In Exodus xxxii. we have the story of the _golden calf_. It was a
solemn hour in the history of the Hebrews. Moses was up on Mount Sinai
communing with God, and all the people were waiting in the plain. They
had watched their leader ascend the hill and disappear within the cloud;
and for well-nigh forty days they had been waiting for his return. But
evidently they were waiting in vain. Day by day they had expected the
cloud to lift and pass away, but there it was still lying on the rocky
summit, brooding and dark as ever. They began to lose heart. They
gradually grew impatient, and finally they broke out in actual
rebellion. They turned to Aaron and said, "Up, make us gods which shall
go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of
the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him."
And then follows the sad story of Israel's idolatry. Moses on the hill
was receiving a new revelation. He was receiving from Jehovah the two
tables of stone. And these were the first two lines inscribed upon
them: "_Thou shalt have no other gods before Me_." "_Thou shalt not
make unto thee any graven image_." And lo! at the very moment that
these words were being written, the chosen people at the foot of the
hill were breaking off their golden earrings and making a molten calf.
They were renouncing the worship of Jehovah and setting the worship of
Egypt--the worship of the _bull_, Apis, in its place.
When Moses came down and beheld this idol, he was completely overcome.
In a great outburst of grief and anger he dashed the tables out of his
hand and break them beneath the mount. Israel had sinned a great sin.
They were a stiff-necked and rebellious people. And the anger of the
Lord was kindled against Israel, "and there fell of the people that day
about three thousand men."
It is the same taproot of sin which is the cause of all our sorrows.
We, too, have sinned against the Lord. We have made some kind of golden
calf, and set it in the place of Jehovah. And unless we are saved from
the awful consequences of our sin, we also will suffer, as those
rebellious Hebrews suffered, because of the idol which we have made.
This is the first lesson that we may learn from the Bible imagery of the
calf. It sets before us the true nature and the terrible consequences
of sin.