The Golden Calf

The Golden Calf

Exodus 32:1-14

In today’s uncertain times, there is a rush among many to buy gold. As compared to paper money which inflates and is really backed by nothing but the good faith and credit of the issuer, gold has for thousands of years been seen as a stable store of value. I have even heard the saying: “In gold we trust.” Gold has many properties which make it valuable. In is a beautiful metal. It can be beaten quite thin, and a small amount of gold can cover a large area. It does not tarnish like silver and many other metals. Because of this, it is used in electronics to plate contacts to insure that the connection remains solid. It is used in jewelry. It is rare, which makes it valuable. It has a long history as being used for money. So, indeed, gold is a wonder metal.

There is another saying which says: “All that glitters is not gold.” A thin plating of gold can be put upon another cheap and heavy metal such as lead. The unwitting person can be duped into thinking they are buying solid gold. Countries have debased their coinage over the centuries by such a method. It catches the eye, but it is not what it seems to be. Whether it is solid gold or fool’s gold, it has incited the lust for wealth and ownership. This is not to say that gold is bad. We have already seen some of its useful properties.In Exodus 31:1-4 we read that Bezalel was gifted by the Spirit of God to make beautiful objects for the Tabernacle. This was a great use for gold as it was to make the Tabernacle where the presence of Yahweh resided beautiful. But as we will read this morning, gold can be used for nefarious purposes as well.

When we look at this passage about the golden calf, we might ask the question as to where the Israelites who were poor, miserable slaves in Egypt got the gold. Exodus 11:1-3 tells us that on the day before the last plague, the Israelites were to “borrow” jewels of silver and jewels of gold” from the Egyptians, and that the LORD would put them in favor of the Egyptians to do so. So the Egyptians who were rich in gold and silver were spoiled by the Israelites. they carried this gold with them into the wilderness. Much of this gold was used in the furnishing of the Tabernacle, but not all. It is the use of the rest of this gold which concerns us this morning.

The text says that Moses had gone up into the mountain to receive the tablets of the Law which had been written by the finger of Yahweh. Covenants in the Ancient Near East were engraved by use of a chisel (stylus) into stone (stele). Stone was more enduring than tablets of clay or papyrus and reflected that the covenant was meant to be enduring in nature. God, knowing in advance that Israel would someday ask for an earthly king told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 17:18:

Deuteronomy 17:18 NKJV

“Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites.

The king, as Yahweh’s representative was to personally make a copy of the Law, a reflection of what we see here. By copying the Law, the king would be made aware of his divine responsibilities to Yahweh.

Moses spent a long time upon Mt. Sinai waiting for the Law to be engraved in stone. The people of Israel below became restless. Perhaps they thought that Yahweh had struck Moses dead. They already had developed a reputation that the only reason Yahweh had freed them from Egyptian slavery was to destroy them in the desert. They were always impugning the motives of the LORD. the technical term for this is “blasphemy.” The Children of Israel had seen the flashes of lightning and the peals of thunder and were terrified. Perhaps Moses had been struck down. what were they to do?

The people approached Aaron with their concerns. They asked Aaron to make gods for them. They had lost faith in a God whom they could not directly see. Yahweh was clothed in both light and darkness. None of them had ever seen Him, they had heard His voice and were so afraid that they asked Moses to speak to them and not Yahweh. Whatever the LORD told Moses, Moses could tell the people, and they would obey. They did not trust this invisible God who had taken them from Egypt. They lusted to return to Egypt and the “good life” of bondage and hard labor there they feasted on wild onions. So Aaron relented and asked them for their golden earrings from which he made a golden calf. This was a likeness to the Egyptian god, Hawthor.” This shows that they intended that Aaron would take them back to Egypt with the golden calf leading them.