'And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and
the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the
tables were written on both their sides; on the one
side and on the other were they written. 16. And the
tables were the work of God, and the writing was the
writing of God, graven upon the tables. 17. And when
Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted,
he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.
18. And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout
for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry
for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do
I hear. 19. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh
unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing:
and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out
of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. 20. And
he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in
the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon
the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
21. And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto
thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?
22. And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot:
thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief.
23. For they said unto me, 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. 24. And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any
gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then
I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.
25. And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for
Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their
enemies:) 26. Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp,
and said, Who is on the Lord's side? let him come unto
me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together
unto him.'--EXODUS xxxii. 15-26.
Moses and Joshua are on their way down from the mountain, the former
carrying the tables in his hands and a heavier burden in his
heart,--the thought of the people's swift apostasy. Joshua's soldierly
ear interprets the shouts which are borne up to them as war-cries; 'He
snuffeth the battle afar off, and saith Aha!' But Moses knew that they
meant worse than war, and his knowledge helped his ear to distinguish a
cadence and unison in the noise, unlike the confused mingling of the
victors' yell of triumph and the shriek of the conquered. If we were
dealing with fiction, we should admire the masterly dramatic instinct
which lets the ear anticipate the eye, and so prepares us for the
hideous sight that burst on these two at some turn in the rocky descent.
I. Note, then, what they saw. The vivid story puts it all in two
words,--'the calf and the dancing.' There in the midst, perhaps on some
pedestal, was the shameful copy of the Egyptian Apis; and whirling
round it in mad circles, working themselves into frenzy by rapid motion
and frantic shouts, were the people,--men and women, mingled in the
licentious dance, who, six short weeks before, had sworn to the
Covenant. Their bestial deity in the centre, and they compassing it
with wild hymns, were a frightful contradiction of that grey altar and
the twelve encircling stones which they had so lately reared, and which
stood unregarded, a bowshot off, as a silent witness against them. Note
the strange, irresistible fascination of idolatry. Clearly the personal
influence of Moses was the only barrier against it. The people thought
that he had disappeared, and, if so, Jehovah had disappeared with him.
We wonder at their relapses into idolatry, but we forget that it was
then universal, that Israel was at the beginning of its long training,
that not even a divine revelation could produce harvest in seedtime,
and that to look for a final and complete deliverance from the 'veil
that was spread over all nations,' at this stage, is like expecting a
newly reclaimed bit of the backwoods to grow grass as thick and velvety
as has carpeted some lawn that has been mown and cared for for a
century. Grave condemnation is the due of these short-memoried rebels,
who set up their 'abomination' in sight of the fire on Sinai; but that
should not prevent our recognising the evidence which their sin affords
of the tremendous power of idolatry in that stage of the world's
history. Israel's proneness to fall back to heathenism makes it certain
that a supernatural revelation is needed to account for their
possession of the loftier faith which was so far above them.
That howling, leaping crowd tells what sort of religion they would have
'evolved' if left to themselves. Where did 'Thou shalt have none other
gods beside Me' come from? Note the confusion of thought, so difficult
for us to understand, which characterises idolatry. What a hopelessly
inconsequential cry that was, 'Make us gods, which shall go before us!'
and what a muddle of contradictions it was that men should say 'These
be thy gods,' though they knew that the thing was made yesterday out of
their own earrings! It took more than a thousand years to teach the
nation the force of the very self-evident argument, as it seems to us,
'the workman made it, therefore it is not God.' The theory that the
idol is only a symbol is not the actual belief of idolaters. It is a
product of the study, but the worshipper unites in his thought the
irreconcilable beliefs that it was made and is divine. A goldsmith will
make and sell a Madonna, and when it is put in the cathedral, will
kneel before it.
Note what was the sin here. It is generally taken for granted that it
was a breach of the second, not of the first, commandment, and Aaron's
proclamation of 'a feast to the Lord' is taken as proving this. Aaron
was probably trying to make an impossible compromise, and to find some
salve for his conscience; but it does not follow that the people
accepted the half-and-half suggestion. Leaders who try to control a
movement which they disapprove, by seeming to accept it, play a
dangerous game, and usually fail. But whether the people call the calf
'Jehovah' or 'Apis' matters very little. There would be as complete
apostasy to another god, though the other god was called by the same
name, if all that really makes his 'name' was left out, and foreign
elements were brought in. Such worship as these wild dances, offered to
an image, broke both the commandments, no matter by what name the image
was invoked.
The roots of idolatry are in all men. The gross form of it is
impossible to us; but the need for aid from sense, the dependence on
art for wings to our devotion, which is a growing danger to-day, is
only the modern form of the same dislike of a purely spiritual religion
which sent these people dancing round their calf.
II. Mark Moses' blaze of wrath and courageous, prompt action. He dashes
the tables on the rock, as if to break the record of the useless laws
which the people have already broken, and, with his hands free, flings
himself without pause into the midst of the excited mob. Verses 19 and
20 bear the impression of his rapid, decisive action in their
succession of clauses, each tacked on to the preceding by a simple
'and.' Stroke followed stroke. His fiery earnestness swept over all
obstacles, the base riot ceased, the ashamed dancers slunk away. Some
true hearts would gather about him, and carry out his commands; but he
did the real work, and, single-handed, cowed and controlled the mob. No
doubt, it took more time than the brief narrative, at first sight,
would suggest. The image is flung into the fire from which it had come
out. The fire made it, and the fire shall unmake it. We need not find
difficulty in 'burning' a golden idol. That does not mean 'calcined,'
and the writer is not guilty of a blunder, nor needed to be taught that
you cannot burn gold. The next clause says that after it was 'burned,'
it was still solid; so that, plainly, all that is meant is, that the
metal was reduced to a shapeless lump. That would take some time. Then
it was broken small; there were plenty of rocks to grind it up on. That
would take some more time, but not a finger was lifted to prevent it.
Then the more or less finely broken up fragments are flung into the
brook, and, with grim irony, the people are bid to drink. 'You shall
have enough of your idol, since you love him so. Here, down with him!
You will have to take the consequences of your sin. You must drink as
you have brewed.' It is at once a contemptuous demonstration of the
idol's impotence, and a picture of the sure retribution.
But we may learn two things from this figure of the indignant lawgiver.
One is, that the temper in which to regard idolatry is not one of
equable indifference nor of scientific investigation, but that some
heat of moral indignation is wholesome. We are all studying comparative
mythology now, and getting much good from it; but we are in some danger
of forgetting that these strange ideas and practices, which we examine
at our ease, have spread spiritual darkness and moral infection over
continents and through generations. Let us understand them, by all
means; let us be thankful to find fragments of truth in, or innocent
origins of, repulsive legends; but do not let the student swallow up
the Christian in us, nor our minds lose their capacity of wholesome
indignation at the systems, blended with Christ-like pity and effort
for the victims.
We may learn, further, how strong a man is when he is all aflame with
true zeal for God. The suddenness of Moses' reappearance, the very
audacity of his act, the people's habit of obedience, all helped to
carry him through the crisis; but the true secret of his swift victory
was his own self-forgetting faith. There is contagion in pure religious
enthusiasm. It is the strongest of all forces. One man, with God at his
back, is always in the majority. He whose whole soul glows with the
pure fire, will move among men like flame in stubble. 'All things are
possible to him that believeth.' Consecrated daring, animated by love
and fed with truth, is all-conquering.
III. Note the weaker nature of Aaron, taking refuge in a transparent
lie. Probably his dialogue with his brother came in before the process
described in the former verses was accomplished. But the narrative
keeps all that referred to the destruction of the idol together, and
goes by subject rather than by time. We do not learn how Moses had come
to know Aaron's share in the sin, but his question is one of
astonishment. Had they bewitched him anyhow? or what inducement had led
him so far astray? The stronger and devouter soul cannot conceive how
the weaker had yielded. Aaron's answer puts the people's wish forward.
'They said, Make us gods'; that was all which they had 'done.' A poor
excuse, as Aaron feels even while he is stammering it out. What would
Moses have answered if the people had 'said' so to him? Did he,
standing there, with the heat of his struggle on him yet, look like a
man that would acknowledge any demand of a mob as a reason for a
ruler's compliance? It is the coward's plea. How many ecclesiastics and
statesmen since then have had no better to offer for their acts! Such
fear of the Lord as shrivelled before the breath of popular clamour
could have had no deep roots. One of the first things to learn, whether
we are in prominent or in private positions, is to hold by our
religious convictions in supreme indifference to all surrounding
voices, and to let no threats nor entreaties lead us to take one step
beyond or against conscience.
Aaron feels the insufficiency of the plea, when he has to put it into
plain words to such a listener, and so he flies to the resource of
timid and weak natures, a lie. For what did he ask the gold, and put it
into the furnace, unless he meant to make a god? Perhaps he had told
the people the same story, as priests in all lands have been apt to
claim a miraculous origin for idols. And he repeats it now, as if, were
it true, he would plead the miracle as a vindication of the worship as
well as his absolution. But the lie is too transparent to deserve even
an answer, and Moses turns silently from him.
Aaron's was evidently the inferior nature, and was less deeply stamped
with the print of heaven than his brother's. His feeble compliance is
recorded as a beacon for all persons in places of influence or
authority, warning them against self-interested or cowardly yielding to
a popular demand, at the sacrifice of the purity of truth and the
approval of their own consciences. He was not the last priest who has
allowed the supposed wishes of the populace to shape his
representations of God, and has knowingly dropped the standard of duty
or sullied the clear brightness of truth in deference to the
many-voiced monster.
IV. Note the rallying of true hearts round Moses. The Revised Version
reads 'broken loose' instead of 'naked,' and the correction is
valuable. It explains the necessity for the separation of those who yet
remained bound by the restraints of God's law, and for the terrible
retribution that followed. The rebellion had not been stamped out by
the destruction of the calf; and though Moses' dash into their midst
had cowed the rebels for a time, things had gone too far to settle down
again at once. The camp was in insurrection. It was more than a riot,
it was a revolution. With the rapid eye of genius, Moses sees the
gravity of the crisis, and, with equally swift decisiveness, acts so as
to meet it. He 'stood in the gate of the camp,' and made the nucleus
for the still faithful. His summons puts the full seriousness of the
moment clearly before the people. They have come to a fork in the road.
They must be either for Jehovah or against Him. There can be no mixing
up of the worship of Jehovah and the images of Egypt, no tampering with
God's service in obedience to popular clamour. It must be one thing or
other. This is no time for the family of 'Mr. Facing-both-ways'; the
question for each man is, 'Under which King?' Moses' unhesitating
confidence that he is God's soldier, and that to be at his side is to
be on God's side, was warranted in him, but has often been repeated
with less reason by eager contenders, as they believed themselves to
be, for God. No doubt, it becomes us to be modest and cautious in
calling all true friends of God to rank themselves with us. But where
the issue is between foul wrong and plain right, between palpable
idolatry, error, or unbridled lust, and truth, purity, and
righteousness, the Christian combatant for these is entitled to send
round the fiery cross, and proclaim a crusade in God's name. There will
always be plenty of people with cold water to pour on enthusiasm. We
should be all the better for a few more, who would venture to feel that
they are fighting for God, and to summon all who love Him to come to
their and His help.
Moses' own tribe responded to the summons. And, no doubt, Aaron was
there too, galvanised into a nobler self by the courage and fervour of
his brother, and, let us hope, urged by penitence, to efface the memory
of his faithlessness by his heroism now.
We do not go on to the dreadful retribution, which must be regarded,
not as massacre, but as legal execution. It is folly to apply to it, or
to other analogous instances, the ideas of this Christian century. We
need not be afraid to admit that there has been a development of
morality. The retributions of a stern age were necessarily stern. But
if we want to understand the heart of Moses, or of Moses' God, we must
not look only at the ruler of a wild people trampling out a revolt at
the sacrifice of many lives, but listen to him, as the next section of
the narrative shows him, pleading with tears for the rebels, and
offering even to let his own name be blotted out of God's book if their
sin might be forgiven. So, coupling the two parts of his conduct
together, we may learn a little more clearly a lesson, of which this
age has much need,--the harmony of retributive justice and pitying
love; and may come to understand that Moses learned both the one and
the other by fellowship with the God in whom they both dwell in
perfection and concord.