WHEN GOD WANTED TO START OVER

God: Moses, I'm still furious! Get out of my way. I'm gonna burn 'em all up and start over with you. You'll be the new Abraham! I've had it with YOUR people YOU brought out of Egypt. Golden calves indeed!

Moses: Whoa, Lord! These are YOUR people that YOU brought out of the land of Egypt! Remember all that stuff about bringing them here on eagle's wings?

G: They sure don't act like it. After all I've done for them, they built a golden calf and claimed THAT CALF brought them from Egypt. Nonsense. I'll burn 'em all up!

M: And then the Egyptians will say You only brought them into the desert to kill them. What kind of God is that? Besides, you promised Abraham that his descendants will become a great nation. We're just about to do that.

G: Well, maybe I WAS a bit too hasty there. OK, I'll give them another chance, but we got to deal with this first.

It's easy to miss how important this is. Pay special attention to the pronouns. The Lord is trying to foist the people off on Moses, but Moses will have none of it. He keeps pointing out God chose these people and delivered them. Remember these are also the same people Moses must be frustrated with. Over and over, they had tried to rebel, claiming Moses brought them out to the desert to die. Over and over they had griped and him. And they would keep doing it! And MOSES KNEW THAT. He had never wanted this job in the first place. Tried everything he could to talk God out of it with no success.

To me, this is a high point of the Old Testament. In begging God not to give up on the people, Moses himself had to forgive those same people. Think for a minute. These are the same people who a few days before swore in a pledge to the Lord, “You only will we serve.” But Moses had their back. With all their faults, he had learned to love them and identify with them. And God honored Moses and His covenant with Abraham.

Note we often hear that in those days they were under law, and we are under grace. Sounds good, but not true. The Sinai covenant was a covenant of grace. Israel had violated radically the covenant even white the details were being spelled out. When one party violates a covenant, it is no longer good. But the Lord honored His covenant anyway. That's grace, not law. The Law itself was given by grace!

Now let's back up and look at what caused this word duel between God and Moses. At the beginning of Chapter 32 the people are (surprise!) grumbling again. Moses is gone.

We haven't seen any sign of him for several days. For that matter, we've seen no sign of that God of his – what was His name? Yahweh or something? Hey Aaron! Make us some gods to lead us. We need some kind of leader. We have no clue what has happened to Moses.

Exodus records no sign of Aaron resisting their request. He doesn't stand up for his brother, nor counsel patience, at least for a few days. He simply says to bring him some gold to work with. Then he takes the gold and with great craftsmanship he creates a golden calf. I suspect this is a bull calf. The Secomd Commandment may have been aimed specifically at Israel's tendency to represent God as a bull. Years later when Solomon died, Israel split off its ten tribes from Judah. To prevent his people from returning to the temple in Jerusalem to worship, Jereboam built temples at Bethel and Dan, the southern and northern borders, and placed bulls as their god to worship. Very possibly Israel called those bulls Yahweh – or at least thought of them that way if they didn't say the name.

Then Aaron spoke blasphemy, knowing he was not telling the truth, saying “These are your gods that brought you out of the land of Egypt!” So they worshipped, ate, and “rose up to party!” KJV says “play,” but this was certainly sexual play and moral depravity.

In the middle of the revelry Moses came down the mountain in a rage, breaking all ten commandments at once! He immediately confronted Aaron, “I left you in charge! What are these people doing?”

“Moses, you know what these people are like! They came to me with all their jewelry telling me to make them a god. I through the stuff in the fire, and this calf came out!” (If you believe that...) Moses pushed past his brother, grabbed the calf and somehow ground it into powder. He poured the powder into water and made the people drink it! Then he called for those who were with him, and the tribe of Levi (Moses and Aaron's people) answered and proceeded to put down the rebellion. I imagine they had witnessed those who led the rebellion, attacked those first and then any who supported them.

It has always troubled me that Moses never punished his brother. I expect they had some furious arguments in the privacy of their tents, tho.

This is Perry's speculation:

The tribe of Levi, Moses's own tribe, responded to his call. We were raised with the knowledge of Israel's 12 tribes, but I'm not sure I grasped it until the Iraq war came along with the emphasis on the Middle East. Sadam Hussein filled his government with his family and friends from his home town of Tikrit. These were the only people he felt he coult trust. An old Arab saying has it you can only fully trust your immediate family, then the tribe, but no one else. A lot of the trouble in the Middle East comes from the colonialists dividing the land into countries and other divisions without paying attention to tribes and religions. In Korea, Kim can't even trust his family. (Reminds me of Herod the Great.

Later, David first became king for seven years only over Judah, Benjamin, and the half tribe of Dan. That was the exacr split three generations later into the northern and southern kingdoms. Tribal alliances.