The Golden Calf — TDW Kids

Tired of waiting. “Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron” (32:1). Moses had been gone for forty days. A request. They said, “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” (32:1). They wanted a god they could see. The gold. Aaron said, “Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me” (32:2). The calf. Aaron “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!’” (32:4). A mixed-up feast. Aaron built an altar and said, “Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord” (32:5). They used God's name, but they were worshiping an idol. The party. “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play” (32:6). The worship turned wild. A broken promise. Only weeks before, they had said, “All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient” (24:7). Now they broke the first and second commandments. What we learn. When we are impatient or afraid, we can be tempted to trust something we can see instead of the God we cannot see.

The delay (32:1). The people took Moses' forty-day absence to mean he had abandoned them. Listen to what they said: “this Moses, the man who brought us up.” They gave Moses the credit, not the Lord, and when the mediator was gone they looked for a replacement they could control. Stephen later describes the heart behind it: “in their hearts they turned back to Egypt” (Acts 7:39). Aaron's role (32:2-5). Aaron does not resist. He gathers the gold, shapes the calf and builds the altar. Yet he also announces “a feast to the Lord” (32:5, using God's covenant name). The calf may have been meant as a throne or image of the Lord Himself. If so, Israel broke the second commandment (no images of God) as well as the first. Why a calf? Egypt and Canaan honored bull images, and Israel may have copied what they had seen there. Whatever the reason, their words show what was in their hearts: “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!” (32:4). They gave the credit for their rescue to an object made with their own earrings. Worship corrupted (32:6). Burnt offerings and peace offerings, the very sacrifices of the covenant ceremony in 24:5, are now offered before an idol. “Rose up to play” suggests revelry. Paul quotes this verse as a warning to the church: “do not become idolaters as were some of them” (1 Corinthians 10:7). Exchanging glory. Psalm 106:20 says, “Thus they changed their glory Into the image of an ox that eats grass.” Romans 1:23 uses similar language for all humanity. Idolatry is trading the living God for something smaller.

Moses was on the mountain for forty days. The people waited and waited. They did not know what had happened to him. They felt scared and alone. So they went to Aaron, Moses' brother. They said, “Make us gods who will lead us.” Aaron told them to bring their gold earrings. He melted the gold and made a calf. The people said the calf had saved them from Egypt. But God had saved them! Aaron built an altar in front of the calf. The next day the people gave offerings. Then they ate, drank and had a wild party. They had promised to obey God. But now they broke His first two commands.

Moses was gone a long time. The people made a gold calf. They bowed down to it. They forgot the real God.

God sees. “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves’” (32:7). Nothing is hidden from God. So quickly. “They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them” (32:8). Stiff-necked. God said, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people!” (32:9). Stiff-necked means stubborn, like an animal that will not turn when it is led. A test for Moses. God said, “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” (32:10). Moses could have become the new father of Israel. Moses pleads. “Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God” (32:11). He asked, “Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them’?” (32:12). He cared about God's name. God's promise. Moses prayed, “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self” (32:13). God answers. “So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people” (32:14). What we learn. God hears the prayers of His people. Moses stood between God and the people, and God showed mercy.

“Your people” (32:7). God calls them Moses' people, “whom you brought out,” using their own words from 32:1. Moses answers by calling them “Your people whom You have brought out” (32:11). The people had broken the covenant, and Moses pleads with God to keep claiming them as His own. “Let Me alone” (32:10). With these words God invites Moses to intercede. God offers to begin again with Moses, as He began with Abraham. Moses refuses to accept a blessing that comes at the people's expense. Three arguments (32:11-13). Moses appeals to God's past work (“You have brought out… with great power”), to God's reputation among the nations (“Why should the Egyptians speak”), and to God's sworn promise to the patriarchs. He does not argue that the people deserve mercy. He argues from who God is. “The Lord relented” (32:14). The Hebrew nacham (say: nah-KHAHM) can mean to be moved or to turn from a planned action. God truly responds to prayer. At the same time, His character and promises do not change; Moses' prayer appealed to exactly those unchanging promises. Prayer is one of the ways God accomplishes what He has promised. Standing in the breach. Psalm 106:23 remembers: God “said that He would destroy them, Had not Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach, To turn away His wrath.” A breach is a gap in a wall. Moses stood in the gap. Deuteronomy 9:20 adds that Moses also prayed for Aaron.

God saw everything from the mountain. He told Moses, “Go down from this mountain.” He said the people had done a terrible sin. God called them very stubborn people. God said He would destroy them. He would make a new nation from Moses instead. But Moses begged God to show mercy. He said, “Don't destroy your people.” He reminded God of His promise to Abraham. God had promised Abraham many children. God listened to Moses' prayer. God did not destroy the people. Moses cared more about the people than himself.

God was very angry. Moses prayed for the people. He asked God to show mercy. God listened to Moses.

The tablets. “The two tablets of the Testimony were in his hand” (32:15). “Now the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets” (32:16). A noise. Joshua said, “There is a noise of war in the camp” (32:17). Moses answered that it was “the sound of singing” (32:18). Broken. “As soon as he came near the camp, … he saw the calf and the dancing. So Moses' anger became hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain” (32:19). The broken tablets showed that the covenant had been broken. The calf destroyed. Moses “took the calf which they had made, burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder; and he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel drink it” (32:20). Their god could not even save itself. Moses asks Aaron. “What did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them?” (32:21). Aaron's answer. Aaron blamed the people (32:22) and said, “I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out” (32:24). He did not tell the whole truth about what he had done. What we learn. Sin breaks what God has given. When we sin, blaming others never fixes it. We need to be honest with God.

The work of God (32:15-16). The tablets came straight from God: written on both sides, “the work of God… the writing of God.” God's handiwork was coming down the mountain at the very moment the people were celebrating the work of their own hands. The broken tablets (32:19). Moses' anger mirrors God's. Breaking the tablets at the foot of the mountain, where the covenant had been sealed (24:4), acts out what Israel has done. In the ancient world, breaking a treaty document could signal that the treaty was void. Drinking the powder (32:20). The idol is reduced to dust and swallowed. The god they made cannot defend itself. Psalm 115 mocks idols the same way: “They have mouths, but they do not speak… Those who make them are like them” (Psalm 115:5, 8). Aaron's excuse (32:21-24). Aaron shifts the blame to the people, “You know the people, that they are set on evil,” and then shrinks his own part: “I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out.” Verse 4 says he shaped it with a tool. The excuse is very human, like Adam blaming Eve. Yet God does not discard Aaron. He will still serve as high priest, and Moses prays for him (Deuteronomy 9:20). Unrestrained (32:25). Verse 25 says Aaron had let the people get out of control, “to their shame among their enemies.” Leaders who give way to pressure can lead many into sin.

Moses went down the mountain. He carried the two stone tablets. God Himself had written His commands on them. Joshua heard noise coming from the camp. He thought it sounded like war. But Moses said it was the sound of singing. Then Moses saw the calf and the dancing. He became very angry. He threw down the tablets, and they broke. The people had broken God's covenant. Moses burned the calf in the fire. He ground the gold into powder. He asked Aaron why he had done this. Aaron made an excuse. “I threw it into the fire and out came this calf!” Aaron did not tell the whole truth.

Moses saw the gold calf. He broke the stone tablets. He burned the calf. Sin breaks our friendship with God.

A call to choose. “Then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp, and said, ‘Whoever is on the Lord's side—come to me!’ And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him” (32:26). A hard day. The Levites carried out God's judgment, “and about three thousand men of the people fell that day” (32:28). It was a terrible day. Sin against God is deadly serious. Set apart. Moses told the Levites, “Consecrate yourselves today to the Lord” (32:29). Later the Levites became the tribe that served at God's tabernacle. A great sin. The next day Moses said, “You have committed a great sin. So now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin” (32:30). Atonement means making peace with God by covering sin. Moses offers himself. “Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written” (32:32). Moses was willing to be blotted out for the people. God's answer. “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book” (32:33). Moses could not take their place, because Moses was a sinner too. Still going. God told Moses to lead the people on, and said, “My Angel shall go before you” (32:34). But a plague came because of the calf (32:35). What we learn. Moses could only say “perhaps.” Jesus is the one who really made atonement for our sin.

The call (32:26). “Whoever is on the Lord's side” forces a choice. The Levites, Moses' own tribe, respond. God still calls His people to that same undivided loyalty. Joshua later issues a similar challenge: “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). Judgment (32:27-28). About three thousand men died that day. Under the Sinai covenant, open rebellion against God in the camp carried the death penalty, and the Levites carried it out. Those who died were most likely the ones who kept on in the revolt after Moses' call. This shows how serious idolatry is to a holy God. Christians do not take up the sword for God; Jesus' kingdom advances by the gospel, not by force. Set apart (32:29). “Consecrate yourselves today” uses words, in Hebrew, that later describe priests being set apart for service. The Levites' loyalty marks the beginning of their service at the sanctuary (Numbers 3; Deuteronomy 33:8-9). “Perhaps I can make atonement” (32:30-32). Moses offers to be blotted out of God's book. Paul felt the same love: “I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren” (Romans 9:3). Later Scripture speaks of a book of life (Luke 10:20; Revelation 21:27), and many Christians see Moses' words as pointing to that same book. The limit of Moses (32:33-35). God refuses the offer: each sinner answers for his own sin. Moses, himself a sinner, cannot be a substitute. The Lord sent a plague on the camp (32:35), and it was not yet clear whether God's presence would go with them. Israel needed a mediator who could do what Moses could not, and God would send Him.

Moses stood at the entrance to the camp. He called out to everyone. He wanted to know who would follow the Lord. The family of Levi came to Moses. God gave them a hard job to do. That day about 3,000 people died. Sin is very serious to God. The next day Moses talked to the people. He said, “You have done a terrible sin.” He went back up the mountain to pray. He asked God to forgive the people. He even asked God to erase his own name instead. God said each person answers for his own sin. Only Jesus could take our sin for us.

Moses called the people back to God. It was a very sad day. Then Moses went to pray. He asked God to forgive.