Exodus 32:9-14

Exodus 32:9-14  And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, 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, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”  11  But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O 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 say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against 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 offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’”  14  And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

Psalms 106:23  Therefore he said he would destroy them— had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.

Deuteronomy 9:13-20  “Furthermore, the LORD said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stubborn people.  14  Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’  15  So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.  16  And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the LORD your God. You had made yourselves a golden calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the LORD had commanded you.  17  So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.  18  Then I lay prostrate before the LORD as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD to provoke him to anger.  19  For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that the LORD bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also.  20  And the LORD was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him. And I prayed for Aaron also at the same time… 25 “So I lay prostrate before the LORD for these forty days and forty nights, because the LORD had said he would destroy you.  26  And I prayed to the LORD, ‘O Lord GOD, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.  27  Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness or their sin,  28  lest the land from which you brought us say, “Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.”  29  For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’

Did Moses change God’s mind? Did Moses change God’s Will? Do we have the ability to change God with our prayers? Doesn’t that lead to to the prosperity gospel? The name-it-and-claim-it, word of faith movement?

New Thought, a nineteenth-century spiritual movement popular with decidedly unorthodox thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James.  New Thought the idea that an individual was responsible for his or her own happiness, health, and situation in life. If they just applied mental energy in the appropriate direction the could control their reality.

Written in 1905, Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism traced what he saw as the specifically Protestant approach to labor as integral to the development of capitalism and industrialization. They looked both for outward signs of God’s favor (i.e., through material success) and for ways to express inward virtue (i.e., through hard work). By 1905 the idea was that working hard and receiving material, financial reward was an indicator of blessing by God in Protestant Christianity.

Pentecostal churches are characterized by an emphasis on what is known as “spiritual gifts” (or charisms, from which the term “charismatic” is drawn). They might experience the gift of healing, prophecy and speaking “in tongues.” This meant God would manifest Himself to the faithful in concrete, miraculous ways in the here and now. Many of these churches were outside denomination and structure so individual leaders, many of whom practiced faith healing or prosperity gospel, had a particularly strong effect on their congregations and could build up individual personal followings.

The “Word of Faith” movement — a Pentecostal version of New Thought — became more prominent. The prosperity gospel promises that prayer/faith is a tool to force God to grant blessings. If you have enough faith, God must respond positively to your faith. Or if you can claim it in faith, God is bound to give it to you. The prosperity gospel promises that the atonement of Jesus covers illness and poverty. False teachers will say that at the cross, Jesus died for our iniquities, sorrows, illnesses, sicknesses, and poverty meaning true Christians should never be sick, or struggle financially. People coming to God for what He can give them. People believing they can control God to get what they need. “Failures” are the individual’s fault because of sin; they didn’t have enough faith; they spoke negative words into their life; they didn’t have enough mental energy to transform their mind and create their desired reality. “Successes” gave enough money; used enough faith; said all the right, positive words, affirmations; claimed enough scriptural promises; transformed the mind; sowed enough. I.e. we control our reality which makes us God.

God knew what was happening at the bottom of the mountain and how Aaron and the people had failed the test. Now he tests Moses. God did not intend to destroy Israel but he broached the subject, creating a scenario: “All these people that have disrespected you, and caused you hurt and heartache, I will destroy and then make YOU into a mighty nation that will inherit the Promised Land” (my words paraphrasing). What would Moses do? Would he say, “Yes, that sounds good to me?” or “No, Your will be done, not mine.”

Exodus 32:10  Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.” 11  But Moses implored the LORD his God…

Moses stuck to God’s original plan and remembered all that God had promised concerning Israel.

To me, this is like what Jesus went through when the Devil tempted Him in the wilderness.

Matthew 4:1-11  Then Jesus was led by the Spirit up into the wilderness, to be tempted by the Devil.  2  And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterwards hungry.  3  And when the tempter came to Him, he said, If You are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.  4  But He answered and said, It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”  5  Then the Devil took Him up into the holy city and set Him upon a pinnacle of the Temple.  6  And he said to Him, If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down. For it is written, “He shall give His angels charge concerning You, and in their hands they shall bear You up, lest at any time You dash Your foot against a stone.”  7  Jesus said to him, It is written again, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”  8  Again, the Devil took Him up into a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  9  And he said to Him, All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.  10  Then Jesus said to him, Go, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.”  11  Then the Devil left him. And behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

Jesus endured temptation both so He could identify with us (Hebrews 2:18; Hebrews 4:15), and to demonstrate His own holy, sinless character.

The Devil was creating a scenario to Jesus: “All this that God promised you, I can give you and you won’t have to go the way of the cross. Take the shortcut I offer you” (my words paraphrasing). But Jesus remained steadfast in God’s Will no matter how costly it was to Himself. “Not my will but Thine be done”.

“What if Moses had not stood the test, had not offered his soul for the preservation of his people, as he is said to have done in Exodus 32:32? Would God in that case have thought him fit to make into a great nation? Unquestionably, if this had occurred, he would not have proved himself fit or worthy of such a call; but as God does not call those who are fit and worthy in themselves, for the accomplishment of His purposes of salvation, but chooses rather the unworthy, and makes them fit for His purposes (2 Corinthians 3:5-6), He might have made even Moses into a great nation. The possibility of such a thing, however, is altogether an abstract thought: the case supposed could not possibly have occurred, since God knows the hearts of His servants, and foresees what they will do, though, notwithstanding His omniscience, He gives to human freedom room enough for self-determination, that He may test the fidelity of His servants.” – Keil & Delitzsch

“Note, A great deal of difference will be made between those that presumptuously rush into sin and those that through infirmity are surprised into it, between those that overtake the fault that flees from them and those that are overtaken in the fault they flee from. See Galatians 6:1.” – Matthew Henry Commentary

Aaron deserved to be cut off for this sin, and would have been so if Moses had not interceded particularly for him, as appears in Deuteronomy 9:20 for what has he done to this people and why?

Aaron in return shows little repentance by trying to calm Moses down and blaming the people; blaming Moses for staying on the mountain so long; and blaming the gold that came out of the fire a golden calf! He was trying to hide behind ridiculous fig leaves like Adam and Eve. But for God’s grace and mercy….

Exodus 32:19-20  And it happened, as he came near to the camp and saw the calf and dances, the anger of Moses became hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands, and broke them at the bottom of the mountain.  20  And he took the calf which they had made and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and dropped it upon the water, and made the sons of Israel drink of it.

Why did Moses transfer the gold calf to the people by melting it down, beating it into the dust and scattering it over the brook and forcing the Israelites to drink it?

They wanted their idols and idolatrous worship. They rejected God even as He sat on the mountain in fire, smoke, cloud, thunder, lightning, earthquake. They preferred a god they could control and that gave them license to do whatever they wanted to do. So they demanded an idol and they developed their own methods of “worship” to give them reason to give in to their lusts and debauchery.

Note, their “worship” of this idol was an orgy of debauchery and licentiousness. As human beings, sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, we all want to be God, We don’t want God in control – we want to be in control. We want to be “as God.” These people only bandaid-ed their true desire by creating an idol. It looked like a religion on the outside but it was just a “god” they controlled so the people thought of themselves as the Wizard behind the curtain (Wizard of Oz). The people were afraid of a God they cannot control. They realized that the scary God on the mountain was sovereign, powerful and could not be manipulated by them. Therefore they rejected Him as their God and created a statue they thought they could control. This idol would mutely, and powerlessly, stand by as the people did whatever they wanted and then cover it with the justification that it was their religion, or idol, that required it.

Moses said, “If that’s what you want, partake of it and see how sick of it you will be” (my words paraphrasing).

For some reason people used to think you trained a dog not to potty in the house by rubbing his nose in his own feces. This looks to me like Moses rubbing their noses in their sin to give them such an unpleasant experience, they won’t do it again.

Moses calls for those who followed Jehovah – and the Levites gathered to Moses.

By the way, men are so fond of gold they will go to almost any lengths to get it. They will spend days sifting water and sand, or mining deep in the earth, to get little bits of gold. It’s their idolatrous treasure and many men have died for a little gold dust. If Moses had done anything else with that tainted, sinful gold, I’m sure people would have found a way to retrieve it. How do you get rid of something that won’t burn up? So he forced them to drink it. That meant it was absorbed by their bodies and passed through they systems to be assimilated and eliminated through their own feces. The gold is still there but in a properly disgusting place. The people would have realized the proper end of their idol was crap in their outhouse pits (they didn’t have commodes, bathrooms, septic tanks and sewer systems back then). Who would wade through a sewage pit for gold dust?

It may also have been a ceremony of transference. Aaron was the one who made and presented the golden calf idol at the demand of the people. Moses transferred the guilty gold dust in the water and the people drank it. The guilt was transferred from just Aaron to the nation so that grace and forgiveness could come. The sins of the world were transferred to one Man, Jesus, so was this a mirror image of what Jesus would do but in exact opposite? Aaron was High Priest and responsible before God for the sins of the people. Jesus, as our High Priest, took on the sins of the people to atone for us.

By taking the sinful gold dust and scattering it in the brook which came from the Mount where God was sitting, it was a ceremonial act of faith. The water representing the Holy Spirit flowing as a “fountain of living water”. The sin was scattered in this water. God extended grace. He did not destroy the whole nation. Their own sin destroyed those who did not repent. It is a water of life, grace, mercy to those who repent of their sin. We are all guilty of sin, thus we all drink the guilt of sin, but God offers grace and mercy and eternal life to those who repent. The water flows from God and kept man and beast alive in their wilderness desert. The golden idol thrown in the water not only didn’t keep anyone alive, but caused death to unrepentant sinners. Idols can do nothing for us! This water-sprinkled-with-gold, is still only of value to our bodies as water. The gold has no value to our bodies. Water sustains us. So, the Holy Spirit sustains our spirit. All the gold in the world will not keep our bodies alive and therefore has no value when it comes time to go into eternity. We cannot take it with us and we can’t buy our way into Heaven. It’s worthless.

Exodus 32:26  then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Who is on Jehovah’s side? Come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves to him.

There were those who did not participate and were innocent. There were those who participated but were now ashamed and repentant. There were those who didn’t want to participate but may have minimally. There were those who participated and were all in. They delighted in what they did and dragged others into it, leading others into sin. God knew each person, their level of sin and their level of repentance. God is the only one who would know this.

The Levites had to learn a lesson too. They were assigned the unpleasant task of killing the ringleaders to show them they should have tried to prevent the sin in the beginning. It might be easier to try and stop the nation from sinning to begin with than to have the mess to clean up later. Something our leaders need to learn today.

The sin was committed publicly, thus the Levites saw who were involved. They were to execute those who were in the street from gate to gate. This showed those who weren’t even ashamed of what they did. There is no repentance in them. Did these 3,000 not resist? They may have but God had given the Levites whatever strength they needed to perform the task they were called to do.

“How the Levites were called out to this service: Moses stood in the gate of the camp, the place of judgment; there he displayed a banner, as it were, because of the truth, to enlist soldiers for God. He proclaimed, Who is on the Lord’s side? The idolaters had set up the golden calf for their standard, and now Moses set up his, in opposition to them.” – Matthew Henry Commentary

Psalm 94:16  Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?

“Those that in the morning were shouting and dancing before night were dying in their own blood” – Matthew Henry Commentary

1 Corinthians 10:6 (MKJV) And these things were our examples, that we should not be lusters after evil, as they also lusted. 7 Nor should we be idolaters, even as some of them, as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.”

Same verses in the CEV:
1 Corinthians 10:6 (CEV) What happened to them is a warning to keep us from wanting to do the same evil things. 7 They worshiped idols, just as the Scriptures say, “The people sat down to eat and drink. Then they got up to dance around.” So don’t worship idols.

“The Levites, notwithstanding the dejection of Aaron, distinguished themselves by their zeal for the honor of God and their conduct in doing the office of executioners on this occasion; and this was one reason that they were appointed to a high and honorable office in the service of the sanctuary.” Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary

Moses did not minimize the sin. Moses knew the enormity of the people’s sin, yet he still asked for forgiveness in an appeal to the mercy and grace of God. Moses asked God to forgive Israel on the basis of his own sacrificial identification with the sinful people. This sacrificial heart was the same heart Jesus had in dying for our sins.

2 Corinthians 5:21  For He has made Him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Christ, who died for man; who, from the Mount of Transfiguration, as Moses from Sinai, came down to bear the sins of His people!

God agreed to spare the nation as a whole, but He definitely reserved the right to judge individual sinners.

The Jews have a metaphorical saying, apparently founded on this text: “No affliction has ever happened to Israel in which there was not some particle of the dust of the golden calf.”

“Moses was a true type of Christ in that act of supreme self-sacrifice; and all the heroism, the identification of himself with his people, the love which willingly accepts death, that makes his prayer one of the greatest deeds on the page of history, are repeated in infinitely sweeter, more heart-subduing fashion in the story of the Cross.” – Alexander McLaren Expositions of Holy Scripture

“Only a small portion of the guilty nation had been punished, and that without the others showing themselves worthy of forgiving grace through sorrow and repentance. The punishment, therefore, was not remitted, but only postponed in the long-suffering of God, “until the day of retribution” or visitation. The day of visitation came at length, when the stiff-necked people had filled up the measure of their sin through repeated rebellion against Jehovah and His servant Moses, and were sentenced at Kadesh to die out in the wilderness (Numbers 14:26.). The sorrow manifested by the people (Exodus 33:4), when the answer of God was made known to them, was a proof that the measure was not yet full.” – Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament