Exodus 32:19, commentary and pictures

Coming down from God's glory with Joshua bearing the tables of the testimony, Moses heard revelry that Joshua mistook for war and then saw the calf with the people shouting and dancing around it in heathen riot. The tables in his hands were God's own work bearing His writing of the Ten Commandments, His precious pledge to humanity on condition of obedience. In hot wrath and utter discouragement at their great idolatry, he cast the tables out of his hands and broke them beneath the mount purposely in the sight of all to show abhorrence of the crime. The shattered tablets represented that Israel had broken its newly made covenant by breaking God's law, and signified that God had broken His covenant with them. His anger was righteous indignation from grief and fidelity for God's glory, not self-love or wounded ambition and not a sin for which God rebuked him, while those who held the other view taught that rashness and indiscretion were joined to his zeal which God pardoned.

Seeing the Camp's Idolatry

Moses came down from the awful presence of God's glory with Joshua, bearing the tables of the testimony with the precepts of the law Israel had pledged to obey, and as they descended they heard wild shouting that Joshua mistook for the noise of war but Moses knew to be singing and revelry. Though God had warned him that the people had corrupted themselves, sacrificed to an idol, demanded gods of gold, bowed in adoration before a golden image, and denied loyalty to Jehovah, Moses was still in a measure unprepared for their dreadful degradation and was overwhelmed after coming from God's glory. As he came nigh unto the camp he saw the calf and the people shouting and dancing around it in excited heathen riot imitating the idolatrous feasts and idol-worshipers of Egypt, utterly unlike solemn, reverent worship of God.

The calf-worship came when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mount, and they became discontented, careless, inattentive, and lawless, with unbelief revealing itself in a marked manner. It was a waiting period when they should have meditated on the law they had heard and prepared their hearts for further revelation, but the mixed multitude were first in murmuring and impatience to be on the way to the land flowing with milk and honey promised only on condition of obedience. Feeling helpless without Moses, they desired some image to represent God and go before them in his place, so that at the suggestion of those who had practiced Egyptian worship of the ox or calf a calf was made and worshiped. This was done though God had given no manner of similitude of himself and had prohibited any material representation, though the mighty miracles in Egypt and at the Red Sea were designed to establish faith in him as the invisible, all-powerful Helper and only true God, and though desire for visible manifestation had been granted in the pillar of cloud and of fire and in the revealing of his glory upon Sinai with the cloud still before them; with the cloud still in view they turned back in heart to Egypt and represented the glory of the invisible God by the similitude of an ox.

The moment was Satan's work at the very foot of Sinai during the forty days Moses was in the mount to overthrow God's law and carry forward his rebellion begun in heaven by exciting doubt, apostasy, and rebellion. By leading Israel into daring insult and blasphemy to Jehovah, Satan planned to make them appear so utterly degraded and lost to God's privileges and blessings and to their own solemn and repeated pledges that God would divorce them from himself and devote them to destruction, thereby securing the extinction of the seed of Abraham 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 thus thwart God's purposes. Satan was defeated there, for sinful Israel was not destroyed; while those who stubbornly ranged themselves on Satan's side were cut off, the humbled and repentant were mercifully pardoned, and the history stands as a perpetual testimony to the guilt and punishment of idolatry and to the justice and long-suffering mercy of God. God allowed the evil to develop until the apostasy reached its full expression in plain sight at Sinai, where the hearts beneath outward conduct could be seen, so that the hidden intentions of the leading men would be exposed and still greater evils prevented.

The verse belongs to the time when God proved Moses by offering to make a great nation of him, which Moses refused while pleading for Israel, showing God would not arbitrarily destroy the people but would give them a chance to return and place themselves on the Lord's side. In sequence the anger and breaking follow Israel's transgression in making the calf and come before Moses pleads with God for the people. He reached the camp and saw the idolatry only after he had remained on the mountain until God granted his plea for Israel's pardon.

Anger and Broken Tablets

Coming near the camp and seeing the calf and the dancing, Moses was overwhelmed in utter discouragement and hot wrath because of Israel's great sin and fearful idolatry before God, and he cast the tables out of his hands and broke them beneath the mount. He broke them purposely in the sight of all the people by divine direction to show abhorrence of the crime. What he cast down were God's own work bearing God's writing, the tables of the testimony bearing the law of the Ten Commandments. They were God's precious pledge to humanity on condition of obedience.

The broken tablets represented to Israel that they had broken the covenant they had so recently made with God by breaking His law. He broke them because he saw that Israel had broken God's law, and he cast them down as he acted to deface the idol. The act also signified that, because Israel had broken its covenant with God, God had broken His covenant with them.

His anger was righteous indignation and honest zeal for God's glory, arising from grief and fidelity against apostasy and shameful forgetfulness of God. It was not anger driven by self-love or wounded ambition, and it was not a sin. God did not rebuke him, condemn his ardor and indignation, or reprove him for breaking the tables of stone, even though the people regarded him as rash and Aaron as gentle. His later sin that barred him from Canaan was taking to himself honor due to God, not this breaking.

His anger and breaking also involved rashness joined to zeal and indiscretion from fidelity, disappointment, and grief at the apostasy. God pardoned his indiscretion. That pardoned indiscretion stands in contrast to Aaron's sinful weakness under pressure, which led to the death of thousands.

Leadership Failure and Judgment

When Moses was absent on the mount, Aaron was left in charge and failed to hold the people faithful through temptation, for when they demanded gods he yielded to them, joined their plans, made the molten calf, and carried out their plans with calm assurance. By contrast Moses felt the burden of his work deeply, and God was always his counselor. The apostasy of the calf and the dancing in the camp could have been prevented if Aaron had stood unswervingly for the right irrespective of consequences. If he had maintained his own allegiance to God, exercised his authority to hold the congregation back from wrongdoing, cited the people to the perils of Sinai, and reminded them of their solemn covenant to obey God's law, the evil would have been checked.

Instead his compliance emboldened them to go to greater lengths in sin than had before entered their minds. He allowed the first beginning of wrong by permitting a spirit of reveling and commonness and one departure from right, and that small permission opened the way for the spirit of idolatry. His failure came from weakness and desire to please the people even at the sacrifice of principle, the same defective administration he showed with his children at home, and he lost his power of command at the very first permission to go contrary to God's commands in the least particular. The current of wrong set in motion by that first concession could not be stayed until stern and decisive measures were taken.

God was angry with Aaron for his sin, and he would have been slain and destroyed had Moses not interceded for him. He was spared through Moses' intercession and his own repentance. The verse belongs to Israel's rebellion at Sinai against the God whose authority they had pledged to obey.

The judgment that followed shows God maintained His law while allowing opportunity to repent, for the humbled and repentant were mercifully pardoned while only those who stubbornly ranged themselves on Satan's side and persisted in rebellion were cut off. Prompt punishment protected Israel and others from the greater ruin unchecked rebellion would bring, as a lesson that sin must be dealt with. The golden-calf experience should have left Israel a lasting lesson, but God's displeasure over their repeated offenses against the Angel who led them, shown in broken ranks and missing people, failed to teach them to make up for past failure through faithful obedience.