Moses has been on Mount Sinai for a long time.
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, "Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him."
Aaron answered them, "Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me."
So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt."
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, "Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD."
The people ask for Aaron to make them "gods" (or "a god" -- the Hebrew is unclear) so that they can continue on with this (new?) god leading them. Some have suggested that they simply want an image of YHWH, but that, itself, shows a misunderstanding of the nature of YHWH. Aaron responds by collecting gold and making a golden calf. He then presents the calf to the people and says, "Here you are." There will be a celebration of this golden calf the next day.
YHWH has carefully brought the people of Israel to Sinai; He has instituted Pesach and other celebratory feasts and is now creating a Covenant. Aaron and the people replace all this slow patient work by a cheap imitation, created in a hurry. Oh, how stupid we humans are!
So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, `These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.'
The phrase "and got up to indulge in revelry" suggests a certain debauchery. It was common for worship of pagan gods to include a cultic orgy; this appears to be what is happening here.
Even with the frightening presence of God on the mountain, we humans are quick to build idols!
YHWH alerts Moses to what is happening. Moses must go down. YHWH now calls the Israelites "your people".
"I have seen these people," the LORD said to Moses, "and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation."
But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. "O LORD," he said, "why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, `It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.
"Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: `I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.'"
Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
YHWH suggests to Moses that, as with Noah, maybe it is best to just start over. Moses argues with YHWH ... and wins! (What does it mean for God to relent?)
Moses is suddenly quoting YHWH's words back to Him. Yes, YHWH could continue the Abrahamic Covenant through Moses, but what about all the work that has gone before? What about YHWH's reputation of power in Egypt? Moses aggressively intercedes for the Israelites -- and God hears!
Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, "There is the sound of war in the camp."
Moses replied: "It is not the sound of victory, it is not the sound of defeat; it is the sound of singing that I hear."
Joshua has been waiting further down the mountain. Joshua thinks that the loud noise and shouting is the sound of a battle; he does not have the knowledge that God gave Moses. Moses's response is a sad one, "No, that is the sound of defeat." The plans of God and Moses, for the covenant people, has been thrust aside by the rioters below.
When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
He said to Aaron, "What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?"
"Do not be angry, my lord," Aaron answered. "You know how prone these people are to evil. They said to me, `Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him.'
So I told them, `Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.' Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!"
Now that Moses sees the calf and debauchery, he too gets angry. He has argued, to YHWH, for the people but he now knows how bad it is.
Aaron, like Adam and Eve, is quick to blame others. And lie. "I threw it into the fire and look, out came a calf!" Moses thinks, "Yeah, right!" and is probably angrier than ever.
Note that Moses makes the people drink a mixture of this gold and water. Commentators point out that the ultimate destination of the idol is the toilet.
Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, "Whoever is for the LORD, come to me." And all the Levites rallied to him.
Then he said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: `Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.'"
The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died.
The Levites are the arm of punishment here.
The reputation of the people, and of their God, YHWH, is always in the background. The idolatry, so quickly after their great salvation, makes them a "laughingstock" to the other nations.
Then Moses said, "You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day."
The actions of the Levites set them apart to God.
The next day Moses said to the people, "You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin."
So Moses went back to the LORD and said, "Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin--but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written."
The LORD replied to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin." And the LORD struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.
There is more punishment. We have no details of the plague.
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