Exodus 32:1, commentary and pictures

After only a few weeks while Moses remained on the mount communing with God and receiving the tables of stone without eating or drinking, the impatient people concluded he would not return and gathered about Aaron demanding new leadership. Although the cloud of the Presence still rested visibly on the mount and God still guided and fed them after Egypt and the Red Sea, they lost faith under the test of delay, doubted their absent leader, and credited Moses rather than God with their deliverance. Their demand for visible gods to go before them was turning back to Egypt, led by the mixed multitude who remembered ox and calf worship, replacing invisible guidance with an image in forgetfulness of the command against other gods and the promise to lead by His Angel. Aaron, left in charge as guardian of the people, first reasoned with them but from fear and moral weakness yielded, permitted and made the molten calf, proclaimed its feast, and emboldened unchecked reveling until stern judgment was required. Only weeks after pledging obedience at Sinai they broke the first and second commandments, so about three thousand persistent rebels perished while the repentant were pardoned through Moses' intercession, leaving a perpetual warning against trusting in man, yielding to please others, and making pleasure or any cherished idol take God's place.

Delay on the Mount

Moses delayed to come down while he remained on the mount communing with God and receiving special instructions, the tables of stone written with the finger of God, the law and the sacred oracles, for forty days and forty nights without eating or drinking, a short test of a few weeks. Israel failed in that short forty-day test while left under Aaron's leadership, breaking their promise to do all the Lord had spoken, and the delay tested their faith soon after they had listened to God's law proclaimed from Sinai amid sublime demonstrations of divine power. The people had seen Moses ascend into the cloud while the top of the mount was in flames and waited every day for his return, but when he did not come down as soon as they expected they became impatient and rebellious.

God's presence had not left the people, for the cloud of the Presence still rested visibly on the smoking mount where His glory, audible voice and living words had been revealed. The solemn impression of that presence and their covenant quickly faded even though God's glory was still visible on the mountain, and their old habits of thought and feeling regained power. He continued to guide them by the pillar of cloud and fire and to feed them with manna after mighty miracles in Egypt and at the Red Sea, so Moses' absence did not mean God had left them while Moses pleaded for them on the mount.

Seeing the delay, the people grew anxious, impatient, discontented and tired of waiting, and lost faith and trust in their absent leader. They failed to hold to God's words, persisted in unbelief, and let unbelief, doubt, carelessness and lawlessness regain power, turning in heart to go back into Egypt. Their discontent revealed their unbelief in a marked manner, and their earlier vows of allegiance and terror at hearing God's voice did not keep them from rushing into transgression of the law recently given there.

Some feared Moses had deserted them or been consumed by the fire, been killed, or would never return. A large company claimed Moses would never return and that the cloud which had led them now rested on the mount and would no longer direct their route through the wilderness. They invented explanations for his continued absence even though God had already given them the instruction they needed, and reasoned amid fear that Moses was gone.

The people gathered themselves together about Aaron and his tent with propositions and clamors, a vast crowd demanding gods to go before them because the fate of Moses was unknown. Aaron had been left in charge as guardian of the church with delegated judicial authority to hold them to allegiance and hold the congregation back from wrongdoing. While Moses was on the mountain receiving the stone tables, Aaron was responsible for the people in this severe crisis of temptation.

They said they did not know what had become of Moses, calling him the man that brought them up out of the land of Egypt. Thus they credited Moses rather than God with their deliverance, despite their experience of God's deliverance from Egypt, the passage through the Red Sea, and the display of God's glory on the mountain. They complained he had left them, dismissing him and no longer caring whether he returned, set on mischief and rejecting the leader who had brought them out.

Demand for Visible Gods

In Moses' absence the people felt helpless without a leader and demanded that Aaron make gods to go before them and lead them in his place, wanting something they could see to represent God and resemble Him, a visible substitute they could rely on. The cry was for visible gods because Moses was delayed on the mount and they claimed they did not know what had become of him. The demand was led at the suggestion of the mixed multitude, the believing Egyptians who had come out with Israel and intermarried with the Hebrews, who had practiced Egyptian ox or calf worship and kept those gods in mind. It was encouraged by Egyptian idolatry and by the thought that an image would win favor if they returned to Egypt.

It grew from impatience to be on the way to the promised land, from loss of sight of obedience as its condition, from carelessness and lawlessness, and from failure to meditate on the law they had heard and humble their hearts to be shielded from temptation. Though God had given His living words beneath the smoking mount with His audible voice and glory revealed, they did not hold to those words but persisted in unbelief. It was a turning back in heart to the idolatry of Egypt and a refusal to trust God as the invisible, all-powerful Helper, with a plan to return there and find favor with the Egyptians by bearing the image before them and acknowledging it as their god.

The demand meant replacing invisible guidance, claiming the cloud that had led them now rested permanently on the mount and would no longer direct their travels through the wilderness, so an image must take its place. It forgot God's command against other gods and His promise to lead them by His Angel. It insulted the Son of God, their chief leader.

The calf represented the glory of the invisible God by the similitude of an ox. It revived Apis and Egyptian sun-worship with the license associated with heathen worship, and although the people professed to worship Jehovah, the sun-god was the real object of their adoration. It substituted their own degraded ideas for God, and God could not accept worship offered to Him through an idol. He had given no manner of similitude of Himself and had prohibited any material representation for such a purpose.

Satan devised and excited the evil at the foot of Sinai, carrying forward against God's law the same overthrow he had begun in heaven. During the forty days Moses was in the mount he stirred doubt, apostasy and rebellion, using the absence of the appointed leader to tempt them to imitate Egyptian idolatry. By leading Israel into this daring insult and blasphemy to Jehovah he planned to cause their ruin, believing God would divorce them from Himself and devote them to destruction because they were degraded and had broken their solemn pledges. He thus sought to secure the extinction of the seed of Abraham, the seed of promise that was to preserve the knowledge of the living God and through whom He was to come, the true Seed that was to conquer Satan, and so to thwart the purposes of God.

Aaron's Yielding Failure

Aaron had been left as guardian of the church to hold the people to their allegiance while Moses remained communing with God in the mount receiving the tables of stone, and he was responsible to carry them through this severe crisis of temptation to idolatry. Though blessed above the people and admitted to close converse with God, he proved an unfaithful general who did not bear the burden of the work as Moses did, heeding their inclinations instead of directing them to the Authority above human wisdom and permitting contempt for God's counsel to rule by uniting with them in carrying out their plans. Had he remained faithful and kept them loyal to God, this terrible record of idolatry need never have been written.

He first argued against their plan and tried to dissuade them until he thought them determined, but he did not rebuke and check their first rebellious words because he feared offending them. From fear for his life at their clamors and threats of death when they gathered about him set on mischief, he lost courage and trust in God who had wrought wonders for them. Instead of standing nobly for the honor of God he cowardly yielded to their wishes in direct opposition to the commands of God.

He was a man of much ability yet morally weak because he lacked decision, letting others be conscience for him and think for him instead of leaning wholly upon God and waiting to know His will. He waited to hear what others thought, accepted their opinion as true, and spoke and acted as they acted, changing with every current. When placed where he must think and act for himself he dared not express a settled opinion, yielding to influence brought to bear upon him at the cost of duty.

He should have firmly rejected the call to idolatry, cited the people to the perils of Sinai, reminded them of God's law spoken there and their solemn covenant to obey, and refused even at risk to his life. Instead he yielded to their wishes in an attempt to please them at the sacrifice of principle and to avoid dissatisfaction and rebellion, using his influence to lead them toward apostasy. His conduct illustrates the danger of seeking peace by yielding to people at the expense of truth, siding with men who opposed the work of God, resisted light and evidence, and did not repent of their course.

His compliance with the desires of the people and the calm assurance with which he proceeded to carry out their plans emboldened them to go to greater lengths in sin than had before entered their minds. At the very first permission he gave to go contrary to God's commands in the least particular he lost his power of command and destroyed his commanding power. That small beginning of wrong let a spirit of hilarity, reveling and commonness into the camp, so that the people ate and drank as they chose and became intemperate, then rose up to play in what they supposed an innocent frolic. The spirit of idolatry like the idols of the nations came in and set in motion a current that could not be stayed until stern and decisive measures were taken.

He made the molten idol and built an altar where sacrifice was offered to it, submitted to proclaim these gods brought Israel up from Egypt, and announced a feast to the Lord, thereby engaging in idolatry so recently specified and expressly forbidden and transgressing the first and second commandments. He failed to stand firm for God's honor, did not resist their demand, gave way to their pressure, joined their plans and worship, and later tried to make the people responsible for his weakness. His yielding was a grievous sin marring an otherwise noble life, stripping the people of their ornaments and putting them to shameful use in the calf, and stripping them of piety and consecration to God. It divested them of defense against Satan and forfeited His protection, so that God removed His sustaining hand and they were left naked to shame among their enemies and to their contempt and power, with the festival marked by heathen licentious practices.

His yielding to that demand to save his own life brought so great a sin upon the people and made him the principal agent in the transgression, with guilt heightened by his exalted privilege and responsible position to lead and control Israel. His course placed him under God's sentence to be slain, and God declared he would have been slain if Moses had not pleaded and interceded in his behalf.

Judgment and Mercy Shown

Only a few weeks after lifting voice and hands to pledge to do all the Lord had spoken, and soon after hearing Him proclaim the Ten Commandments from Sinai amid sublime demonstrations of divine power with terror, the people broke that covenant by worshiping a graven image of their own hands. In demanding gods to go before them because they did not know what had become of Moses during the short forty-day test while he was in the Mount of God receiving the tables of stone, they transgressed the first and second commandments so recently specified and expressly forbidden, rejected the living God who had shown them special favor, and turned in grave apostasy to a golden calf proclaimed as the gods that brought them from Egypt. Their act exposed their sinfulness and their inability without Christ to obey God's law by their own strength.

Moses in zeal for God's glory broke the stone tablets, the pledge of God conditioned on obedience, signifying that God had broken His covenant with them. After breaking the covenant they needed pardon and the Saviour promised in the Abrahamic covenant, and were thus prepared to value the new covenant.

For wise and holy purposes God permitted the hidden designs of people and leaders to come into view and allowed the evil to develop until it reached its height, preventing still greater evils that might otherwise have followed, though He could have warned Moses that Aaron could not be relied on.

Their rebellion called for judgment, yet God allowed freedom of choice and opportunity to repent, and prompt punishment restrained the spread of evil, protected Israel from enemies, and served as a lesson that sin must be punished. Moses took his special position and called all to come to his side and take position on the Lord's side, and those who yielded were preserved in life while about three thousand men who would not come to be loyal and true perished. The calf-worshippers were stripped of piety and consecration, divested of defense against Satan with God's sustaining hand and protection removed, and left naked to shame among their enemies and to their contempt and power. The judgment was also an act of mercy toward Israel, the world, and the transgressors themselves.

Satan was defeated, for sinful Israel was not wholly destroyed despite his plan by this daring insult and blasphemy to cause their ruin, divorce them from God, devote them to destruction, and secure extinction of the seed of Abraham through whom the true Seed was to come and conquer him. Those who stubbornly ranged themselves on Satan's side were cut off, while the humbled and repentant people were mercifully pardoned through Moses remaining on the mount and pleading for Israel until God granted his request. The history of this sin stands as a perpetual testimony to the guilt and punishment of idolatry and to the justice and long-suffering mercy of God, though the punishment and losses should have left a lasting lesson and the people failed to learn and obey from it.

Warning for Today

The record of what happened when Moses delayed stands as a warning to avoid evil and to learn from failure, and the golden-calf experience beginning with the demand for gods to go before them stands as an example for God's people today. The punishment and losses that followed should have left a lasting lesson leading to faithful obedience, but Israel failed to learn and obey after them. That apostasy came just after God had revealed Himself to Israel and made known His Sabbath, reviving the Egyptian worship the people had known. Although the people professed to worship Jehovah, the calf represented Apis and Egyptian sun-worship and the sun-god was the real object of adoration, which God could not accept through an idol, and it revived a form of worship whose chief festival, the first day of the week, contended with the Sabbath as the distinctive day of true worship, with the license associated with heathen worship.

The verse warns those in positions of responsibility, guardians of youth, and leaders looked to for counsel not to follow Aaron's yielding example but to stand firm for the principles of righteousness. Aaron proved in this crisis of severe temptation an unfaithful general who failed to carry the people through, heeding their inclinations instead of directing them to the Authority above human wisdom and uniting with them in carrying out their plans, a course that placed him under sentence to be slain and from which he was spared only because Moses interceded. Had he declared the truth firmly and spoken plainly against the demand, the calf would not have been made, but from fear of offending and displeasing the people he pacified them, sought peace by yielding at the expense of truth, and falsely presented the calf as representing the one who brought Israel out of Egypt. His failure was especially grave because the people looked to him as leader, and his course was opposite to the work of building up the cause in right lines. Those acting as shepherds watching for souls as they that must give an account must learn from this history to have moral backbone, to walk in fear of offending God, to check the first suggestion of wrong, to act wisely and decisively in an emergency, and not to yield through cowardice or desire to please when counsel is needed.

It means backsliding by trusting in man and making flesh one's arm instead of God, substituting a golden calf for Jehovah before Moses had been away forty days though Israel had beheld the awful presence of God in the mount. It applies to churches and institutions that have done the same, and calls them to return to where they were before the backsliding commenced, to seek God in earnestness and simplicity and serve Him with heart and mind and strength, to return to God in penitence and contrition and trust in Him, not in man. It means that amusements and hilarity indulged by God's people, pleasure-seeking especially among youth, and cherished idols great or small such as pride, self-gratification and worldly display that weaken trust in God and foster selfishness are idolatry. The people pressed their proposal upon Aaron when Moses was in communion with God and Aaron was left as general, and his first permission in weakness to please them at the sacrifice of principle destroyed his commanding power. Then the people ate and drank as they chose and became intemperate, then rose up to play in what they supposed an innocent frolic, and the spirit of idolatry like the idols of the nations came in with a current that could not be stayed until three thousand fell, showing that a decisive stand at the first step would have saved the terrible consequence, and that Christian character requires resisting the first departure and developing by working truth into character.

Acting Aaron's part now means siding with men who oppose the work of God and resist light and evidence without repentance. It means disregarding the counsel of the Holy Spirit and thereby helping another persist in spiritual blindness and wrongdoing, leading others contrary to God's word and helping them resist divine warnings. It means helping on the work of apostasy by seeking to destroy the confidence of God's people in the messages of reproof and warning, making of none effect the word God has sent through the working of His Spirit and doing the work of the enemy, thereby betraying sacred trust and the interests of the cause, spoiling the record, proving untrustworthy, and making God's people the sport of sinners who sneer at and scorn messages of heavenly origin sent to prepare them to stand in the last days. The same test will come in the present day through the constant insinuations of devils, for God tests His people by His Word. As He dealt with ancient Israel at Sinai when they broke their covenant promise made with lifted voice and hands to do all He had spoken, despising the Word of the Lord and refusing to humble proud hearts, so He will deal with those today who do the same. When Moses came down from forty days and forty nights without eating or drinking listening to the words of God and found them worshiping the calf they called the gods that brought them out of Egypt, he gave them the privilege to come out on the Lord's side, and those who yielded were preserved in life while about three thousand who would not come to be loyal and true lost their lives. Therefore young and old must be braced up as Bible students, led step by step to do righteously and work out truth in character, and must pray and keep hold upon God so that if obedient they will have strength of character under every temptation.