The Golden Calf

(Exodus 32:1- 32:35)

When the people of Israel noticed that Moses was such a long time coming down from the mountain, they came as a group to Aaron.  They told him, "Get busy and craft an idol that can be a guide for us.  As for this Moses who led us out of Egypt, who knows what's become of him."

Aaron replied, "Well then, pluck the golden rings from the ears of your wives, your sons and daughters and bring them to me."

And so the people removed their earrings of gold and brought them to Aaron,  He collected them and molded the molten gold into the image of a calf.  The people proclaimed, "Let this represent your god, people of Israel, the one that has brought you out of Egypt!"

When Aaron saw the people's favorable reaction, he proceeded to build an altar before it and made the announcement: "Tomorrow will be a festival to our god!"

The people rose early the next day and made burnt offerings and peace offerings to the god.  They sat down to have a feast and to partake of drink, then rose to make merry with revelry.

Jehovah advised Moses, "You'd better get down there to your people, for those you have led out of Egypt are debasing themselves.  How quickly have they strayed from the course I have laid out for them!  They have made for themselves a calf of beaten gold, have worshiped it and made sacrifices to it and have even proclaimed, 'This represents the god that led us out of Egypt." 

He continued to address Moses, "These people have shown themselves to be a stubborn lot. ... Leave me alone, for I’m so angry at them that I am going to put an end to them.  I will instead create a mighty nation from your descendants.”

Moses implored with Jehovah, his god, "Why be so angry at your people, those you brought out of Egypt with your power and glory?  Are you going to let the Egyptians say, 'He freed them only to trick them into going into the mountains where he could kill them and wipe their race off the face of the earth.'  Please, hold your temper.  You must change your mind about committing this grievous wrong against your own people.  Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and what you swore to them, that you would make their descendants more numerous than the stars in the sky and that you promised them a land that would forever be a legacy for their posterity."

And so Jehovah relented and did not follow through with the threatened calamity against his people.

Moses, leaving Jehovah, returned from the mountain carrying in his hands the two tablets that were inscribed with Jehovah's law on both sides, front and back.  These tablets were created by Jehovah himself and the writing engraved on the tablets was in his hand.

When Joshua heard the commotion and the sound of people shouting in the Israelite camp, he told Moses, "It sounds like a war going on down there in the camp."

Moses disagreed.   "No, it doesn't sound like the cry of those victorious in battle or those fleeing from an enemy.  Rather what I hear sounds like --- singing!"

When he came near to the camp he was able to catch sight of the calf and the people dancing around it.  Moses became so furious at this, he flung down the tablets and smashed them to pieces at the foot of the mountain.  He then overthrew the calf his people had made and consigned it to the flames.  He crushed the gold into powder, sprinkled the powder into water, making the people drink it.

He demanded of Aaron, "What did the people do to you that you committed such a heinous act?"

Aaron replied, “Now, let not my master be angry.  You know the people, they're always bent upon making mischief.  They said to me, 'Make us an idol that we may be a guide for us.  As for this Moses who brought us out of Egypt, who knows what has become of him.'  And I asked of them, 'Who of you has any gold?'  They brought me gold, I melted it down, and the result was that calf."

Moses observed that the people had become unruly and undisciplined, for Aaron had made them so, an object of mockery to their enemies.  Standing before the entrance to the camp he proclaimed, "Who is on Jehovah's side?  Let him come to me!"  All the Levites gathered to his side.  Moses told them, "This is the will of Jehovah.  Let every man strap a sword to his side and make his way from one end of the camp to the other.  Every man must kill his family, his friends, and his neighbors.”

The Levites did what they were ordered by Moses and on that day 3000 men were slain.  Moses assured them,  “You have proved your dedication to Jehovah today, even at the price of your brothers’ and sons’ lives.  May the blessings of Jehovah be upon you!”

On the following day Moses announced to his people, "You have sinned greatly.  I am going to go up to Jehovah and find if there is any way I can atone to him for your crime.

When Moses returned to Jehovah, he said to him, "My people have committed a great sin against you, they have made themselves an idol of gold to worship --- but I beg that you forgive them.  And if you refuse to do so, you may remove my name from the book you have written."

"It is those who have sinned against me that I will remove from the book," Jehovah answered.  "But go now and lead the people to the land I told you about.  My airship will guide the way for you.  The people will be punished for their sin when the time comes.”  (And Jehovah did hold the people accountable for the calf that Aaron had made.)

Notes
1. The Israelites, who have given up on Moses and figure he will never come down from the mountain, seemed to have been totally lacking in patience (not to mention other virtues).  The decision to reject Moses and craft an idol to worship seemed to have been made precipitously and without recorded dissent.  Aaron, expressing an atrocious lack of faith in his brother, was quick to abandon him and cast his lot with the rebellious people.  This is a confirmation that Moses was never really regarded as a true Israelite, a leader they really knew and had confidence in.  Aaron readily sided with his people against his brother, the brother who had been raised as an Egyptian and whom he had not seen for 80 some years, (if we take the account literally).  The people followed Moses only when Jehovah was making miracles at his request.  This is a good example of "what have you done for me lately."  A few weeks without miracles and the Israelites are ready to throw Moses overboard or rather, off the mountain.  This is a tale of ingratitude and faithlessness on an epic scale.

2.  It is remarkable (if not impossible) that Aaron was able to so quickly craft the statue of the calf.  The gold from the earrings would have to have been melted.  To do so, he would have needed a kiln that produced a temperature of 1947 degrees Fahrenheit.  (Had such an item been packed on the back of a donkey when the Israelites made their hasty exit from Egypt?)  Aaron could have poured the molten gold into a calf-shaped mold, or he could have cast gold sheets that could have been nailed onto a wooden frame or statue of a calf.  Although the text suggests the former, the latter seems the most likely.  A solid gold calf of almost any size would have been of prohibitive weight.  Gold, being highly malleable, can be beaten very thin and is easily worked.  Still, to make the calf, to design and carve the wooden statue, to melt the gold, beat it into sheets, and affix it to the wooden statue would have required a great deal of time.  Not an afternoon's work.

3.  There is some opinion that the calf of gold was meant to represent some pagan deity, perhaps the Apis bull adored by the Egyptians.  In the 1956 film The Ten Commandments (only a small portion of which is faithful to the biblical account) the Golden Calf is meant to be the image of an Egyptian god.  The Israelites, disillusioned with Jehovah and desirous of returning to Egypt, think that by parading it before them they will be accepted by the Egyptians when they return.  This was clearly not the case.  The calf was meant to represent only Jehovah, their god, the one who had led them out of Egypt.  The Israelites, having lived for generations in Egypt, were accustomed to animal depictions of gods, and idols were almost universal in the ancient world.  The making and revering of idols was prohibited by Jehovah's commandments.  While these commandments have already been cited in the text of Exodus, they have not yet been presented to the people.  How would the Israelites know they had done wrong?  Even though they had promised to follow Jehovah's laws, were they culpable in violating laws they were not yet given?  They had seen Jehovah only as fire and smoke and an object in the sky.  They probably wanted some more tangible image to worship.  Why not portray him in the form of a bovine? -- preferable to a donkey, a goat, or a sheep and much better than a pig or a jackal.  They may have seen the statue as a substitute for the lost Moses, who was the intercessor between them and their god.  It is also possible that the calf was not meant as an idol per se, but as a seat for Jehovah, functioning like the Judgment Seat on the Chest of Sacred Records, which, while described in the text, could not have been constructed yet.  Gods were often depicted as riding animals, and the people may have thought the statue of the calf a suitable mount for Jehovah when he came down to earth to speak to them.  There is always evil intent ascribed to the Israelites in the making of the Golden Calf, but surely it is exaggerated; it may be that the people were only misguided in doing so.  They did not know and perhaps could not know that idol making was a sin.  Surely their fault was in the faithless rejection of their leader Moses.  The Golden Calf was little more than a childish faux pas, an act of bad judgment, even if Jehovah would see it, like Sabbath breaking, as a heinous affront to him.

4. There is the impression, furthered by popular culture, that the Israelites' worship of the Golden Calf resulted in licentious carryings on.  Maybe.  The text is ambiguous.  Revelry or making merry may be just that, or it may be a euphemistic reference to an orgy.  Jehovah, in complaining how the people are debasing themselves, mentions only the making of the idol and not their sexual conduct. It is only clear that the people had a good time dancing and were making a bit of a racket, so much that it was heard up on the mountain.  Their behavior only seems sinister in the context.  The sacrifices (animal slaughter) and the feasts accompanying Jehovah's worship are regarded as holy, but the same ceremonies conducted for the sake of a pagan god have always been perceived as wicked -- drunken, unbridled revels of gluttony and promiscuous sex.

5.  Jehovah wants to destroy the Israelite people for their running counter to his wishes, even after going to the enormous trouble of freeing them from the Egyptians and leading them into the desert, guiding and feeding them.  Moses, dissuading him, thinks his anger is unjustified, although he would later be enraged on his own account.  He reminds Jehovah of the promises he had made to his forefathers, promises he seems so forgetful of that one gains the impression he is not the same Jehovah, the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who made them.

6.  Moses, after spending all that time on the mountain, comes back, probably tired and hungry, and finds a premature celebration and that the people have made an idol, the very thing Jehovah had told him was offensive to him and, therefore, forbidden.  His people had lost faith in him.  They wouldn't even wait for him.  He is so furious that he smashes the tablets of law given to him by Jehovah, an act that seems disrespectful to his god.  It's no wonder he was angry, but that his rage did not finally give way to understanding, but to acts of murder is a serious indictment of his leadership abilities.  Yet, the next day he goes back up the mountain to see if he can square things with Jehovah and defends the conduct of his people before him, even asking to share their punishment.

7.  Moses can't believe that Aaron hadn't made the Golden Calf under duress, but that he merely acquiesced to the demands of the mob.  Aaron gives a very lame explanation.  He takes no blame upon himself, but accuses the people of being prone to mischief -- "you know what they're like."  Neither Moses, not Aaron, nor Jehovah seem to have a very high opinion of the people they are doing so much for.  It's a wonder they did not think their efforts were wasted.

8.  The loyal Levites Moses uses as a death squad to kill 3000 (some sources say 23,000) of his people in punishment, indiscriminate mass murder.  This is the way the brutal dictator reasserts his authority.  (And the Levites proved they would anything, no matter how detestable, for their leader.) There is no indication that only the guilty were killed.  There probably was accepted at that time a sense of collective guilt and individual punishment for a group crime: this act is similar to the Roman custom of decimation, in which one tenth of a military force are executed for the failure or disobedience of the whole.   Three thousand would be a small number if the Israelite party consisted of millions (which is logistically impossible and for which there is no archaeological evidence), but a large number if the exodus consisted merely of thousands, which is more likely, (if the exodus did indeed occur -- which is moot).  It is hard to morally justify this action.  No individual guilt was ascertained, no chance for anyone to demonstrate their innocence, no opportunity for offenders to confess or to ask for forgiveness or mercy -- just a wanton slaughter, a cleansing of the hives, a purge to thwart disobedience and dissent.

9.  There is expressed a very ambivalent attitude toward gold.  Jehovah wants everything in his Tabernacle to be of gold: it embodies purity and holiness.  Yet gold is also seen as a symbol of greed and an attachment to earthly desires inconsistent with righteous behavior. 

10. Moses has the Golden Calf totally destroyed, not only melted down, but pulverized.   It's hard to imagine the trouble Moses must have gone to grinding that gold into a powder so that it could be drunk by the people.  Gold, incidentally, can be consumed harmlessly, although it is not digestible and has no nutritional value.

11.  To celebrate the making of the Golden Calf, the people had a feast.  Where did this food and drink come from?   A short time before the all-but starving Israelites were being fed exclusively with manna dropped from the sky.  They are now camped at the foot of a desolate mountain in the middle of a desert.  Did some hunting and foraging parties hit it big?  This, of course, is the least of the discrepancies in the narrative.

12.  A final question may be asked, "Why did Jehovah need to have Moses spend 40 days with him?"  Could not what he wanted to tell him, show him, and give him, been accomplished in a few hours?  Did Moses eat and drink and sleep during that time?  If not, of course, he would surely have died, barring a miracle.  But why did Jehovah obviously make him wait, make him suffer, when Moses was obviously his pal, his numero uno, his earthly BFF?  --- It is very likely that, as the imagery of the fire and smoke suggests, Moses left the mountain in a aerial ship, perhaps a spaceship.  It is a common element in modern extraterrestrial interaction that the human involved experiences missing time or temporal distortion.  (This is also true of the traditional tales of fairy abduction, which, though they seem fanciful myth, should be given serious consideration.)  A long period of time may pass on earth while a short period of time passes for the human in contact with the extraterrestrial -- or the fairy.  Perhaps Moses journeyed with Jehovah into a different plane or dimension where the passage of time was different.  The 40 days and nights of Moses on the mountain may only have been a few hours of actual time for Moses.