...no gods except GOD...

The Tablets for the Presence of God

“18 When the LORD finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God” Exodus 31:18.

The text of Exodus 24:12 reads: “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction.’” From the moment he ascended the mountain, Moses was to anticipate receiving the special tablets of stone that would represent a permanent record of the Ten Words/Commandments of God as spoken directly by him to the people, and as recorded in chap. 20, in addition to the other laws that he himself would write down on paper or parchment, a temporary surface compared to the stone.

This is also the first place in the narrative where the number of the tablets of stone—two—is specified. The reason for the two tablets has nothing to do with the length of the commandments as opposed to the size of the tablets. The full text of the Ten Words/Commandments was written on each tablet, one copy being God's and one copy being Israel’s. This reflects the standard ancient Near Eastern treaty“covenant practice of providing a copy of the covenant both to the vassal and to the sovereign. The fact that the two tablets were eventually placed together in the ark (Deuteronomy 10:5; 1 Kings 8:9; Hebrews 9:4) further symbolized the ark's role as a point of contact for God and his people, the place where his covenant relationship with them was symbolized by, among other things, the law, obedience to which linked Israel to Yahweh and Yahweh to Israel.

But the next chapter, chapter 32, belongs to this chapter, and so I include it below:

The Golden Calf

“1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, ‘Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; 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 Aaron said to them, ‘Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.’ 3 So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took the gold from them, formed it in a mould, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, ‘Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.’ 6 They rose early the next day, and offered burnt-offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.

7 The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it, and said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”’ 9 The Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10 Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.’

11 But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, “I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it for ever.”’ 14 And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

15 Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain, carrying the two tablets of the covenant in his hands, tablets that were written on both sides, written on the front and on the back. 16 The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets. 17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, ‘There is a noise of war in the camp.’ 18 But he said:

‘It is not the sound made by victors, or the sound made by losers; it is the sound of revelers that I hear.’

19 As soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20 He took the calf that they had made, burned it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.

21 Moses said to Aaron, ‘What did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them?’ 22 And Aaron said, ‘Do not let the anger of my lord burn hot; you know the people, that they are bent on evil. 23 They said to me, “Make us gods, who shall go before us; 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.” 24 So I said to them, “Whoever has gold, take it off”; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!’

25 When Moses saw that the people were running wild (for Aaron had let them run wild, to the derision of their enemies), 26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, ‘Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me!’ And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. 27 He said to them, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Put your sword on your side, each of you! Go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill your brother, your friend, and your neighbor.”’ 28 The sons of Levi did as Moses commanded, and about three thousand of the people fell on that day. 29 Moses said, ‘Today you have ordained yourselves[c] for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of a son or a brother, and so have brought a blessing on yourselves this day.’

30 On the next day Moses said to the people, ‘You have sinned a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.’ 31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘Alas, this people has sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, if you will only forgive their sin—but if not, blot me out of the book that you have written.’ 33 But the Lord said to Moses, ‘Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. 34 But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; see, my angel shall go in front of you. Nevertheless, when the day comes for punishment, I will punish them for their sin.’

35 Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf—the one that Aaron made” Exodus 32: 1-35.

Although Moses and Yahweh were conversing on Mount Sinai, the purpose was not further revelation of laws but whether or not the people deserved to continue under Yahweh's covenant blessing. In this part of the story, God laid a challenge before Moses in the form of a proposal (“leave me alone so that … I may destroy them,” v. 10). Moses took up this challenge and unselfishly appealed for God to preserve his relationship with his people, even though the alternative might have been attractive to Moses' own ego (“I will make you into a great nation”).

But the famous incident of idolatry described in the way Moses admirably dealt with it appear in Psalm 106:19–23, indicating that through the wording of v. 21 of that psalm (“they forgot the God who saved them”) how outrageous was their turning to idol worship:

At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped an idol cast from metal.

They exchanged their Glory for an image of a bull, which eats grass.

They forgot the God who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt,

miracles in the land of Ham and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

So he said he would destroy them—had not Moses, his chosen one,

stood in the breach before him to keep his wrath from destroying them.

We should remember that just a few months prior to this incident, the Israelites and the other ethnic groups among them4 were still living in Egypt, deeply influenced by its pagan culture, just as they had been for hundreds of years. They had all grown up in a society devoted to the religious system and way of life known as idolatry, and they were understandably, though by no means excusably, not yet used to the rigorous anti-idolatry demands of Yahweh's covenant with them. Because the attractions of idolatry for them were so strong and their recent stance against it so derivative and new, they were, in fact, not at all genuinely committed to its eradication in their beliefs and practices, as the present passage demonstrates all too clearly.

Remember that the people had not been told how long Moses would be gone. Exodus 24:18 indicates for us that Moses ended up staying on the mountain for forty days, but nothing there or elsewhere in the narrative indicates that either he or any other Israelite knew in advance how long he would be gone. Not only so, but Aaron had specifically been left in charge (24:14). The fact that the people of Israel would turn to Aaron for help in returning to idolatry can hardly be surprising. He was already designated as their leader, and in light of the length of Moses' absence would have seemed to many the logical choice to be their new permanent leader.

Although Moses and Yahweh were conversing on Mount Sinai, the purpose was not further revelation of laws but consideration of whether or not the people deserved to continue under Yahweh's covenant blessing. In this part of the story, God laid a challenge before Moses in the form of a rhetorical proposal (“leave me alone so that … I may destroy them,” v. 10). Moses creditably took up this challenge and unselfishly appealed for God to preserve his relationship with his people, even though the alternative might have been attractive to Moses' own ego (“I will make you into a great nation”).

But here is the point of this long blog today for our consideration:            God defined this sin clearly, leaving no doubt that the second commandment had been violated completely. They made for “themselves” a metal-plated idol “in the shape of a bull”, bowed down to it (“worshiped it,” clearly indicating their belief that it was a god).

Dear friends, I ask you to consider the “false gods” we have all created at times in our lives. The sinful gods we have freely chosen to follow. Take time today, confess your sins, and return to God.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.