WE dropped the thread of this history at Sinai to study with undivided attention the civil code of Moses and also the religious system. We now resume it.
Moses tarried on the Mount forty days to receive from the Lord the civil statutes in detail and also all his instructions in respect to the tabernacle, the priesthood, and the ritual. The time seemed long to the restive people. They became utterly impatient; they lost faith in God and in Moses; fell back upon their previous Egyptian notions; and consequently applied to Aaron, saying: “Up, make us gods which shall go before us; for as for this Moses—the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt—we wot not what has become of him.” Aaron replied: “Break off and bring to me your golden ear-rings.” Whether he hoped they would withdraw their request when they saw how much it was to cost them does not appear. But it does appear that their enthusiasm for idol gods was equal to this sacrifice of their golden ornaments. They brought them freely as Aaron had proposed, and he made of them a golden calf. Strangely enough, the people greeted this senseless thing with the shout: “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” What could this mean? Did they really believe that this calf was the power that brought those plagues on Pharaoh; that rolled away the waters of the Red Sea; bore them safely over, but hurled destruction on Pharaoh’s host? Did they see the Power that wrought all these wonders in this powerless calf? Or did they assume that the Invisible Power which achieved this work was well represented by this golden image?——The ineffable folly of idolatry according to either notion staggers us; we know not what to make of it. If the facts were notso patent the world over and through all the ages of the race, it would be our first impulse to assume it all a fiction and to say—Men never could be so supremely silly and foolish as to suppose the Great God to be like a calf! or as to suppose that a calf, whether of gold or of flesh and blood, could be a God!
We are tempted to digress, perhaps too much, into a discussion of the philosophy of idolatry. On this point it must suffice to say that no philosophy of such a fact can ever be satisfactory save one that assumes and makes large account of human depravity—thus: Some recognition of superhuman power is inevitable; it is in man’s deepest convictions, and can not be got out. But men shrink from the near presence of a pure, sin-hating God. Any thing else is more endurable. Give us (they say) some God to worship who will not disturb our sinning, or some way of worshiping the Supreme which will at least put that pure, all-searching Eye farther off. And as to the reasonableness of such notions of God, there is only this to be said: Sin makes men think like fools; sin makes men act like fools!——This philosophy of idolatry, and this only, touches bottom and must stand.——In the case before us, it is noticeable that the people were charmed with this new worship, for they could sit down to eat and to drink and rise up to play! A fine time they had of it. There was no troublesome sense of a pure, sin-hating God there. The question how this calf could be the same God who brought them out of Egypt was of the least possible concern to them.
Aaron is swept along in the current of this mad infatuation. When he saw this calf, he built an altar before it and made proclamation: “To-morrow is a feast to the Lord.” Full of heart for such a service “the people rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt-offerings and brought peace-offerings; they sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.”
A view of this scene from another stand-point follows next in the narrative. We are shown what transpired on the Mount where the Lord, Moses, and his servant Joshua were still engaged together. The God of Israel whose eyes are in every place, apprised Moses of what the people were doing. In words adapted to make Moses feel his personal responsibility, and perhaps to intimatethat for himself he must disown such a people, he said—“Go, get thee down, for thy people, whom thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.” They have made and are now worshiping a golden calf as the God that brought them out of Egypt.——The Lord closed with a proposal which was in many points of view intensely trying to Moses; viz. that Moses should suffer the Lord to consume this corrupt people. Then he would make the posterity of Moses a great nation, in place of rejected Israel.——Did the Lord say this to prove Moses in the line of personal pride? However this may have been, the result was morally sublime. The temptation (if we may call it such) made no impression. Moses passes it by as a thing not to be thought of. The Lord seemed to anticipate that Moses would pray for the people, and therefore said—“Let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them and that I may consume them.”——Not deterred a moment by this, “Moses besought the Lord his God and said: Why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people [not merely ‘my people’] which Thou [not I] hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand”? He boldly argues the case: Why, Lord, shouldest thou give occasion to the Egyptians to say that thou broughtest forth this people only to slay them in the mountains and consume them from the face of the earth? What will be said of thy solemn oath to Abraham to multiply his seed as the stars and to give them Canaan? How will these things bear upon thine own glory before earth and heaven?
This is a most remarkable case of prayer. Was ever mortal more bold and more persistent, despite of all the Lord had said which seemed to shut the door and bar off all entreaty? Yet Moses prevailed, and it does not appear that the Lord rebuked him for his persistence or for his boldness. It is simply said—“The Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.”——This point being so far gained, Moses must go down to the people. With the two stone tablets of the law in hand and Joshua by his side, he descends the mount. Joshua’s ear first caught the sound from the camp. His military antecedents suggest to him a a battle: “There is a noise of war in the camp.” Withjuster discrimination Moses replies: “It is not the shout of victors; it is not the outcry of the vanquished; but it is the voice of song that I hear.” They come within sight—and true enough—there was the calf-god, and the people were dancing and singing around it with wild, mad enthusiasm. What a scene to Moses! How is his soul fired with holy indignation! He casts to the earth the two tablets and breaks them at the foot of the mount. Next, he demolishes the calf; grinds it to powder; mixes it with water and compels the people to drink it. A million of men are in dismay before him—all powerless to resist.——He turns to Aaron, his elder brother, to rebuke him. Aaron’s defense is both tame and lame, as that of a man thoroughly ashamed of himself. “Thou knowest the people, bent on mischief. They beset me to make them a calf; I told them to bring forward their gold; they did so. I threw it into the fire—and the calf made itself!”
The more vital movement followed. Moses took his stand in the gate of the camp and cried aloud: “Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come over to me.” The sons of Levi, his tribal brethren, responded to the call and came. He bade them take every man his sword and pass to and fro through the camp, cutting down every man they met. There fell that day three thousand. The sin called for some fearful visitation of God’s displeasure—something that should impress the whole people with a sense of God’s irrepressible indignation.
Thus closed this fearful day. After one night’s reflection, Moses convenes the people, brings their great sin before them again, and says—“I will go up before the Lord; perhaps I may make atonement for your sin.” His prayer is on record—short, but full of meaning. “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin:—and if not, blot me, I pray thee out of thy book which thou hast written.”——To which the Lord answers: “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.”
The prayer of Moses (v. 32) should be read with a strong emphasis on the word “if,” making it equivalent to O that: IF thou wilt forgive their sin, all will be well. O that thou wouldest! If not, life is nothingto me; blot me out from the book of the living. Let me rather die than live any longer.——The primary meaning of this “book” of life is a register of living men—with reference to the earthly life, of this world only and not of the next. It is not to be taken here as including the future life. The Lord’s final answer spares the national life, but subjects the people yet to visitations of judgment for this terrible sin.
Though the main point seemed to be gained—God could consent to spare the nation—yet a qualifying condition troubled Moses exceedingly. The Lord said—I will send an angel before thee to drive out the Canaanite; but I will not go up in the midst of thee myself, for thou art a stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee in the way. It can not be safe for so wayward a people to have with them the personal presence of a God so pure and so sin-hating.——In the settlement of this grave matter, Moses was permitted to come very near to the God of Israel, to talk with him as a man talks with his friend. Moses said (in substance): Thou hast made me responsible to lead this people onward to Canaan; but thou hast not told me whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast very kindly said, “I know thee by name, and thou hast found grace in my sight.” If this be so, show me now thy way that I may know thee; that I may find grace in thy sight; and do not call this people mine, but consider them thine. Let me know what thy way of dealing with me and with thy people is to be and what I may depend upon in this thing.——The Lord graciously answers:—“My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest:” this rest being probably the promised rest of the nation in Canaan, and not merely rest in the sense of a satisfied mind exempt from harassing vexations.——Moses promptly answers—“If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” If thou art not going with us, let Canaan be given up and this whole enterprise be abandoned, for what can we do unless our own God be with us? How have we ever been distinguished from other peoples on the face of the earth, save in this—that our God, the great, the pure, and the Holy One, has been personally present with us?——The Lord graciously yields this point also.