or at least inconstant. With Moses gone, Aaron gave into the demands of the Israelites. With Moses back, Aaron blames the Israelites for their wickedness while removing blame from himself. Oh, and Aaron seems to have a problem maintaining order, and the narrator is quick to point out that this is to the derision of their enemies, who probably now see the Israelites as a depraved group of people going wild in the wilderness with no leader.

It's time for retribution.

Moses has all those on the Lord's side come to him at the gate of the camp. The Levite males gather around and Moses delivers a command from God (one that we never actually saw Moses receiving): Each man is to kill "your brother, your friend, and your neighbor" (Ex. 32.27). Whether these are singular or collective nouns, I cannot say. Each man might kill three men, or perhaps a greater number. Perhaps each man should only kill one other man, as indicated by the phrasing in verse 29 (below). In any case, 3,000 people fall that day. Moses says to the Levite men: "Today you have ordained yourselves (or "Today ordain yourselves) for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of a son or a brother, and so have brought a blessing on yourselves this day" (Ex. 32.29).

Like Abraham and Jacob, these men were tested with violence to prove themselves worthy of service to the Lord. Unlike Abraham, they did not have to kill. Unlike Jacob, they killed and did not wrestle. But clearly the connection between violence and faithfulness is established. The killings also may serve as an attempted action of mass purification, but this idea is not pursued by the biblical authors.

The next day Moses tells the people that they have sinned a "great sin." He goes up to the Lord to try to make atonement on their behalf. Moses pleads their case, and asks if their sin is not forgiven, that God should "blot me out of the book that you have written" (Ex. 32.32; a divine roll of the living is an ancient tradition to many middle eastern cultures). God replies that God [only] blots out the names of those who sin.

The Lord then commands Moses to lead the people to "the place about which I have spoken to you" (Ex. 32.34). The angel of the Lord will lead them. And God promises to punish the Israelites when the day comes to punish their sins.

The chapter ends with a dig aimed at Aaron:

Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf—the one that Aaron made.
(Ex. 32.35)

The author seems to take Aaron to task. At first the author seems to reiterate Aaron's point of view, that it was the people that made the calf, but the author corrects this with the truth. Indeed it was Aaron that made the golden calf.

Tomorrow: Sayonara, Sinai.