Out of Egypt · c. 1446 BC
Chapter 11
The Golden Calf
He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
For parents
Moses gives an order in the Lord’s name, and the sons of Levi go through the camp with swords, killing brothers, friends and neighbors, about three thousand men (Exodus 32:25–29); afterward the Lord strikes the people because of the calf (32:35). Before that, the Lord says he will put an end to the people, and Moses pleads for them (32:9–14). Among the laws, worshiping other gods is compared to acting like a prostitute (34:15–16); it is all told plainly, without detail.
had gone into the cloud and up the mountain, and he was on the mountain forty days and forty nights. While he was there, the people saw that he was slow to come down. They crowded around and said to him, “Come, make us gods to go ahead of us. We don’t know what has become of this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of .”
Aaron said to them, “Your wives, your sons and your daughters have gold rings in their ears. Take them off, and bring them to me.” Everyone took the gold rings out of their ears and brought them to Aaron.
He took what they handed him, shaped it with an engraving tool, and made a calf of cast metal. Then they said, “These are your gods, ! They brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
Aaron saw this and built an in front of the calf. He made an announcement: “Tomorrow there will be a feast for the .”
Early the next morning they got up and offered , and brought . The people sat down and ate and drank, and then they got up to play.
The Lord said to Moses, “Go down! Your people, the ones you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. It didn’t take them long to turn away from what I commanded them. They’ve made themselves a calf of cast metal. They’ve worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and they’ve said, ‘These are your gods, Israel! They brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”
The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen these people. They are a stubborn people. Now leave me alone. Let my anger burn hot against them, and let me put an end to them. And I will make a great nation out of you.”
Moses begged the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why does your anger burn hot against your people? You brought them out of the land of Egypt by your great power and your mighty hand. Why should the Egyptians talk and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains and wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn back from your burning anger. Turn away from this harm against your people.
“Remember , and Israel, your servants. You swore by your own self and promised them, ‘I will make your as many as the stars of the sky. I will give your offspring all this land I have spoken of, and it will be theirs forever.’”
So the Lord turned away from the harm he had said he would do to his people.
Then Moses turned and started down the mountain. He had the two of the in his hands. There was writing on both sides of them, on one side and on the other. They were God’s work, and the writing on them was God’s writing, cut into the stone.
heard the shouting of the people. “There’s the noise of war in the camp,” he said to Moses.
Moses answered, “That isn’t the shout of people who have won, or the cry of people who have been beaten. It’s singing that I hear.”
As soon as he got near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing. Moses’ anger grew hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them there, at the bottom of the mountain.
Then he took the calf they had made. He burned it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered the powder on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.
Moses said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, for you to bring a great sin on them?”
“Don’t be angry, my lord,” Aaron said. “You know these people. They are set on doing evil. They told me, ‘Make us gods to go ahead of us. We don’t know what has become of this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt.’
“I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, take it off.’ They gave it to me. I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”
Moses saw that the people were out of control. Aaron had let them lose control, and it made them a joke among their enemies.
Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and called out, “Whoever is on the Lord’s side, come to me!” All the came to him.
He said to them, “The Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Every one of you, put on your sword. Go back and forth from gate to gate through the whole camp, and every man is to kill his brother, his friend and his neighbor.’”
The sons of Levi did what Moses said, and about three thousand men of the people were killed that day.
Moses said, “Set yourselves apart for the Lord today, so that he may give you a blessing today, because each of you has turned against his own son and his own brother.”
The next day Moses said to the people, “What you have done is a great sin. Now I am going up to the Lord. Maybe I can make for your sin.”
Moses went back up to the Lord. “Oh,” he said, “these people have sinned terribly. They have made gods out of gold. Even so, if you will, forgive their sin. And if not, please cross me out of the book you have written.”
The Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will cross him out of my book. Now go and lead the people where I told you to. Look, my will go ahead of you. But on the day when I punish, I will punish them for their sin.”
The Lord struck the people because of what they did with the calf, the one Aaron made.
The Lord said to Moses, “Set out from here and go up, you and the people you have brought out of the land of Egypt. Go to the land I promised Abraham, Isaac and with an oath, when I said, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’
“I will send an angel to go ahead of you, and I will drive out the and the , the and the , the and the . Go to a land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go up among you, because you are a stubborn people, or else I might put an end to you along the way.”
When the people heard this terrible news, they mourned, and no one put on his jewelry.
The Lord had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stubborn people. If I went up among you for even a moment, I would put an end to you. Now take off your jewelry, so that I may know what to do with you.’”
From onward, the Israelites stripped off their jewelry.
Moses used to take the tent and pitch it a long way outside the camp, and he called it “the .” Everyone who was seeking the Lord would go out of the camp to the Tent of Meeting.
All the people would get up whenever Moses went out to the Tent. They stood, each at the door of his tent, and watched Moses until he had gone into the Tent.
Whenever Moses entered the Tent, the of cloud came down and stood at the door of the Tent, and the Lord spoke with Moses. All the people would see the pillar of cloud stand at the door of the Tent, and they would all get up and worship, each at the door of his tent.
The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, the way a man speaks to his friend. Then Moses would go back into the camp. But his young helper Joshua, the son of , didn’t leave the Tent.
Moses said to the Lord, “Look, you tell me, ‘Bring these people up,’ but you haven’t let me know whom you will send with me. But you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have my favor.’ So now, if I have your favor, please show me your way, so that I may know you and have your favor. And keep in mind that this nation is your people.”
He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Moses said to him, “If your presence doesn’t go with me, don’t take us up from here. How would anyone know that your people and I have your favor? Isn’t it because you go with us? That is what sets your people and me apart from all the peoples on the face of the earth.”
“I will also do this thing you have asked,” the Lord said to Moses, “because you have my favor, and I know you by name.”
Moses said, “Please show me your .”
He said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and call out the name Yahweh in front of you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.”
He said, “You can’t see my face, because no human being may see me and live.”
The Lord also said, “Look, there is a place here beside me, and you will stand on the rock. As my glory passes by, I will set you in a crack in the rock and keep you covered with my hand until I have gone by. When I take my hand away, you will see my back. But my face is not to be seen.”
The Lord said to Moses, “Cut two tablets out of stone, the same as the first ones. On these tablets I will write the words that were on the first tablets, the ones you broke. Be ready by morning. In the morning, come up to and stand before me there, at the top of the mountain. No one may come up with you, and no one may be seen anywhere on the mountain. Don’t let the flocks and the herds graze in front of that mountain.”
Moses cut two tablets of stone the same as the first. Then he got up early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, carrying the two stone tablets.
The Lord came down in the cloud, stood with him there, and called out the name of Yahweh.
The Lord passed by in front of him and called out, “Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and rich in loving kindness and truth, keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving wrongdoing, disobedience and sin, and who will never treat the guilty as innocent, bringing the sin of the fathers on the children, and on the children’s children, on the third and on the fourth generation.”
Moses quickly bowed his head to the ground and worshiped. He said, “Lord, if I have your favor now, please, Lord, go among us, even though these are a stubborn people. Pardon our wrongdoing and our sin, and make us your own.”
The Lord said, “I am making a covenant. In front of all your people I will do wonders that have never been done anywhere on earth or in any nation. All the people around you will see what the Lord does, because what I will do with you is a fearsome thing.
“Do what I command you today. Look, I will drive out the Amorites and the Canaanites, the Hittites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites ahead of you.
“Take care that you don’t make a covenant with those living in the land you are going to, or it will be a trap among you. But break down their altars, break their stone pillars to pieces, and cut down their . Do this because you are to worship no other god, since the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a .
“Don’t make a covenant with the people who live in the land. If you do, when they chase after their gods like and sacrifice to them, one of them may invite you, and you may eat from his sacrifice. You may take their daughters as wives for your sons, and their daughters may chase after their gods like prostitutes and make your sons chase after their gods too.
“Don’t make yourselves any of cast metal. Keep the Feast of . For seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the set time in the month of , because in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt. The first one born to every mother is mine, and so is every firstborn male of your cattle and sheep. Buy back a firstborn donkey with a lamb. If you won’t buy it back, you are to break its neck. You are to buy back all your firstborn sons. And no one is to come before me with empty hands.
“You are to work for six days, but on the seventh day you are to rest. Rest on that day in plowing time and in harvest too.
“Keep the with the first of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year. Three times a year, every male among you is to come before the Lord, the God of Israel. I will drive nations out ahead of you and make your borders wider, and no one will try to take your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times a year.
“Don’t offer the blood of my sacrifice with bread that has yeast in it. Don’t leave the sacrifice of the Feast of the until morning. Bring the first of the first crops of your ground to the house of the Lord your God. Don’t boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
The Lord told Moses, “Write these words down, because it is by these words that I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
He was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights, and he didn’t eat any bread or drink any water. He wrote the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments, on the tablets.
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant in his hands, he didn’t know that the skin of his face was shining from talking with the Lord.
Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, and there it was: the skin of his face was shining. They were afraid to come near him.
Moses called to them. Aaron and all the leaders of the people came back to him, and Moses talked with them. After that, all the Israelites came near, and he passed on to them every commandment that the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai.
Once Moses was done talking with them, he put a veil on his face. Each time Moses went in before the Lord to talk with him, he took the veil off and kept it off until he came out. Then he would come out and tell the Israelites what he had been commanded.
The Israelites would see the skin of Moses’ face shining. So Moses would cover his face with the veil again, until he went in to speak with the Lord.