'And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come
down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves
together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us
gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses,
the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt,
we wot not what is become of him. 2. And Aaron said
unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in
the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your
daughters, and bring them unto me. 3. And all the people
brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears,
and brought them unto Aaron. 4. And he received them at
their hand, and fashioned it with a graving-tool, after
he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be
thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the
land of Egypt. 5. And when Aaron saw it, he built an
altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said,
To-morrow is a feast to the Lord. 6. And they rose up
early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and
brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat
and to drink, and rose up to play. 7. And the Lord said
unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which
thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted
themselves: 8. They have turned aside quickly out of the
way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten
calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed
thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which
have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.... 30. And
it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the
people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up
unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement
for your sin. 31. And Moses returned unto the Lord, and
said, Oh! this people have sinned a great sin, and have
made them gods of gold. 32. Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive
their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy
book which Thou hast written. 33. And the Lord said unto
Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot
out of My book. 34. Therefore now go, lead the people
unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee. Behold,
Mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day
when I visit I will visit their sin upon them. 35. And
the Lord plagued the people, because they made the calf,
which Aaron made.'--EXODUS xxxii. 1-8; 30-35.
It was not yet six weeks since the people had sworn, 'All that the Lord
hath spoken will we do, and be obedient.' The blood of the covenant,
sprinkled on them, was scarcely dry when they flung off allegiance to
Jehovah. Such short-lived loyalty to Him can never have been genuine.
That mob of slaves was galvanised by Moses into obedience; and since
their acceptance of Jehovah was in reality only yielding to the power
of one strong will and its earnest faith, of course it collapsed as
soon as Moses disappeared.
We have to note, first, the people's universal revolt. The language of
verse 1 may easily hide to a careless reader the gravity and unanimity
of the apostasy. 'The people gathered themselves together.' It was a
national rebellion, a flood which swept away even some faithful, timid
hearts. No voices ventured to protest. What were the elders, who
shortly before 'saw the God of Israel,' doing to be passive at such a
crisis? Was there no one to bid the fickle multitude look up to the
summit overhead, where the red flames glowed, or to remind them of the
hosts of Egypt lying stark and dead on the shore? Was Miriam cowed too,
and her song forgotten?
We need not cast stones at these people; for we also have short
memories for either the terrible or the gracious revelations of God in
our own lives. But we may learn the lesson that God's lovers have to
set themselves sometimes dead against the rush of popular feeling, and
that there are times when silence or compliance is sin.
It would have been easy for the rebels to have ignored Aaron, and made
gods for themselves. But they desired to involve him in their apostasy,
and to get 'official sanction' for it. He had been left by Moses as his
lieutenant, and so to get him implicated was to stamp the movement as a
regular and entire revolt.
The demand 'to make gods' (or, more probably, 'a god') flew in the face
of both the first and second commandments. For Jehovah, who had
forbidden the forming of any image, was denied in the act of making it.
To disobey Him was to cast Him off. The ground of the rebellion was the
craving for a visible object of trust and a visible guide, as is seen
by the reason assigned for the demand for an image. Moses was out of
sight; they must have something to look at as their leader. Moses had
disappeared, and, to these people who had only been heaved up to the
height of believing in Jehovah by Moses, Jehovah had disappeared with
him. They sank down again to the level of other races as soon as that
strong lever ceased to lift their heavy apprehensions.
How ridiculous the assertion that they did not know what had become of
Moses! They knew that he was up there with Jehovah. The elders could
have told them that. The fire on the mount might have burned in on all
minds the confirmation. Note, too, the black ingratitude and plain
denial of Jehovah in 'the _man_ that brought us up out of the land of
Egypt.' They refuse to recognise God's part. It was Moses only who had
done it; and now that he is gone they must have a visible god, like
other nations.
Still sadder than their sense-bound wish is Aaron's compliance. He knew
as well as we do what he should have said, but, like many another man
in influential position, when beset by popular cries, he was
frightened, and yielded when he should have 'set his face like a
flint.' His compliance has in essentials been often repeated,
especially by priests and ministers of religion who have lent their
superior abilities or opportunities to carry out the wishes of the
ignorant populace, and debased religion or watered down its
prohibitions, to please and retain hold of them. The Church has
incorporated much from heathenism. Roman Catholic missionaries have
permitted 'converts' to keep their old usages. Protestant teachers have
acquiesced in, and been content to find the brains to carry out,
compromises between sense and soul, God's commands and men's
inclinations.
We need not discuss the metallurgy of verse 4. But clearly Aaron asked
for the earrings, not, as some would have it, hoping that vanity and
covetousness would hinder their being given, but simply in order to get
gold for the bad work which he was ready to do. The reason for making
the thing in the shape of a calf is probably the Egyptian worship of
Apis in that form, which would be familiar to the people.
We must note that it was the people who said, 'These be thy gods, O
Israel!' Aaron seems to keep in the rear, as it were. He makes the
calf, and hands it over, and leaves them to hail it and worship. Like
all cowards, he thought that he was lessening his guilt by thus keeping
in the background. Feeble natures are fond of such subterfuges, and
deceive themselves by them; but they do not shift their sin off their
shoulders.
Then he comes in again with an impotent attempt to diminish the gravity
of the revolt. 'When he _saw_ this,' he tried to turn the flood into
another channel, and so proclaimed a 'feast to Jehovah'!--as if He
could be worshipped by flagrant defiance of His commandments, or as if
He had not been disavowed by the ascription to the calf, made that
morning out of their own trinkets, of the deliverance from Egypt. A
poor, inconsequential attempt to save appearances and hallow sin by
writing God's name on it! The 'god' whom the Israelites worshipped
under the image of a calf, was no less another 'god before Me,' though
it was called by the name of Jehovah. If the people had their idol, it
mattered nothing to them, and it mattered as little to Jehovah, what
'name' it bore. The wild orgies of the morrow were not the worship
which He accepts.
What a contrast between the plain and the mountain! Below, the shameful
feast, with its parody of sacrifice and its sequel of lust-inflamed
dancing; above, the awful colloquy between the all-seeing righteous
Judge and the intercessor! The people had cast off Jehovah, and Jehovah
no more calls them 'My,' but '_thy_ people.' They had ascribed their
Exodus first to Moses, and next to the calf. Jehovah speaks of it as
the work of Moses.
A terrible separation of Himself from them lies in '_thy_ people, which
_thou_ broughtest up,' and Moses' bold rejoinder emphasises the
relation and act which Jehovah seems to suppress (verse 11). Observe
that the divine voice refuses to give any weight to Aaron's trick of
compromise. These are no worshippers of Jehovah who are howling and
dancing below there. They are 'worshipping _it_, and sacrificing to
it,' not to Him. The cloaks of sin may partly cover its ugliness here,
but they are transparent to His eyes, and many a piece of worship,
which is said to be directed to Him, is, in His sight, rank idolatry.
We do not deal with the magnificent courage of Moses, his single-handed
arresting of the wild rebellion, and the severe punishment by which he
trampled out the fire. But we must keep his severity in mind if we
would rightly judge his self-sacrificing devotion, and his
self-sacrificing devotion if we would rightly judge his severity.
No words of ours can make more sublime his utter self-abandonment for
the sake of the people among whom he had just been flaming in wrath,
and smiting like a destroying angel. That was a great soul which had
for its poles such justice and such love. The very words of his prayer,
in their abruptness, witness to his deep emotion. 'If Thou wilt forgive
their sin' stands as an incomplete sentence, left incomplete because
the speaker is so profoundly moved. Sometimes broken words are the best
witnesses of our earnestness. The alternative clause reaches the
high-water mark of passionate love, ready to give up everything for the
sake of its objects. The 'book of life' is often spoken of in
Scripture, and it is an interesting study to bring together the places
where the idea occurs (see Ps. lxix. 28; Dan. xii. 1; Phil. iv. 3; Rev.
iii. 5). The allusion is to the citizens' roll (Ps. lxxxvii. 6). Those
whose names are written there have the privileges of citizenship, and,
as it is the 'book of life' (or '_of the living_'), life in the widest
sense is secured to them. To blot out of it, therefore, is to cut a man
off from fellowship in the city of God, and from participation in life.
Moses was so absorbed in his vocation that his life was less to him
than the well-being of Israel. How far he saw into the darkness beyond
the grave we cannot say; but, at least, he was content, and desirous to
die on earth, if thereby Israel might continue to be God's people. And
probably he had some gleam of light beyond, which enhanced the
greatness of his offered sacrifice. To die, whatever loss of communion
with God that involved here or hereafter, would be sweet if thereby he
could purchase Israel's restoration to God's favour. We cannot but
think of Paul willing to be separated from Christ for his brethren's
sake.
We may well think of a greater than Moses or Paul, who did bear the
loss which they were willing to bear, and died that sin might be
forgiven. 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. Let us not omit duly to honour the servant; let us not neglect
to honour and love infinitely more the Lord. 'This man was counted
worthy of more glory than Moses.' Let us see that we render Him
'Thanks never ceasing,
And infinite love.'