Exodus 32:1-16
1 Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for 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.” 2 And Aaron said to them, “Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!” 5 So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.” 6 Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ ” 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” 11 Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said: “Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” 14 So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people. 15 And Moses turned and went down from the mountain, and the two tablets of the Testimony were in his hand. The tablets were written on both sides; on the one side and on the other they were written. 16 Now the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets.
7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ ” 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” 11 Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said: “Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” 14 So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people. 15 And Moses turned and went down from the mountain, and the two tablets of the Testimony were in his hand. The tablets were written on both sides; on the one side and on the other they were written. 16 Now the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets.
As 1 Corinthians 10:7 reminds us, we must not follow the example here of abandoning God and His word that we should “sit down to eat and drink, and rise up to play” with sinful abandon. When the people of God did not see Moses return quickly enough for them from the mountaintop meeting to bring God’s word back down to them in concrete form, they immediately grumbled in discontent and looked for another God out of the material value from golden earrings. Aaron got caught up in the idolatrous living and made the people a golden idol for their worship. They further attributed their deliverance from Egypt’s bondage to this false god, and blasphemed God by proclaiming a feast day to the Lord while substituting this golden idol for the living God who really delivered them, and who had chosen Moses as His instrument of salvation. They quickly forgot the goodness and mercy of God, even disobeying His word in their desire for the immediate passing pleasures of sin (Hebrews 11:25)! Therefore, the Lord God told Moses to return with His word to the people who ‘corrupted themselves’ as described here. God saw their prideful disobedience as a stiffnecked lot, and told Moses He would smite them and start over through Moses; but Moses knew that the nations would then mock God and His people if they were destroyed after being delivered, so he reminded God as he pleaded and repeated the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to multiply them as a nation under God to inherit the promised land. God did relent after hearing Moses express his faith as anticipated. God did not actually change His mind, but tested Moses to lean on His promises. Do we in Christ also trust and follow despite when God’s people do not? Do we who are leaders in Christ’s Church refuse to compromise His word to give the people what they want, knowing it offends God and harms them in satisfying their immediate and spiritually shortsightedness? We then do not condone or live in sin and idolatrous living, but learn to trust God and His work with our faithful obedience as this history gives us the pattern and example.
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