The Golden Calf

The event

Moses had barely been out of the camp forty days before Israel broke the very first commandment it had just heard thundered from the mountain. Growing impatient, the people pressed Aaron to "make us gods who shall go before us," and Aaron, astonishingly, complied — collecting gold earrings and casting them into the shape of a calf, an image likely drawn from the bull imagery common to Egyptian and Canaanite religion. The people declared, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt," and held a festival before it.

God told Moses on the mountain what was happening below and threatened to destroy the nation and start over through Moses alone — at which point Moses interceded, appealing to God's own reputation among the nations and his covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is one of Scripture's clearest pictures of intercessory prayer, and God relented from the disaster he had spoken of.

Moses' own reaction on descending the mountain was fierce: he shattered the stone tablets at the foot of the mountain, ground the calf to powder, scattered it on water, and made the people drink it, then called for those loyal to the LORD to take a stand, resulting in judgment carried out by the sons of Levi. The episode became a lasting scar on Israel's memory — Moses recalls it soberly in Deuteronomy 9 — and a permanent warning about the speed with which even a people who had just witnessed the parting of the sea and heard the voice of God could turn to an idol of their own making.

Dating

This event occurs during the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai receiving the covenant instructions (Exodus 24:18, 32:1), so it falls within the same disputed Exodus year as the giving of the Law.

Scripture references

• Exodus 32:1-35
• Deuteronomy 9:7-21