Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:28, 30

28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.

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.

It is not entirely clear who the three thousand killed by the Levites were. This verse and the following ones suggest that there still remained some of those Israelites who had participated in the act of idolatry. Indeed, if the entire camp, (or even just a significant fraction of the camp) had participated, then there would have been anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of idolaters still standing after the previous day’s slaughter.

It may be that when Moses returned the majority of the people were ambivalent as to whether or not they would return to serving the Lord, but that three thousand stood against Moses, and were prepared to defend their licentiousness by force. I think it is notable that the three thousand that were slain were “men,” which sounds to me like it might have been an army of rebels that had to be put down before the rest of the people gave way to Moses.

In either case, it seems clear from verse 30 that there were still many left alive who were soiled with sin. Moses, who had been the fierce sword of justice on the day before, now became the merciful advocate. Having seen for himself the weight of the people’s sin, he would return yet again to the mountain, in order to plead their case before the Lord.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:26-29

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.

27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.

28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.

29 For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves to day to the Lord, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day.

Continuing with the symbolism of the divine from above touching mortality below, we see in today’s verses how these moments call for the drawing of a line. The situation has come to an impasse, and one cannot try to stand with a foot in each side any longer. One must by chosen. “Who is on the Lord’s side?” Moses asks. Now that the people had sufficient time to choose sin or virtue, who would hold their dignity? All of Levi answers the call and they are given the command to march forth and cut down the rebels.

The command to go to battle is very sharp and direct. Even a neighbor, or a companion, or a brother was not to be spared. If a man chooses God, then he is to choose Him above any other. This may seem a hard thing, difficult to consider given that we live isolated from God while establishing more tangible connections to those we live with. But the more we mature, the more we see that it is the intangible ideals of good and right and truth that matter most, and we develop our deepest devotions to them.

We look around us today and we see that there is no such immediate judgment being carried out upon the wicked. Those that defy God still prosper, and those who are prone to straying see no clear line in the sand that must not be crossed. That doesn’t mean that the God of judgment and retribution has ceased to exist, though. These things come in times and seasons. People are left to ripen, and then the harvest comes, either for glory or destruction. There will be another time of reckoning, and we ought to live so that we will find ourselves on the right side of it.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:21-25

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:)

Moses asks the same question of Aaron that we posed earlier: why would he submit to the Israelites’ demands for something that he knew was wrong? Nothing in Aaron’s response suggests that he thought it was a good thing that he did. Rather, the fact that he asks for mercy strongly suggests that he knows that he was wrong to concede to the masses. At least he is completely forthcoming in recounting what he did.

I had wondered whether Aaron agreed to their demands out of spite, as a way to say, “if you’re so set on damnation, by all means go ahead!” One thing that may support that theory is what verse 25 states about Aaron having them get naked as part of their idolatrous revelry, with the objective of bringing shame upon them.

Continuing with the idea of Moses up in the mountain representing the elevated soul and the wicked people in the valley representing fallen mortality, then Aaron might represent to us the basically decent person who is surrounded by a sea of iniquity. He stands in place of all those who try to balance their own survival against their morals. There are many of us who become compromised, who seek not to deprave ourselves, but who stand back and let the depravity happen.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:19-20

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.

At the start of this chapter I mentioned that Moses up in the mountain with God and the Israelites down in the valley with their idol was an allegory for all mankind. Today, we see those two opposites meeting again. The elevated and transcendent has touched back to the fallen earth.

The first thing that Moses does is break in pieces the Lord’s invitation to Israel to build Him a holy house. The people were not worthy of it. They had not only violated the principles etched upon the tablets, but also the earlier law that was the prerequisite to receiving the latter tablets. Of course, we know that ultimately Israel would build the tabernacle as planned, but only because God would restore that privilege. First the people had to lose everything. They had to be condemned before they could be redeemed.

Next, Moses similarly broke the people’s sin. He took their perverse calf and destroyed it in the most complete way imaginable. First burned, then ground into powder, then poured into water, then drunk. It’s hard to think of a way he could have decimated it any further!

Also, there is an obvious symbolism in Moses having the people drink the very essence of their sin. They were drinking the consequences of their own wrongs. No one can pervert the ways of the Lord and not be soiled within. Many the man has tried to have his secret vice on the side while still maintaining that he is a “good” person, but it never works. The sin does not live outside of the man. It begins external, as the influence of temptation, but by engaging with it the man ingests its evil, and then it churns within him.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:17-18

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.

Back when Moses had ascended the mountain, we were told that his minister, Joshua, accompanied him. So now Joshua met Moses along the way down the mountain, reporting that he had already heard a tumult coming up from the valley down below. Joshua assumed that it was the noise of a battle, Moses, however, heard the notes of a song.

These verses are describing the noises of two types of trouble. In fact, it is the two fundamental types of trouble that are the source of all of our problems, both individually and collectively. There is the trouble of a foreign attack, outside sources seeking our destruction and causing us harm. Then there is the trouble of deliberate disobedience, the idolatry and revelry that we inflict upon ourselves. One sounds like discordant chaos, the other like patterned notes of blasphemy.

No wonder Joshua thought he heard the sounds of the first, for persecution inflicted upon the Israelites had been the pattern for many years. But now the nature of Israel’s trouble was changing. It was shifting from an external enemy to an internal one, and Moses was perceiving that change already.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:15-16

15 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.

Moses now descends to the Israelites below. This is an obvious type for Christ, condescending from heaven to live among mankind. With him, he still carries the stone tablets, written on each side by the hand of God.

Every word that was written in the stone was intended for the elevation of the Israelites, but now they stood as a condemnation of the people. They described a standard that the Israelites had sunk well below. The word of God is a blessing to the righteous, but a curse to the wicked. Once we know what is right, then we know exactly how short of it we have fallen.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:11-14

11 And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?

12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.

13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.

14 And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

God had presented legitimate reasons for obliterating the people, now Moses presents legitimate reasons not to. He mentions the mockery that the Egyptians will make if Israel won its freedom in such spectacular fashion, only to be destroyed immediately after.

Moses also mentions the Lord’s promise to the patriarchs that He would raise a mighty people that would inherit the land of Canaan. As mentioned yesterday, God could still do that through Moses, but that would mean delaying the realization of the promise for many more years.

Moses had the opportunity to let God blot out trouble at its root, but instead sought to let it live instead, so that it could be wrestled with and redeemed. He chose the path of upward struggle, which is the story of our entire world. It was the story of Adam after the fall. Bread and children were both made possible, but only by sweat of brow and pain of childbirth. It is the story of Jesus after his condescension. He could defeat death and hell, but only by lowering himself into their jaws. So, too, Israel had just experienced its own collapse, but Moses elected to stay and fight even so. All of us are wicked and go astray, but we are spared because someone better agrees to take on our burden and fight for us.

Perhaps God really would have destroyed all of the Israelites. Perhaps He was giving Moses a chance to rewrite the narrative going forward. It does occur to me, however, that if Moses was going to be the champion for these people that the Lord needed to let him make that decision for himself. Suggesting the path of destruction might have been a clever way to get Moses to throw himself entirely into the cause of mercy instead. When God first called Moses to help these people Moses had hesitated, but now Moses was willing to do it entirely uncompelled.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:9-10

9 And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:

10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.

These are some interesting verses, showing God with a singular intent, and in the next verses we will hear how Moses dissuaded Him from it. Does this mean that God’s plans were not set in stone? How does this sort of behavior stack up to the Christian teaching that God is always right and can always be trusted? How can He be all-merciful if Moses is showing a greater degree of mercy than He is?

We’ll examine several aspects of these questions over the next couple days as we consider each batch of verses. For today I will address two of these issues, starting with the question of whether or not God’s plans are set in stone. How could His plans and promises be fulfilled if He destroyed the people He had intended to save?

An explanation for this is that there can be multiple acceptable paths by which the Lord is able to accomplish His purposes and promises. Either He could continue to strive with the children of Jacob, or He could cut them off and raise the children of Moses to receive the Promised Land instead. Obviously, either path would fulfill His promises to Abraham and the Israelite people as a whole.

As for the matter of whether God was all-merciful or not, I would say that this story illustrates that God is all-good. Justice is good. Mercy is good. God is able to execute perfect justice, and He is also capable of showing perfect mercy. Many of us are not so versatile. We are either very good at showing mercy, but weak at standing up for justice, or else we are good at maintaining justice, but struggle to show mercy. In the course of these verses, we see God’s openness to both, which is a testament to His full breadth of goodness.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:7-8

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.

From God’s summary of the goings-on down below we can see that His view is perfectly clear, for He gives explicit detail on how the people had corrupted themselves, even reciting the specific words that Aaron said when presenting the golden calf.

I see this conversation as being representative of God’s observance of humanity throughout all time. How many times have there been similar conversations in the halls of heaven as God and His court consider the ways that mankind has gone astray down below? In the time of Noah? Before the coming of Christ? Still yet-to-come before the second coming? It is quite a privilege to us that Moses was elevated to take part in this instance so that we could receive an account of it.

The role that Moses served in this moment is symbolic of the Son of God, communing with the Father above and then being sent down to resolve the sins of the people. The nature of the Israelites, and indeed of all the world, is to go astray. We receive blessings and freedom, we appreciate it for a time, but then we give in to sin and try to find our own way to the promised land. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way,” (Isaiah 53:6).

For a time, God permits us to run riot, but eventually there must come a time of divine intervention and reckoning. As in the time of Noah, God was just about ready to reset the entire enterprise, as we will see in tomorrow’s verses.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:5-6

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.

The idolatry of the Israelites bore yet another similarity to God’s tabernacle in that both required animal sacrifice. We have already discussed the symbolism of the offerings to be made to the Lord in the tabernacle and how they represented the people giving up their sins, devoting their passions to the Almighty, and submitting their lives to His purpose.

Assuming that the animal offerings to this golden idol carried the same symbolism, then they were giving their passions, their energies, and their very lives to something evil. Anyone that has dabbled in a life of sin knows that you cannot just have it on the side, totally separate from the rest of your life. Many have tried, but to maintain the course of sin we must progressively lay on its altar the very best of ourselves, including the love and energy that we had intended to withhold from it.

It is interesting that the Israelites would be so forward in admitting that this was the aim of their idolatry. I think most of us are caught unawares by the cost of sin, having only entered into vice because we assumed it wouldn’t take so much from us. Not for the first time, it appears to me that the Old Testament takes all that is subtle, invisible, and spiritual today, and makes them immediate, real, and physical.