Exodus 32 – A Great Sin – Part 1

Every sin against a holy God is truly a great sin. Simply put, every sin has two basic evils, as Jeremiah states, ‘For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water’, 2. 13. Every sin separates us from God and brings about spiritual death, as demonstrated in the garden of Eden. While God is longsuffering and patient in His forthcoming judgement, there are some sins noted in the biblical record that particularly invite the wrath of God and cause His anger to wax hot. Such is the sin we find in Exodus chapter 32 in the case of Israel and the making of the molten calf. Three times in this chapter, the thought of a great sin is brought up.

It may be well to note some other examples of sins that are called great in the Bible, and we shall mention four.

• The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. ‘And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous’, Gen. 18. 20. The cry and weight of their sin was very grievous, begging the judgement of God.
• The sin of Eli’s sons polluting the priesthood. ‘Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord: for men abhorred the offering of the Lord’, 1 Sam. 2. 17. Eli’s sons are described by God as ‘sons of Belial’, meaning ‘worthlessness’, v. 12. Their sin was a vile corruption of the priesthood and caused immense dishonour to the name of the Lord.
• The sin of Jeroboam, son of Nebat. ‘For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin’, 2 Kgs. 17. 21. Who can even tell the greatness of this sin of corruption and division?
• The sin of Israel’s idolatry. ‘And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God? Then shalt thou say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the Lord, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law’, Jer. 16. 10, 11. This sin caused the nation to be displaced and taken captive for seventy years.

These are all examples of ‘a great sin’ in the eyes of God. Now, in Exodus chapter 32, Moses is finishing his forty days upon Mount Sinai receiving the instructions for the tabernacle and the priesthood. As noted oftentimes, the number forty is a number of testing in the scriptures.¹

Our passage begins with the scene in the camp of Israel. The congregation had been instructed to ‘tarry … here for us, until we come again’, Exod. 24. 14. Joshua attended Moses in the mount, where Moses went up to meet God. Waiting can be very difficult. Waiting often is a test of our obedience and faith. God asks us to wait. The Thessalonians were described as waiting ‘for his Son from heaven’, 1 Thess. 1. 10.

In Moses’ absence, Aaron and Hur have been left as a resource to the elders for attending to matters, if needed, Exod. 24. God is now communicating with Moses on the mount, specifically giving all the instructions and pattern for the tabernacle, its furniture, and the priesthood including the public sanctification of Aaron and his sons. The glorious provisions included the continual burnt offering and the Day of Atonement feast, pointing gloriously to Christ and His work of propitiation. All this was taking place on the top of the mount.

But, back down in the camp, the testing was building up to an explosion of unbelief. It started ever so simply enough with the statement, ‘we do not know what has become of him [Moses]’, 32. 1 NKJV; and yet, the decision to turn around completely was markedly bold, immediate, and definite - ‘Up, make us gods which shall go before us’. This defiance came in spite of the recent revelation of God in the moral law (ch. 20) and the civil law (chh. 21-23) with repeated emphasis of absolute repulsion of idolatry. For example, read again the decalogue in Exodus chapter 20. Notice that after the tenth commandment, there is the reiteration of the exclusion of other gods and idols in verses 22 and 23.

Listed below are some of the many abhorrent elements in this sin which became part of the story of Israel’s apostacy. Each one adds an extra dimension of astonishing treachery. As the reader finishes reading each point, one could add the phrase, ‘and not only that, but’.

1. They said to Aaron, ‘up, make us gods, which shall go before us’ -idolatry by definition, 32. 1.
2. They used the gifts given to them by the Egyptians (earrings) in making the idol, cp. 12. 35, 36; 32. 3.
3. Aaron was held responsible for his participation, engraving the idol, 32. 21; Deut. 9. 20.
4. Aaron had been put in charge of the people. His responsibility was to lead them in the ways of the Lord.
5. God was at that very time speaking with Moses on the mount about anointing Aaron as high priest.
6. Aaron took time to melt gold and fashion it deliberately ‘and there came out this calf’, Exod. 32. 24. Keil and Delitzsch note the term is used for ‘a young bull’.² This bull would be akin to the Egyptian god, Apis, which the Lord showed His power over in multiple plagues, particularly plague five, as well as six and seven.
7. This young bull was consequently credited by the Israelites to have brought them out of Egypt!
8. Aaron proclaimed a feast to the Lord, thereby committing an even greater sin by associating the name of the Lord with their sin.
9. The people rose up early to commit this sin. They had a lustful eagerness for this idolatry.
10. Israel offered burnt offerings and peace offerings to this bull. The offerings God had prescribed were intended to picture Christ.
11. They feasted in honour of the bull and ate and drank. The leaders of Israel had recently sat down and ate and drank when they sealed the covenant with God, ‘And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink’, Exod. 24. 11.
12. They rose up to play. So often in scripture, man-made religious feasts are a devilish device for sensuality as we shall see here.
13. They made themselves naked and brought shame upon themselves openly; and all this in the plain view of their enemies.
14. They gave reason for their enemies to blaspheme God.
15. They broke their covenant with the Lord. Three times, all Israel had previously vowed to do all that was in the law.³

God’s wrath is now mentioned three times in verses 10, 11, and 12. Moses’ anger is similar when he sees the magnitude of this great sin, vv. 19, 22.

We do well to seek out some lessons for ourselves. First, as Warren Wiersbe has noted, ‘Impatience is often the cause of impulsive actions that are sinful’.⁴ Refusing to wait when we know waiting is required, preempts the workings of the Holy Spirit and the blessings of God. It also sets the stage for deviation of some sort.

Second, and in parallel to waiting, is the lesson of trusting the Lord. When we are willing to obediently trust the Lord with an eye of hope and faith, it will result in the resolve to continue waiting. This is an acquired attribute which is fruit from the Spirit’s leading.

Third, we cannot but wonder how greatly it would have helped Israel to ‘remember’ what God had done for them already. His merciful, powerful, and loving character had been well established by His actions. The psalmist recalls, ‘So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands’, Ps. 78. 72. When recounting the sin of Israel in Exodus, the psalmist begins with ‘Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever’, 106. 1.

If only they would:

• Remember the harsh and bitter labour in Egypt, as well as the marvellous plagues and demonstrations of God’s power.
• Remember the powerlessness of Egypt’s idols and pantheistic worship seen in real time with the Lord’s control over all of nature and creation.
• Remember the Red Sea deliverance.
• Remember Pharaoh’s army washed up on the shore, dead.
• Remember the water flowing from the rock and the manna daily from heaven.
• Remember that God Himself spoke the commandments from this very Mount Sinai so that the people heard and were fearful and asked that Moses speak instead, Exod. 20. 19.
• Remember that after giving the ten commandments, God Himself had especially re-emphasized not to make any graven image of Himself or anything in heaven or on earth, Exod. 20. 4-6, 22, 23.
• Remember that God was still on Mount Sinai and the mountain was ablaze.
• Remember that they are God’s people and His firstborn, and they belong to Him. Their worship and service is not to Pharaoh, but it certainly was not to themselves that they had been redeemed.

The moral compass of Israel had previously been set by the Lord. Even more deeply had it been inscribed on their soul and conscience. Yet, ignoring all, they suppress their memory, reason, and thinking. They reset their moral compass and crave and lust and rebel.

Romans chapter 7 verse 13 sums up how God uses this to teach us the sinfulness of sin, ‘But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful’.

In the next study, we shall trace the repercussions of Israel’s ‘molten calf’ sin, God’s multifaceted judgement, and follow Moses’ intercession as to whether the Lord will destroy Israel, forgive Israel, or even dwell in the midst of Israel. Moses is learning and growing and asking to know more of God’s ways.