And Moses turned and went down from the mountain, [with] the two tables of the testimony in his hand -- tables written on both their sides on this side and on that were they written.
Moses comes down the mountain holding the two tablets God has written. Below him the camp is already dancing round a golden calf, so the covenant in his hands is broken before it ever arrives.
The verse begins with a turn: away from God, toward the people. Moses does not walk down alone, and he does not walk down empty-handed.
Told by the Lord, Moses turned from His presence to descend the fiery mount, with Joshua beside him. God's Spirit filled Moses' heart. In his hands were the unchangeable words engraved by God on the stone tablets. Man had already broken those words, before they were even placed in human keeping.
The verse notes writing on the front and the back. Commentators explain the two tablets as covering the whole of a person's duty.
The law of Moses consisted of two tablets. One held laws about a person's conduct toward God, and the other about his conduct toward his neighbour. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself." These were the demands of the law. There was nothing unholy or unjust in it. Anyone who met this standard at all times and in all things would prove himself a righteous person, and would live. We may try to soften the law, or cut down its sweeping demands, or excuse ourselves for not keeping it, to quiet our conscience. But the law allows nothing of the kind. If the law is broken, a curse must follow.
Nothing about these tablets came from human hands — not the stone, not the letters cut into it. And God still writes today, though no longer on stone.
In keeping with God's command Moses came down from the mountain. He met Joshua on his way down, and had the two stone tablets in his hand. The tablets themselves were the work of God, and the testimony written on them was the writing of God. In the coming day under the new covenant the law will be written in the hearts of the people. At the present time the Spirit of God is writing not the law but Christ on the hearts of those who receive the gospel. But here God's righteous demands on men were written on stone. So, given the state of Israel at that moment, we see at once that the tablets of the testimony brought a ministry of condemnation and death.
Moses is carrying the tablets toward the camp, but they never arrive there.
First, Moses went up and received the law, engraved by the finger of God on two stone tablets. But before he had even brought it to the people, they had broken it. They made a golden calf to worship, and so broke the very first link with God: "You shall have no other gods before me." Moses, seeing this, threw the tablets of the law out of his hands and broke them. So pure law never came into the camp at all. Law came in afterwards, when mercy was shown too, but unmixed law never.
Breaking the tablets looks like a loss of temper. Writers read it instead as protection — though they differ on how deliberate Moses was. One sees a man acting out of intimacy with God:
Why does he act this way? Through entering into God's mind, from being with God. He does exactly the right thing at the right moment. It was the instinct of divine communion. Beautiful action of Moses! The glory of the Lord was cared for, and the safety of the people too. The breaking of the tablets met both; for if the law had come into the camp it could only have been their destruction.
Another holds that Moses acted without consulting God at all:
Moses did not know what to do with the tablets. He had not asked God about it, at least I always thought so; it was his righteous indignation.
- Descent. Moses turns from God's presence and walks down carrying the covenant. In his hands are words the people had already broken, before they ever received them.
- Testimony. God wrote on the front and the back of the stone. The two tablets held one whole standard: love to God and love to neighbour. Anyone keeping it perfectly would live.
- Writing. The tablets were God's work, and the letters were God's writing. Today the Spirit writes Christ, not law, on the hearts of those who receive the gospel.
- Undelivered. Pure, unmixed law never entered the camp. When law returned later, mercy came with it.
- Mercy. The broken tablets guarded God's glory and the people's lives alike. Commentators differ on why Moses broke them. Some see a man acting out of closeness with God's mind, others a righteous anger that asked God nothing.
And the tables [were] God's work, and the writing was God's writing, engraven on the tables.
Moses came down the mountain with two stone tablets in his hands, and the verse pauses to say who made them and who wrote on them. Everything about them — the stone and the letters cut into it — came from God, so why did Moses smash them at the foot of the mountain soon after?
The Spirit of God pauses the story here to point at the tablets. One writer explains why, and what was already true of the covenant when Moses carried them down:
The covenant of Sinai had been broken — broken beyond repair. Still Moses took the two tablets of stone with him as he turned from the presence of the Lord to go down to the camp. The Spirit of God uses this detail to call attention to its divine and perfect character. "The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets." All was divine — divine in its origin, and divine in how God made it. But these divine tablets of the law never reached the camp. It was impossible.
The material mattered. Stone cannot be bent or stretched, and it ended up matching the people who received the law:
There was something very fitting in the law being written on tablets of stone. You can smash tablets of stone, but you cannot stretch them or twist them as though they were rubber. The law on those tablets of stone was as unbending as the stone itself. Sadly, Israel proved itself to have a heart of stone.
God's own handwriting did not describe God. It stated His terms:
The words on the two tablets of stone were written with the finger of God. They presented what He required from the people the law was given to. It was not the revelation of God, but the lawgiver's declaration of His demand upon the people of Israel. He says, as it were, to Israel, "You are to be that, or come under the curse." They were not that, and so they came under the curse.
Moses was carrying the agreement down to a people who had already abandoned it. Breaking the tablets was not a loss of temper only; it was an announcement:
Here was the covenant in the hands of the mediator; all was plain and concise. "Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain." This action was full of meaning. The people had broken the covenant, the mediator of the covenant bore witness to it, and judgment follows.
Another writer reads the same act as mercy, and notes one difference in the second set of tablets: Moses cut those himself.
Moses, with an instinct given by God, broke the tablets at the foot of Sinai before they came into the camp. Otherwise there would have been no hope for the people... After another period on the mountain with God, Moses brought two more tablets of stone. He had cut these himself, and on them God wrote the words of the law.
Stone broke; the words did not. God had already planned where His testimony would rest:
Still the testimony remained, though the tablets it was written on lay broken at the foot of the mountain. In the mind of God its place was in the Ark, and there it was later put — a picture of Him who magnified the law and made it honourable. It is a blessed thing to know that God's holy claims on man were fully upheld in Jesus. The situation seemed hopeless to Moses and he broke the tablets, but such an act did not rise to the thoughts of God.
God still supplies the surface and does the writing. Only the material and the message have changed:
The tablets themselves were the work of God, and the testimony inscribed on them was the writing of God. In the coming day under the new covenant the law will be written in the hearts of the people. At the present time the Spirit of God is writing not the law but Christ on the hearts of those who receive the gospel. But here God's righteous demands on men were inscribed on stone.
- God writes. The tablets and the letters were both His work — no human hand in either.
- Stone speaks. Stone does not bend, and neither did the law — nor did the hearts of the people who received it.
- Stone breaks. The tablets never reached the camp. Moses smashed them, and that was his public verdict: the covenant was already broken.
- The words survive. The testimony remained and found its place in the Ark — a picture of the One who upheld God's claims fully.
- God writes again. Under the new covenant the law goes into hearts. Today the Spirit writes Christ on the hearts of all who receive the gospel.
And Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, and said to Moses, There is a shout of war in the camp.
Moses comes down Mount Sinai with the two stone tables in his hands. The first thing that reaches him and Joshua is a sound from the camp below. Joshua calls it war. Moses hears something else, and the gap between those two readings is what this verse turns on.
Joshua and Moses hear the same noise and reach opposite conclusions. One writer explains why:
When Joshua heard the uproar as they came near, he said to Moses, "There is a noise of war in the camp." But Moses had a more trained ear and heart, taught by the Holy One. He could better tell the difference between the shout of victory, the cry of defeat, and the sound of those who sing.
Joshua was not careless. He had two kinds of training behind him:
He not only learned how to fight the enemies of God's people, but he also learned the realities of God's glory... In secret he was in communion with God's glory. Outwardly he was a warrior from his youth. God was forming him in both of these for later service... When Moses turned and went down from the mountain, the sound of Israel's turning away reached their ears. Joshua's comment on it was, "There is a noise of war in the camp." His mind, clearly full of scenes of battle, read the shouts of idolatry according to the impression that ruled him.
Moses knew that style of religious music by ear. He knew Egypt's worship songs, and he could hear what was really happening below:
From some parts of the top of the mountain the valley cannot be seen, but there are gaps in the cliffs where voices from the valley carry clearly up to the heights. Probably, as they came down, they reached one of these gaps, and the sound from the camp struck their ears. Moses had told his attendant nothing of the bad news. Joshua heard the people as they shouted, and exclaimed, "There is a noise of war in the camp." But Moses knew the dark reality. He was all too familiar with the chants of Egyptian worship. He knew the sound was neither the shout of the winner nor the cry of the beaten. It was religious singing, sung back and forth between groups.
A noise of war would have meant Israel was under attack. Singing meant something worse: Israel was celebrating. And they did not believe they had abandoned Jehovah, the God who brought them out of Egypt:
We should not suppose that either Aaron or Israel meant to abandon Jehovah. The calf stood in their minds for Him who is invisible, and Aaron applied that image to Jehovah in so many words. Yet none the less they had really returned in spirit to paganism... Calling the festival by Jehovah's name did not change what it really was. The demon's foot shows through, however bright the clothes he wears. They kept it in true pagan style; the camp rang with loud songs sung back and forth, and was wild with sensual dancing. In this way Israel grafted idolatry onto the worship of Jehovah. By doing so they brought the wrath of God down on their camp.
Another writer names the commandment Israel was breaking as Moses listened:
He heard the sound of singing. He knew all too well what it meant. Israel was breaking the first and most important commandment, "You shall have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3). The singing went along with the idolatrous dancing around the golden calf. The words of the chorus were blasphemous: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt" (Ex. 32:4).
Moses is carrying the covenant in his hands as he listens. He never delivers it:
All was divine — divine in its origin and divine in its making. But these divine tables of the law never reached the camp. It was impossible. The people had made a complete break between themselves and God. So there could be no further question of obedience on the ground of pure law. They might be objects of mercy in response to intercession. But as open transgressors they had broken the covenant they had so readily accepted, and had now become idolaters.
- One noise. Joshua and Moses hear the same sound from the camp, and only one of them reads it right.
- Trained ears. Joshua the soldier hears battle, because battle fills his mind. Moses hears the truth, because he has come straight from God's presence.
- Not war — worship. The sound was not victory or defeat. It was singing — festival music in Egyptian style, sung around a calf.
- God's name on an idol. Israel put God's name on the festival. The name changed nothing about what it was.
- The tables stop short. Moses carries God's own writing down the mountain, and it never arrives. Israel had broken the covenant before it ever reached them.
And he said, It is not the sound of a shout of victory, neither is it the sound of a shout of defeat it is the noise of alternate singing I hear.
Moses and Joshua come down the mountain together, and a roar rises to meet them from the camp below. Two men hear the same sound and read it in opposite ways. What Moses heard, and how he knew, is the point of the verse.
The verse turns on Moses ruling out two sounds before naming the third. One writer sets the scene:
Moses had taken Joshua with him into the mountain (Ex. 24:13). Now they come down together, Moses carrying the two stone tables, with the law written on both sides. As they came near the camp, Joshua the warrior heard the noise of the people. He thought this was the noise of war. But Moses corrected him. The noise was neither conquest nor defeat, but singing (v. 18).
Joshua was not careless, and he was no stranger to God — he had been on the mountain too. His mistake came from the habits of his own life:
He not only learned how to war against the enemies of God's people, but he also learned the realities of God's glory... In secret he was in communion with God's glory, as the Lord Jesus was, more perfectly still. On the outside he was a warrior from his youth. God was forming him through both for later service... Moses turned and went down from the mountain. The sound of Israel's turning away from God reached their ears. Joshua's comment on it is, "There is a noise of war in the camp." His mind was filled with scenes of battle, so he reads the shouting of idolatry by that leading impression.
Moses could tell three sounds apart. One writer credits this to God's own teaching:
Now when Joshua heard the uproar as they came near, he said to Moses, "There is a noise of war in the camp". But the ear and heart of Moses were more practised, taught by the Holy One. He could better tell apart the shout of victory, the voice of crying, and the noise of those who sing.
Two places, two conditions. One writer puts the contrast in a sentence:
Above, all is light and blessing; below, all is darkness and evil.
The sound was not a riot. It was organised religious music, and Moses had heard its like before:
Moses had been no bearer of bad news to his attendant. Joshua heard the people as they shouted, and exclaimed, "There is a noise of war in the camp." But Moses knew the dark reality. He was too well acquainted with the chants of Egyptian worship. He knew the sound was neither the shout of the victor nor the cry of the defeated. It was religious singing, one group answering another.
That is why the singing was worse news than a battle would have been. Another writer names the commandment it was breaking:
Remember when the law was first given. Moses was coming back from Mount Sinai with the two stone tables of the ten commandments in his hands. He heard the sound of singing. He knew too well what it meant. Israel was breaking the first and foremost commandment, "You shall have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3). The singing went with the idolatrous dancing round the golden calf, to the blasphemous words, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt" (Ex. 32:4).
Moses' words also test religious noise in any age. One writer applies them to Israel's shouting when the ark came into the camp:
There were great shoutings in the camp when the ark arrived. The same thing happened later. Israel was again in conflict with the Philistines, and when David came in, "They shouted for the battle" (1 Sam. 17:20). But in neither case was it "the voice of those who shout for victory," nor "the shout of a king" in their midst. It was the expression of a vain and fatal confidence. In both cases there was more shouting than real or effective fighting. It was much easier to shout than to fight. It is the same today. It is easier to get excited under big meetings and stirring talks with thrilling music than to live for God with your whole heart, apart from the world.
- Sound. One noise reached two men on the same path. Joshua heard war; Moses heard singing — and singing was the worse report of the two.
- Source. Joshua misread it because a soldier's mind hears every uproar as battle.
- School. Moses read it right because the Holy One had trained his ear and heart.
- Substance. He heard worship, not chaos — Egyptian-style chants round the golden calf. It was the first commandment broken to music.
- Standard. Volume proves nothing. Shouting is easier than fighting, and stirring music is easier than devoted living. Test the sound by what it praises.
And it came to pass, when he came near the camp, and saw the calf and the dancing, that Moses' anger burned, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and shattered them beneath the mountain.
Moses comes down the mountain with two stone tablets, and within sight of the camp he shatters them. Why would the lawgiver destroy what God had just given him?
Moses broke the tablets outside the camp, before Israel ever held them:
The first time the law was given on tablets of stone, it never reached them at all. Moses broke them. You could not put the law beside the golden calf. Moses did not know what to do with the tablets. He had not asked God about it, at least I have always thought so; it was his righteous indignation. God could not break His law, of course, but man could not have it.
If the tablets had reached the camp, judgment would have reached it too. One writer sees Moses leaving room for God to act another way:
I can well understand how deeply Moses was affected when he broke the tablets of stone. What must God have done if he had carried them down? He must have brought in immediate judgment on the lawbreakers. Moses met the difficulty in this way, so to speak. He said: if I do not carry them down, God will have an opportunity to bring out His resource — if there is any resource. God is holy, they are guilty, and if the law is bound on them He must judge them. So he broke the tablets of stone, and God did not rebuke him for doing it.
The stones carried the terms of a covenant. Breaking them said openly what had already happened:
Here was the covenant in the hands of the mediator; everything was plain and clear... This action was full of meaning. The people had broken the covenant, the mediator of the covenant bore witness to it, and judgment follows.
Commentators read the anger differently. Some see a man so shaped by God's presence that he did the right thing at once:
He took the tablets of the law which God had given him, and broke them at the foot of the mountain. Why does he act like this? Through entering into God's mind, from being with God. He does exactly the right thing at the right moment. It was the instinct of divine communion. Beautiful action of Moses! The glory of Jehovah was cared for, and the safety of the people too. The breaking of the tablets met both needs. If the law had come into the camp, it could only have destroyed them. And where then would the witness to what He is in His own nature have been?
Others notice a change in Moses. On the mountain he pleaded for Israel; at the sight of the calf he pleads no more:
But now Moses leaves the immediate atmosphere of God's grace. He becomes a spectator of Israel's condition himself, and his feeling is indignation, not intercession... "God, the judge of all," who must always judge according to His own holiness, can at the same time act according to His own grace. He cannot excuse sin.
The same man who broke the stones went back up the mountain for the people who caused it:
His "anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain." He destroyed the golden calf, and made the children of Israel drink the powder. But right afterwards he can say to them, "I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." And for the sake of these very people, he prayed that God would blot him out of His book.
The story does not end with broken pieces on the ground. On the second occasion the terms were different:
On the second occasion what a difference! The lawgiver was called into the presence of God, who then was pleased to give a mingling of mercy along with law... It was not law alone, and not grace alone, but rather the mingling of grace along with law. Without this mingling of grace and mercy with law, God could not have carried on His dealings with Israel at all, or even brought them into the land. So on this occasion the law was still committed to man. But it was shut up in the ark, not displayed with all its terrors before people's eyes.
- Broken already. Israel broke the covenant before Moses ever reached the camp. The smashed stones only announced what was already true.
- Broken outside. The tablets never entered the camp. Israel never held pure law at all.
- Broken to spare. Carried in, the law could only have brought immediate judgment. Breaking it left room for God to bring out His own resource.
- Broken, then pleading. The hand that smashed the stones went back up the mountain. Moses asked God to blot him out for the very people who sinned.
- Broken, then hidden. The second tablets went into the ark. Law was still given, but now mingled with mercy, not displayed in all its terror.
And he took the calf that they had made, and burned [it] with fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed [it] on the water, and made the children of Israel drink [it].
Moses walks into the camp and deals first with the idol, not with the people. He destroys it step by step, then makes Israel swallow it — a strange punishment with a purpose.
The whole nation had shared in the sin, so the whole camp had to see the god destroyed.
But the congregation as such had shared in the guilt. Israel as a whole was defiled, and as a people had to suffer the shame; so Moses made the god as contemptible as possible, in the eyes of all the camp... No remains of their god were to be reserved for future idolatry. So they drank up their deity! The god they had bowed down to, and in whose honour they had held their sacred feast, ended in corruption inside the very bodies of its worshippers!
The punishment turned their own feast against them.
He burnt the golden calf and then ground it to powder — a humiliating end for the supposed "god," that brought them up from Egypt! And not only this. He also mixed the burnt dust with water and made the people drink their "god," instead of drinking in honour of it, as they had been doing.
How do you burn a metal image and then grind it to powder?
Some have suggested that the image was really made of wood and only covered with gold. But the account will not allow this. It says the calf was "molten" — cast metal, in an older translation — and then shaped more exactly with an engraving tool. It is enough to suppose that the calf was at least softened by fire, if not melted, then beaten into thin plates. After that it was pounded into dust and scattered into the brook.
Moses had the training for it, and the result matched the offence.
The Egyptians knew the chemical process involved in doing this unusual thing. Moses, we must remember, was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," so he knew well how to do it. We are told the punishment fitted their offence with a certain irony: gold treated in this way and made into a drink has a most nauseating taste. This literal, physical act brought home to the people the filthiness and bitterness of their great sin.
Getting rid of the calf was only half of what Moses was after.
He breaks the tablets of the covenant, for they had already been broken on man's side, and this is no time to announce them... Their sin must not only be put away, but they must taste in themselves the reality of it.
One writer turns this into a test of how we take correction from others.
He sought to make them feel their sin. If I have gone wrong in the things of God, what a happy thing it is if any brother can so bring it home to me, that I see it, feel it, and, in that sense, have to drink it. In this way Israel was forced to admit before God what sinners they had been.
Moses judged the sin hard, then prayed for the sinners.
He destroyed the golden calf, and made the children of Israel drink of the powder. But right afterwards he can say to them, "I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." And he prayed, for the sake of these very people, that God would blot him out of His book.
Commentators differ on how far this reaches. One writer sees it as marking Israel's whole later history.
What follows is a symbolic action, carrying deep practical truths... Their "sin" (Moses says in Deuteronomy 9:21, "I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burnt it with fire" — an older translation; the ESV has "the sinful thing") became part of them. It was the "original sin" of that whole age. It hung over them all through the time of their prophets and their kings, and the whole period they were in the land. They never recovered from its effects.
- Made — they made a god for themselves. Moses burned it, ground it, and scattered it, so nothing remained for future idolatry.
- Mocked — the god they credited with bringing them out of Egypt ended as dust in a stream, then as corruption inside its own worshippers.
- Swallowed — they had drunk in the calf's honour; now they drank the calf. Its foul taste brought home the filthiness and bitterness of their sin.
- Felt — the sin had to be put away and also tasted. They had to admit before God what they were, and it is a mercy when someone makes us feel our own wrong.
- Remembered — Moses judged the sin, then went back to plead atonement. Yet one writer says the sin hung over Israel through all their prophets and kings.
And Moses said to Aaron, What has this people done to thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin on them?
Moses has just come down from the mountain, burned the golden calf and made the people drink its powder. Now he turns to his own brother, and his question is a charge: Aaron was the man he had left in charge.
Moses asks what the people did to Aaron, as if some huge pressure must explain it.
Moses seems astonished at Aaron's conduct. "What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?" The question implies that nothing they could have done was enough to cause what he had done. At the same time, Moses lets Aaron know that he is the most responsible: he is the one who has brought such a great sin on them. Aaron was the man left in charge while Moses was up on the mountain. He should have resisted, even if it meant being stoned.
The people asked for the calf. Yet Moses says Aaron brought the sin on them. Position explains the difference. A later record of the same day shows how far God's anger with Aaron went — and what held it back.
Without doubt he is seen as the responsible head of the people while Moses was away. That is why he is charged with such special guilt. The account makes it plain that he was not slow to fall in with the people's desires… Moses says, "And the Lord was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time." (Deut. 9:20) As with Israel, so with Aaron: the prayer of Moses spared them both from the outward punishment their sin deserved, but the guilt of the sin toward God remained.
Aaron never meant to give the people gods. He meant to keep a difficult crowd quiet, and that has a name.
In Aaron we see a picture of the fatal principle of expediency — man trying to manage the things of God. His excuse is that he thought it best to give in to the people's bad temper. He had no intention to make them gods.
Aaron's answer pushes the blame outward and shrinks his own part down to almost nothing. The story has already told us what he left out.
He tried to remove the blame from himself and put it onto the people. When sin first entered, Adam tried to put the blame onto Eve, as we saw in Genesis 3:12. The same thing in principle appears now that we have reached the first and greatest sin under the law. He also tried to make his sin look smaller, as we see in verse 24. He did indeed cast the gold into the fire. But verse 4 records more: the calf was not only "molten" — he also "fashioned it with a graving tool." By telling a half-truth he tried to disguise the whole truth.
One writer turns that hidden tool into a question for us:
It is very easy to use a graving tool today, unless we are watchful and dependent. What is the graving tool? I shall not tell you what yours is. It is whatever man's hand can work with in divine things. What comes out of it is something the eye can rest on — something that relieves you of the effort of walking in faith in the living God.
Moses asks the question; God settles the answer. Aaron divided the blame. God did not.
Aaron laid the blame on the people; but in God's eyes it is "as with the priest, so with the people." God knows the amount of guilt attached to each party, and wherever they may lay it on one another, God charges both alike.
Aaron's position made his guilt special. It did not make the people's guilt any smaller.
- Charged. Moses frames his question so that no answer can work: nothing the people did could excuse what Aaron did.
- Responsible. Moses had left Aaron in charge, and the man in charge carries the sin of those he was meant to guard. He should have resisted, even if it meant being stoned.
- Expedient. His defence was that he was only managing a difficult crowd. That is expediency: man handling God's things his own way.
- Evasive. He blamed the people, as Adam blamed Eve when sin first entered. He also said nothing about the graving tool — a half-truth to hide the whole truth.
- Exposed. When people shift blame onto each other, God knows what each one owes. He charges both alike.
And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord burn! thou knowest the people, that they are [set] on mischief.
Moses has come down from the mountain, smashed the tablets, and ground the calf to powder. Now he turns to the man he left in charge with one question: what did these people do to you, that you brought such a great sin on them? Aaron's reply begins by calming Moses down and ends by pointing at everybody but himself.
Aaron's first move is to take the heat out of the confrontation instead of facing the charge:
Aaron made light of the matter, as though Moses' anger was unnecessary. He told Moses that he knew the people and their tendency to do evil. So he blamed everything on the people. Where was his faith to withstand the people's folly?
What Aaron says about Israel is accurate. They were set on evil. But a true statement about other people is not a defence of yourself. Adam had already tried the same move:
I may try to excuse myself; but there I am, and that is the truth. As the proverb often says, 'He who excuses himself accuses himself.' "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate," said Adam. "You know the people, that they are set on evil," said Aaron; but that was no good reason for giving way to them and making a golden calf.
Moses does not ask what the people did; he asks what they did to Aaron. The question itself answers the excuse before Aaron has made it:
Moses seems astonished at Aaron's conduct. His question implies that nothing they could have done was reason enough for what he had done. At the same time, Moses lets Aaron know that, as the most responsible man, he is the one who has brought this great sin on them. He, as the man left in charge while Moses was up on the mountain, ought to have resisted, even to being stoned. It is just another instance of man's failure when placed in a position of responsibility.
Aaron describes the people as a force he could only go along with. That is exactly the failure. The people carried off the very man left in charge of them:
Whatever Aaron felt inside, the mood of the camp was for having a visible image of God, and so for going back to idolatry. Aaron fell under it. He was swept away with the current. By playing to the times, he did what popular leaders like him do: he led in turn the people who had led him. Corrupted by the people, he corrupted them.
Aaron's plea amounts to saying he handled a difficult crowd in the way that seemed best:
In Aaron we find a picture of the fatal principle of expediency, or of man's attempt to manage the things of God. His excuse is that he thought it best to humour the impatience of the people. He had no intention of making them gods.
The same instinct has done damage far beyond Aaron, and it left his own people weak. The closing phrase below comes from an older translation of verse 25:
Have not the greatest corruptions in the church come from the effort of good men to bless a popular feeling, with little thought of what they were really approving? Human expediency in the things of God quickly turns into discomfort and weakness. Aaron had listened to the people's cry instead of resenting it, and by listening he had made them "naked to their shame among their enemies."
The excuse did not clear Aaron. His rescue came from outside himself, and being spared is not the same as being innocent:
In Deuteronomy, Moses says, "And the Lord was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him. And I prayed for Aaron also at the same time." (Deut. 9:20.) He is clearly seen as the responsible head of the people while Moses was away. That is why he is charged with such special guilt. The account makes it plain that he was quick to fall in with the people's desires. As with Israel, so with Aaron. Moses' prayer spares both of them from the punishment God's government would have brought on their sin. But the guilt of that sin before God remained.
- Excuse. Aaron softens Moses' anger and shifts the blame onto the crowd. The one who excuses himself accuses himself.
- Evasion. What he says about the people is true, and still no reason for giving way to them and making the calf.
- Responsibility. Moses' question shows that nothing the people did was reason enough. The man left in charge should have resisted, even to being stoned.
- Reversal. Corrupted by the people, he corrupted them — the leader ends up led.
- Rescue. Expediency left the people exposed and shamed. Moses' prayer spared Aaron, but it did not remove his guilt.
And they said to me, Make us a god, who will go before us; for this Moses, the man that has brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what is become of him!
Moses is back from the mountain, and he turns on his brother with one question: what did this people do to you, to make you bring such a great sin on them? Aaron's answer is to repeat the people's own words back to him, as if quoting their demand explained why he gave in to it.
Aaron's reply points at the crowd. One writer sets it beside the excuse Adam made, and shows why it settles nothing:
I may try to excuse myself; but there I am, and that is the truth. As the proverb often says, "He who excuses himself accuses himself." "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate," said Adam. "You know the people, that they are set on evil," said Aaron. But that was no good reason for giving way to them and making a golden calf.
What Aaron says about the people is accurate — they did say it. Moses' question, though, already ruled out that line of defence:
Moses seems astonished at Aaron's conduct. "What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?" The question implies that nothing they could have done was a good enough reason for what he had done. At the same time Moses lets Aaron know that, as the most responsible man, it is he who has brought this great sin on them. He was the man left in charge while Moses was up on the mountain, and he ought to have resisted, even if the people stoned him. It is another instance of man's failure in a position of responsibility.
The crowd never denied that Moses had led them out of Egypt — they said so in the same breath. Their problem was that he was out of sight:
The people do not mean to disown Moses. They fully recognise him as the man who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, but he was not then in their sight. This was their need — some present, visible prop to lean on, so that they no longer depended on what was invisible. They said to Aaron, "Up, make us gods who shall go before us." Their desire was urgent, and they would satisfy it at any cost. Without a murmur they bring their golden ornaments to Aaron. How deeply rooted is this principle in the human heart!
Aaron was not one voice among many. He held the place Moses had left, and Deuteronomy shows how God viewed his part in it:
One more detail in Deuteronomy helps us understand this. There Moses says, "And the LORD was so angry with Aaron that He was ready to destroy him. And I prayed for Aaron also at the same time" (Deut. 9:20). Aaron plainly stood as the responsible head of the people while Moses was away. That is why he is charged with special guilt, and the story makes it clear that he was quick to fall in with the people's desires. As with Israel, so with Aaron. The prayer of Moses spared both from God's outward judgment on their sin, but the guilt of the sin toward God remained.
Aaron hands the guilt to the people; they had handed their gold to him. The chapter's last verse shows how God settled the account:
"Then the LORD sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made." Aaron laid the blame on the people. But God sees it as "with the priest, so with the people." He knows the amount of guilt attached to each party. Wherever they may lay it on one another, God charges both alike.
The sentence "we do not know what has become of him" has an uncomfortable echo. One writer turns it on Christians who are waiting for a Christ they cannot see:
Are the saints waiting patiently for Christ, dependent and subject to Him who has gone on high? Do they not act as if they did not know what has become of Him? Instead of letting His word and Spirit lead them, have they not set up calves of gold — idols to go before them, rejoicing in the works of their own hands?
- Absence. The trouble starts when the leader is out of sight. The people still credit Moses with bringing them out of Egypt, but they want something visible to lean on instead of depending on the God they cannot see.
- Demand. Their desire is urgent and they will pay any price. The gold comes off without a murmur when the aim is relief from waiting on God.
- Surrender. Aaron was left in charge and should have resisted, even if the people stoned him. God held him responsible, and was angry enough to destroy him.
- Excuse. Quoting the people's demand is not a defence but a confession. Adam blamed the woman, Aaron blames the crowd, and the man who excuses himself accuses himself.
- Verdict. Passing blame back and forth changes nothing. God knows what each side owes, and charges priest and people alike.
And I said to them, Who has gold? They broke [it] off, and gave [it] me, and I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.
Moses left Aaron in charge and went up the mountain. He came back to a golden calf, and here Aaron explains how it got there — an answer that leaves out what his own hands did.
The account earlier in the chapter says Aaron received the gold, fashioned it with a graving tool, and made a golden calf. His report to Moses leaves the tool out.
The chief weight of the sin lay upon Aaron, and his attempted defence was extremely feeble. He tried to remove the blame from himself and put it on the people. When sin first entered, Adam tried to put the blame on Eve, as we saw in Genesis 3:12. The same thing in principle appears now that we have reached the first and greatest sin under the law. He also tried to minimise his sin, as we see in verse 24. He did indeed cast the gold into the fire. But as verse 4 recorded, the calf was not only "molten" — he also "fashioned it with a graving tool." By telling a half-truth he tried to disguise the whole truth.
That kind of report is not unique to Aaron. It is the ordinary way people admit a fault while shrinking it.
Anyone honest enough to admit it will confirm how easily we may emphasise some details and omit or play down others, in order to present our failure in a less drastic way, so that the damage seems smaller (as an example of this kind of mitigating confession, compare Aaron's words "I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf" with the actual account, which says that he "fashioned it with a chisel and made of it a molten calf," Exodus 32:4, 24).
Aaron's opening move is to describe the people as the real problem. That defence has a long history, and it defeats itself.
I may try to excuse myself; but there I am, and that is the truth. As the proverb often says, "He who excuses himself accuses himself." "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate" — so said Adam. "You know the people, that they are set on evil," said Aaron; but that was no good reason for giving way to them and making a golden calf.
Moses asks Aaron why he brought such a great sin on the people. The question is already a verdict.
The question implies that nothing they could have done was reason enough for what he had done. At the same time Moses lets Aaron know that, as the most responsible, it is he who has brought so great a sin on them. As the man left in charge while Moses was up on the mountain, he ought to have resisted, even if it meant being stoned. It is one more instance of man's failure when in a position of responsibility. And notice the excuses that failure always uses. Not that he was to blame, but the people, who were full of mischief. He only told them to bring their gold, which he cast into the fire, and "there came out this calf!" Not that he made the calf — it came out of the fire! How flimsy are the excuses man makes for sin, until grace delivers him from guile.
The excuse does more than dodge blame. It hands the work of a man's hands over to some higher power.
Man's doing was making the calf. When it was made, they said Providence did it (as Aaron told Moses, "I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf"); then they worshipped it.
Aaron listened to the crowd instead of standing against it. Commentators trace great damage in the church to that same habit.
Have not the greatest corruptions in the church come from good men trying to put God's stamp on a popular feeling, with little thought of what they were really approving? Image-worship itself was simply "the calf which came out" of the honour paid to the memory of saints. Good men tried to turn that honour to good account, but it is idolatry in the sight of God. In the things of God, doing what suits the moment soon turns into discomfort and weakness. Aaron had listened to the people's cry instead of being angry at it, and by listening he made them "naked to their shame among their enemies." And is it not always so? Wherever man's will has worked, and worked well, it has produced weakness. The desire may be satisfied, but leanness enters the soul.
The Spirit of God kept the graving tool in the record, and that tool is still within reach today.
As though the calf had made itself and come out! The Spirit of God is careful to tell us that he made it with "a graving tool" (verse 4). It is very easy to use a graving tool today, unless we are watchful and dependent. What is the graving tool? I will not tell you what yours is. It is whatever man's hand can work with in divine things. It produces something the eye can rest on, and that spares us the exercise of walking in faith in the living God.
Aaron survives the day, but not because his answer held up. Moses records elsewhere how close Aaron came to being destroyed.
One more detail in Deuteronomy may help us understand this. There Moses says, "And the LORD was so angry with Aaron that He was ready to destroy him. And I prayed for Aaron also at the same time" (Deut. 9:20). Without doubt he is seen as the responsible head of the people while Moses was away, and so the special guilt falls on him. As with Israel, so with Aaron: the prayer of Moses spared both from the governmental consequences of their sin, but the guilt of the sin toward God remained.
- Deed — Aaron did not just throw gold into a fire. He shaped the calf with a graving tool, and his own account drops that detail.
- Denial — He told a half-truth to hide the whole truth. He blamed the people, just as Adam blamed Eve.
- Deflection — Man's hand made the calf. Then man said a higher power did it, and his own work became an accident.
- Damage — Pleasing the crowd in the things of God left Israel naked before their enemies. Where man's will gets its way, leanness enters the soul.
- Deliverance — The prayer of Moses spared Aaron, but the guilt stayed. Excuses stay flimsy until grace frees a person from guile.