Day 26 Exodus 31-34

In our reading for today we turn from the laws governing the building of the Tabernacle back to the narrative of the Israelites’ sojourn at Sinai.
In Chapter 32 the people become impatient, waiting at the foot of the mountain for Moses to return. They don’t know what has become of him. Moses had exercised charismatic leadership with divine authority. Now they prevail upon Aaron the high priest to take over that role, and Aaron makes them the image of a golden calf to worship. A bull calf was the animal form often taken by the chief ancient Semitic deity called Baal—the name literally means “lord.” Baal, the god of thunder and storms, was the counterpart of the Greek god Zeus and was widely worshipped in many forms throughout the ancient Near East. To the Israelites it probably seemed the most natural thing in the world to worship the God who had brought them out of Egypt with power and spoke with thunder from the mountain in the form of a golden bull calf of Baal.
But the LORD would not allow himself to be represented in visible forms. The prohibition upon the making of divine images was the first commandment of the Law and allowed no compromise. In Exodus 32:7-8 the LORD says to Moses: “Go down at once! Your people, whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.’”
The text says that the LORD considered destroying the people outright for this blasphemy, but Moses pleaded with him, recalling Abraham pleading for Sodom, and “the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring upon his people” (14). But when Moses saw “that the people were running wild” he ordered a massacre that cost the lives of three thousand. He then blesses those Levite priests who had followed his command: “Today you have ordained yourselves for the service of Lord, each one at the cost of a son or a brother, and so have brought a blessing on yourselves this day” (32:29)
We have a difficult time with passages like this one, which seem so barbarous and bloodthirsty. But we must constantly keep in mind that whereas our culture places the highest value on the individual, in the Old Testament world it is the family, the community, and the nation that rank first in importance. In this communitarian structure, it is order, obedience, and conformity to law that prevail over all else. Individual concerns matter, but only in so far as they serve the larger whole.
The first five books of the Bible, called the Books of Moses or the Pentateuch, are concerned primarily with how the Community of the Promise is formed, preserved and defended. The uncompromising attitude toward idolatry found in the reading for today—see 34:11-15—is part of the general concern to preserve community. Unless there is purity and unity of worship, unless the uncompromising demand of the LORD to be worshipped solely is observed, the Family of Promise will disintegrate. At all costs this must not happen. Everything is at stake.
But in spite of the importance of the community, there always is room in this world for the individual, the Chosen One
The real hero of these chapters is Moses, the intermediary between God and his people. “The LORD used to speak to Moses face to face,” chapter 33, verse 11 says, “as one speaks to a friend.” It is not a relationship of equals—Moses is only allowed to see the glory God bring behind as he passes by--but the LORD and his prophet depend upon each other. When God loses his temper, Moses speaks to calm him. When Moses in a rage smashes the tablets on which the finger of God has written the Commandments, God dutifully rewrites them.
They work together in partnership and upon their friendship the survival and mission of the People of the Promise depend. So Moses says to God—“If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance” (34:9).
And largely for Moses sake, the LORD does pardon Israel and take the people back. And the story goes on. . . .