Exodus 32

¹⁵ Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. ¹⁶ The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. ¹⁷ When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” ¹⁸ But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” ¹⁹ And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. ²⁰ He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. ²¹ And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” ²² And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. ²³ For 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.’ ²⁴ So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.” ²⁵ And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), ²⁶ then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. ²⁷ And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’” ²⁸ And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. ²⁹ And Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.” ³⁰ The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” ³¹ So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. ³² But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.” ³³ But the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. ³⁴ But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.” ³⁵ Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.

Michael Linton has written an opera review entitled, “Moses at the Met.”  It an interesting look at an operatic performance of the life of Moses and, particularly of the scenes in the opera from Exodus 32.  He praises the opera’s artistry and beauty, yet he calls it a “theological failure that testifies to the difficulties of creating religious art outside a religious community.”

This centrality of religious issues to modern composers was dramatically highlighted last spring by the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Arnold Schoenberg’s rarely performed  Moses und Aron. Although he did not live to hear a performance (it was first staged in Zurich in 1957, six years after his death), Schoenberg regarded the opera as his most important composition…For Schoenberg, “God” is pure idea who can be experienced only internally. Act One begins at the burning bush….Act Two opens in the wilderness, the Hebrews growing restless as they wait for Moses to return from meeting with God. They suspect that the new deity has killed Moses and abandoned them. They become violent, and Aaron agrees to give the mob an image of God they can comprehend. He makes the golden calf (a stuffed disemboweled ox in the Met production). The people bring it offerings and sacrifices. They become drunk, murderous, and orgiastic.
As their orgy collapses into stupor, Moses returns with the stone tables of the law. Outraged by what he sees, he commands that the idol be destroyed and calls Aaron to account. Aaron justifies himself by describing the people’s fears and telling Moses that he “heeded the voice from within” when he gave the people an image of God they could comprehend. Moses may love his pure idea of God, but Aaron claims that he loves the people. God may be timeless, but such timelessness is shown by the endurance of Israel, and Israel proves its faithfulness by its “feeling.” Nothing truly encompasses the totality of God, Aaron argues, and the stone tablets no less than the golden calf are but a partial revelation “and thus a distortion” of the pure God “idea so important to Moses.”
Recognizing the validity of Aaron’s point, Moses smashes the tablets in disgust. Chiding Moses, Aaron says that by making Moses’ idea comprehensible to the common man, he sustains it. A pillar of fire appears to lead the Israelites, but Moses distrusts it as yet another physical distortion of the metaphysical truth. Aaron joins the people as they begin to follow the pillar, while Moses remains rooted in despair. Aaron has perverted Moses’ pure perception of God, and the act closes with Moses crying hopelessly, “Oh word, word that I lack!”[1]

Wow!  Now that is a unique take on Exodus 32!  In Schoenberg’s opera, Moses smashes the tablets of the ten commandments because Aaron persuades him that the tablets are deficient, are partial revelation, and that the mind and heart of God cannot be known through such physical means.  Thus, Aaron is seen to be wise for following his inner impulses in making the golden calf and Moses is seen to be a fool for thinking that the stone tablets could truly tell him anything about God or that the golden calf could really offend God.  Moses’ pitiful words at the end of the act are most tragic of all:  “Oh word, word that I lack!”

What is amazing about this is the fact that Schoenberg manages in his opera to communicate the exact opposite point that Exodus 32 makes.  Far from coming to see the commandments as insufficient, Moses realized that on these tablets is the true law of God communicating the true heart of God.  Far from being persuaded by Aaron’s sin, Moses was stunned that Aaron could sin so greatly against God!  Far from trusting God less, Moses’ actions reveal that he realized that the Lord who met him on the mountain was Israel’s only hope.  Far from seeing the golden calf as a largely irrelevant object, Moses called down judgement before Moses cried out for mercy.  And far from staying behind in a fit of nihilistic despair while Aaron and the children of Israel went ahead, Moses called on the people to repent and to decide whether or not they would follow the Lord God in truth.

Judgment and wrath: the consequence of sin.

Our text is one of devastating wrath in response to heinous sin.  While Moses is on the mountain, the children of Israel grow impatient and turn to revelry before a false god.

¹⁵ Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. ¹⁶ The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. ¹⁷ When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” ¹⁸ But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” ¹⁹ And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. ²⁰ He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. ²¹ And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” ²² And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. ²³ For 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.’ ²⁴ So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.” ²⁵ And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies)

Moses descends from the mountain holding the two tablets engraved with the law of God.  He picks up Joshua on the way.  As they approach, they hear a noise that Joshua mistakenly takes to be a noise of war but that he will soon realize is “the sound of singing.”  The children of Israel are indeed singing and dancing before the golden calf but, let us make no mistake, their doing so was an act of war.  It was a warlike rebellion against the God who loved them!

When Moses and Joshua finally draw near enough to see what is happening, “Moses’ anger burned hot,” and, famously, Moses smashes the tablets at the foot of the mountain!  Bruce Wells observes that “the implications of breaking the tablets goes beyond [an outburst of anger].  To smash tablets recording a legal agreement signifies the annulment of that agreement.”[2]

The action escalates quickly.  Moses takes the calf, burns it, grinds it to powder, scatters it on the water, and then makes the people drink it!  What is happening here!  Victor Hamilton points out that these same verbs—burn, grind, and scatter—are similarly used in a pagan legend of the time to depict the idea of complete decimation.

Almost all commentators are indebted to the connection the late Professor Loewenstamm has made between Exod. 32: 20 and a Northwest Semitic text from Ugarit in his two articles (1967) and (1975). It is a text that describes the goddess Anat’s vanquishing the god Mot. Seven lines are relevant:

She seized divine Mot,

With a sword she split him,

With a sieve she winnowed him,

With fire she burnt him,

With millstones she ground him,

In a field she scattered him,

His flesh indeed the birds ate.

I have italicized the verbs in lines 4– 6, for they are the same three in the same sequence as in Exod. 32: 20: “burned . . . ground . . . scattered.” The first two are the exact same words, ś-r-p, “burn”; and ṭ-ḥ-n, “ground.” The Canaanite text uses d-r-ʿ for “scatter” while Exod. 32: 20 uses zārâ. For Loewenstamm, both this Ugaritic text and Exod. 32: 20 exhibit a picturesque, literary way of saying that someone totally destroys something or somebody else.[3]

In other words, this sequence of words, used in the ancient world, created a vivid word picture that communicated absolute and complete destruction.  Moses unleashes his full fury on the object of the children’s devotion.  How startling this must have been for them!

Then, immediately, in verse 21, Moses turns his attention to Aaron.  This is noteworthy!  Aaron, the one who ought to have been calling the children to greater faithfulness, had particularly sinned by allowing them to create the golden calf.  Moses condemns Aaron and Aaron, tragically, equivocates.  Tony Merida sums the whole sad scene up well when he writes:

Aaron, as the spiritual leader, rightly was singled out for allowing this to happen (see v. 35). But instead of repenting of sin, Aaron did what Adam (the first garden priest) did in the garden: he shifted blame. He put the blame on the people for their evil and tried to make it sound like Moses had the problem (v. 22; cf. 1 Sam 15: 20-24). He essentially said, “Don’t be so upset, little brother; you know how these people are. They are bent on evil.” In other words, “Why are you getting so mad?” We have seen our own versions of this approach. Instead of confessing sin, people prefer to make excuses for their sin. Sometimes there is truth to these excuses. In this case, Aaron was right: the people were evil. But that was not the issue. What they did was irrelevant in this discussion; Aaron chose to give into the temptation. You cannot control your situation and your circumstances all the time, but through Christ, you must not yield to temptation. Aaron then said the people made him do it (v. 23). Once again, Aaron refused to admit his sin. He refused to acknowledge that he had yielded to temptation. He said, “They said to me . . .” as if he had no choice in the situation. The proper way to respond when confronted with sin is not by saying “Everyone was doing it!” or “She made me do it!” You may indeed be in a tempting situation, but you must respond appropriately, and when you sin, you need to repent. His final excuse was the most pathetic. He blamed the fire (v. 24)! Aaron said that when they threw the gold in the fire, a calf came out! Aaron tried to cover up his sin with the spin game. He lied, made up things. Whether you admit your sin or not, you remain accountable for it.[4]

We are accountable for our sins!  The righteous fury that pulsates in our text ought to show us just how serious it is to rebel against a loving God!  Moses’ outrage should be our outrage at our own sins.  Think of how cozy we get with our own sins, how comfortable we become with that which should enrage us!

As it turns out, we do have plenty of anger for sin.  Unfortunately, it is mainly reserved for the sins of others and particularly reserved for those times when others sin against us!  This is hypocrisy!  We ought to be more angry at our own sins, realizing that our sins make us traitors against Heaven.  We ought to grieve.  Instead, like Aaron, we offer lame excuses and make pitiful attempts to explain away that for which there is no explanation.

Repentance and forgiveness: the choice offered to humanity.

Our text is a hard text.  There is a note of judgment throughout it that chills to the bone.  Even so, there is an opportunity for repentance here.

²⁶ then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. ²⁷ And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’” ²⁸ And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. ²⁹ And Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.”

Yes, this is a hard text and this slaying of three thousand men stops us in our tracks.  We are struck by the seriousness with which sin is taken in this text.  It is no small thing to rebel against a holy God.  To modern ears, our text might sound grossly disproportionate.  Yet Moses knows that the corruption of the people of God from the inside through giving themselves in worship to false gods cannot be allowed to go unchecked.  As they travel toward the land of promise, Moses knows that great resolve, great courage, great unity, and, above all else, radical devotion to the truthfulness of the word of Yahweh God must be present in Israel’s heart.

Even so, notice his question from verse 26:  “Who is on the Lord’s side?  Come to me.”  This call to come out of the judgment about to befall the disobedient children is most significant.  God, in his mercy, offers a call for His children to come away from the coming wrath.  In 2 Corinthians 6 we see the same call.

¹⁶ What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ¹⁷ Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, ¹⁸ and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

“Go out from their midst,” says the Lord!  Escape the coming judgement!  This coming out or going out is called “repentance.”  In 2 Peter 3, Peter explains that repentance is God’s desire.

⁹ The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Once again, we see in Moses a type of Christ.  Moses calls on those who are yet “on the Lord’s side” to come out from the masses of the condemned.  This is a type and foreshadowing of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In the gospel, we find the good news that condemned man can in fact come out and be saved and that this is possible through Jesus!

Intercession, atonement, and substitution: the cross foreshadowed.

The gospel is likewise foreshadowed in Moses’ intercession for the people and attempt to atone for their sins.

³⁰ The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” ³¹ So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. ³² But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.” ³³ But the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. ³⁴ But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.” ³⁵ Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.

The “perhaps” in Moses statement reveals the uncertainty he feels concerning the prospect of his atoning for or paying for Israel’s sin.  Nonetheless, Moses cries out to God.  He gives an honest accounting of their sins, calling their sins “great” and naming their idolatry specifically.  He then offers his appeal to God for mercy:  “if you will forgive their sin.”  Jarringly, God appears to say no.  He responds to Moses that He “will” blot the names of His disobedient children out of His book, that is, out of His record of the redeemed.

Even so, there is something here that catches our attention and that, on this side of the cross, gives us hope.  Moses says to the Lord that if He will not forgive their sins then he wishes likewise to be blotted out of God’s book.  This note of self-sacrifice is important.  The spirit of Moses’ shocking request will be repeated in Paul’s willingness, expressed in Romans 9, to be damned if, by so doing, the Jews might be saved.

¹ I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— ² that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

But Moses’ request and Paul’s willingness would not be granted.  Neither was written out of the book of life.  Even so, Moses’ startling request and willingness to be condemned points to the coming of Christ.  Moses is here reaching the limits of his capabilities, but even in doing so he points to the coming One who will be able to accomplish these things!  For One would come who could be condemned for the sake of the guilty, who could atone for their sins, who could secure the forgiveness of God.

We may thank God that the Lord Jesus Christ never said, “Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”  The cross is not a question, it is an exclamation point!  In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul writes:

²¹ For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Christ did take on our condemnation so that we could be saved!

Christ did secure mercy and forgiveness for the guilty world!

Christ did make atonement for our sins!

The foulness of sin is no less great today than it was when God’s rebellious children danced before the golden calf.  But what is different is that we now have a Savior who has in fact accomplished what Moses only hoped he could do!  Jesus has done what Moses failed to do in the latter half of Exodus 32:  He has secured for us the mercy of our great God!  And He has done this because Jesus is the mercy of God!

 

[1] https://www.firstthings.com/article/1999/12/moses-at-the-met

[2] Bruce Wells, “Exodus.” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Gen. Ed. John H. Walton. Old Testament vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), p.260.

[3] Hamilton, Victor P. Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Baker Publishing Group),  Kindle Locations 16895-16907.

[4] Merida, Tony. Exalting Jesus in Exodus. Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary. (Kindle Edition), p.201-202.