The Bible

 

Exodus 32:1-20 : The Golden Calf

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1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

2 And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.

3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.

4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD.

6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.

7 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:

8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

9 And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:

10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.

11 And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?

12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.

13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.

14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

15 And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.

16 And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.

17 And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.

18 And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear.

19 And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.

20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.

Commentary

 

The Golden Calf

By New Christian Bible Study Staff

As this story begins, the Children of Israel have escaped Egypt, and are camped near Mount Sinai. Moses, their leader, as climbed up the mountain, and is receiving the Ten Commandments from Jehovah. The people get impatient, and think that perhaps Moses will not return, and they ask his brother Aaron, the High Priest, to make them new gods.

Aaron complies - which is surprising - given that he has been involved in the Exodus since the beginning, supporting Moses. But he does, and collects golden earrings, melts them down , and fashions them into a golden idol shaped like a calf. He builds an altar before the calf, and proclaims a feast to Jehovah.

God sees what is happening, and is angry, telling Moses that he will destroy these people, and start over again, using Moses to start a new church. Moses persuades God not to do this, reminding him of the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Yet, as Moses descends from the mountain, carrying the Ten Commandments etched by the hand of God on two tables of stone, and sees the extent of the forbidden idolatry, he too is angry. He shatters the tables of stone, grinds the calf into dust, mixes the dust into water, and makes the people drink it.

What's the inner meaning of this story?

It's explained in detail in Arcana Coelestia, starting in section 10395. Every detail is important. Very briefly, though:

If we don't realize, or recognize, that the Word contains truths from God, we can react by "gathering to Aaron" - just being religiously observant in an external, perfunctory way.

Detached from internal worship, we gravitate to developing false ideas - idols - that we use in religious teachings and worship. Not knowing Moses's whereabouts means a total unawareness of the internal truths of the Word.

When Aaron gathers the earrings, that signifies the external church cherry-picking truths from the literal sense of the Word to support a man-made religion that reinforces what it loves.

We can think ways that churches that have done this, and on a personal level, there's a strong tendency for us to do this, too - to think shallowly, to extract things from the Word and mold them into idols, or justifications for the things we want to do.

The two tables of stone are inscribed on both sides. There are internals and externals of religion. We need both. This is the reason why the internal meaning of the Word is so important to us all; it contains the inner truths that we need to understand, and live by, and learn to love.

This is much too brief a summary to do the story justice; it's one of they key turning points in the religious history of humankind, and it has profound meaning for us as individuals, and for our churches and nations.

The Bible

 

Judges 8:24

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24 And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that ye would give me every man the earrings of his prey. (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.)