The Gold Calf

No idolatry, this is God’s forever command, but children of Israel violated it.

In Exodus 32, children of Israel made a gold calf to sin against God. They were punished severely. We have to learn from their mistake and avoid committing the same sin.

While Moses was getting the instructions from God, people lost patience. They didn’t wait uprightly but wanted a quick fix according to their own will by asking Aaron to make them gods to worship. Man could neither make nor assign God. Since nobody saw God, any image would misrepresent HIM. This is definitely not a proof of love towards the LORD. But they didn’t care because they believed their will was more important than God’s. They lost respect and fear to God, violating HIS rule openly.

God appointed Moses to communicate between HIS people and HIM. The LORD would take care of Moses and appoint a successor after his death. God never forsakes HIS people, but keeps being with them as long as they don’t sin against HIM. On the contrary, man is forgetful and unreliable. The refusal to wait for God’s instruction is a lack of faith in HIM. They didn’t believe in HIS protection and love, and they didn’t return love by obeying HIM strictly.

When Aaron burned the gold and got a calf, children of Israel accepted it with utmost stupidity. Calf is to be killed and eaten, an inferior to man. How can it be God? They overlooked God’s omnipotence and belittled HIS power as if they could mold HIM. This is a serious transgression. The gold calf is a dead thing; it has no will and couldn’t save itself when Moses burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder.

The sinners indulged themselves into the wrong worship, joy, eating, drinking and dancing. They were killed; the rest were plagued. People had to kill their own brothers, friends and relatives for this great sin. Punishments are necessary to stop the evil thoughts and practices spreading all over causing more people to sin in the same manner.

Aaron was blamed for letting God’s people going astray. Being the authority during Moses’ temporal absence, he should restrain them with an absolute refusal and proper exhortation to reassert God’s commandment. His failure to do the correct things upon people’s wrong pressing led to terrible consequences.

Man corrupts easily. Thus, we must correct one another with exhortation. We ought to repeat studying God’s commands and monitoring our daily life practices to make sure that we haven’t forgotten HIS word but keep acting godly. Deny the self for any decision that doesn’t conform to HIS rules. Don’t let weak mind and limited wisdom cause us violating God’s will; otherwise, we would lose HIS grace and couldn’t afford to pay the price of offending HIM.

Let’s pray to God:

The Admiralty God, please give us wisdom to discern the right and the wrong, be diligent in learning more about You and Your laws, trust You and love You forever. Amen.