All right, so why is lesson nine a doozy? It's entitled spiritual harlotry, the golden calf. I could have named it, I had a number of different ideas, adulterous idolatry, just idolatry, spiritual harlotries, what I chose for the golden calf, because that's exactly what's going on. This is a cataclysmic disaster for Israel and when they turn away from God.
So we're going to be looking at chapters 32 through 34 and you might be saying, hold on a second, Nick, we just ended off last lesson, chapter 24. Why are we skipping over chapters 25 through 31? The reason is because at the end of chapter 24, after the covenant has been established and ratified as we discussed, Moses goes up to the top of the mountain to speak with God for 40 days and 40 nights, God reveals to him the blueprint of the tabernacle. So all the instructions for the tabernacle, the furnishings, etc, are found in chapters 25 through 31.
Then after the golden calf in chapter 35 to 40, you go back to the tabernacle focusing mostly on the construction of all these different things. So what I want to do for you is I'm going to skip over 25 through 31 and join it together, chapters 35 through 40 as one whole lesson, which is going to be focused on proper worship of God with the tabernacle. That's a good thing. It's a high point.
That's what we're going to end our Bible study on Exodus with here, these certain chapters sequentially, it makes a lot of sense chronologically, because Moses goes to the top of the mountain while he's up there down below the people are beginning to commit these grave sins, or being extremely naughty and extremely disobedient. And so that's what we're going to see right here. So that's why we're jumping around just a tiny little bit, but the story flows while Moses is up on the mountain, they have no idea what's going on with him. They decide to take action of worshiping their own little gods.
And then when Moses comes down, or as we're going to see in this whole story now, in this lesson, Moses comes down, he intercedes for them and goes back up the mountain, gets more instructions. And then now we have the construction of the tabernacle. Okay, so that's what we're going to do. So with that, then let's read the first few verses of chapter 32, verses one through six will make sense.
Then we'll come back and explain this. So verse one, when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And Aaron said to them, take off the rings of gold, which are in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them to me.
So all the people took off the rings of gold, which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron, and he received the gold at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a molten calf. And they said, these are your gods of Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early next day, offered burn-off rings and brought peace offerings.
And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Okay, so while Moses, again, is up on the mountain receiving instructions at some point in their end, they're just like, you know what, we don't even know what happened to Moses. As for this Moses dude, this Moses character, we don't even know what happened to him. He brought us by the land of Egypt.
Now he's disappeared like a puff of smoke. So let's make us gods and we'll start to follow them. Right now, it's interesting a couple of things here. Number one regarding Moses, it seems like they have very little loyalty or love or affection or devotion to him.
Like as for this Moses guy, well, hold on. And he's your leader, right? He's your fearless leader who delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians. You know, you gotta speak of them with a little bit more respect, but they're like, no, no, that's for this Moses character.
We don't know what happened to him. But also, number two, my second point is that they don't mention God at all. They say Moses brought them up out of the land of Egypt and they don't give any credit to Yahweh whatsoever. Of course, Moses is the instrument of Yahweh.
He is Yahweh's faithful servant here at this point. He's come a long way, I think. But they don't even mention God at all. There's Moses don't even know what happened to him.
Don't mention God. Now let's make gods of our own. All right, let's make gods of our own hand. And they go to Aaron and here is where I am, me, all of my students, whenever I teach this, we all kind of collectively just sigh and just like we're just stupefying.
Aaron, why would you do this? Why would you lead the people in such a great sin? Like he didn't even put up a fight whatsoever. They go to Aaron.
He says, give me your gold. He then you should probably note this. He takes a graving tool in fashions, a golden cat. Now that takes time.
That takes skill. Now, whether he did it himself or he had someone else do it for him, he was the leader. Now, taking a golden cat that just didn't happen overnight. It probably took, I don't know, it's hard to say, you know, a few days, maybe a week to fashion that.
So Moses is gone for a few weeks. They're like, okay, let's take matters in their own hands. Let's make gods of our own. Aaron enables them to do that and they make this golden calf.
Now, it's interesting. Before I forget, I want to go back to chapter 20 verse 23, right after the 10 commandments, right? When Moses is up on the mountain, speaking to God, getting the law, remember, I taught you that it's really the law should be seen as God's family rules. You want to be in covenant in relationship with God, you got to follow the family rules because it's freedom from sin to be free for God.
You want to be with God, you got to be free from sin. And that's what these rules enable you to do, right? So right after the 10 commandments, before they get into what we call the book of the covenant, there's kind of a little bit of an ominous note here in verse 23, chapter 20 verse 23, God says, you shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. Now, careful reader, it'd be like, oh, that's interesting.
Is this just one of the many rules that the people need to follow, like no idolatry worship God alone? Now, we realize here in chapter 32, God was really doubling down on this particular law. And obviously, the first commandment is all about worshiping God alone, making no idols, but then he kind of reiterates it with this, don't make gods of gold. That seems to be oddly specific.
Well, now here, they are making a God of gold and they make a bull, right? This bull is known as Apis. He is an Egyptian god. This is an Egyptian pagan cult.
And it's a fertility cult. Apis, Apis is a fertility god who represents power and pleasure and wealth. So there's the power and the bull itself. And that's pretty significant.
I mean, even today, you know, the Spaniards, they have bull fights. We have bull fights and we have rodeos too, as well, in America, and you're bull fighters and running with the bulls and all this stuff, like a bull is a powerful, powerful animal. And then there's a pleasure of the of the bull. Really, it's kind of like the virility, I guess you could say, if anyone knows that Rocky Mountain oysters are you kind of understand like, okay, there's virility there.
If you don't know what Rocky Mountain oysters are, you can Google that. All right, you can look it up online. They're basically the testicles of a bull. Okay, people eat those, right?
So there's a pleasure, the sex, and this cultic right. And then there's the wealth. I mean, this bull is made in gold. So this kind of touches, I don't have time to get into this, but it really touches upon in the spiritual life, it's the three full concupisense.
It's this three full temptation, this inclination to sin, less to the eyes, less to the flesh and the pride of life. It's really the desires of the eyes is the unnatural, or I should say the disordered attachment for worldly possessions. Then the less of the flesh or desires of the flesh is the disorder, desires of the flesh. And then the pride of life is just, of course, egotism, vanity, and all this stuff.
So can't get into all that right here, but there's best kind of what's going on here. I talked about this even with the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden in the Genesis Bible study. This constantly is an issue with fallen mankind is this three full temptation to sin. And the app is fertility God here kind of represents that.
And so they construct this bull here with a graving tool that takes time, it takes a little bit of work and know how. And then it's interesting because it says Aaron, Aaron says tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. Now this to me tells me that Aaron's conscience is witnessing against him because he says tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh, right? So he kind of like trying to blend the two religions here.
Same with built this golden calf and let's make a feast to Yahweh tomorrow. And he's trying to combine them. And that's kind of what we saw in this verse back in 2023 when God says don't make silver gods or gods of gold to be with me. Because what often happened is Israel and this is certainly true later on in Israel's history, they would blend the two religions.
They would worship God, but then they would also worship the pagan deities as well. And that's a little bit of what's going on here. And the people are probably also trying to give a physical visible representation of Yahweh, which God forbade, you can't do that God is pure spirit. So all these things are going on here.
But Aaron's like, oh, we need to, he's kind of like trying to tilt it back over. I made you this calf, but we need to worship and make a feast to Yahweh. He doesn't stop the sin. He doesn't fight against it.
And there's kind of a question that like, why, like, why did he give in so easily without a fight? Was he afraid of the people? Was he intimidated by the people? Was he trying to win popularity?
Like maybe he thought Moses was gone. And he's like, okay, I'm the new leader here. And you appreciate myself. Maybe he envied Moses's position.
I think there's a little bit of truth to that. If you look at his rebellion against Moses in the book of numbers, which we haven't talked about, but there could be a blend of all these things fear intimidation, envy, the popularity contest, he wants to ingrati himself, whatever it is, he doesn't stop the sin. And his conscience is bearing witness against him. And that's why he says, well, we got to make a feast to the Lord here.
Now, keep in mind, Aaron is a concession. I said this back. I forget which lesson we began talking about Moses and his the call of Moses and Moses kept making excuses to God. You know, him and hogging, I can't do this.
I don't speak. Well, the people won't believe me blah, blah, blah, wine, wine, wine. And God's patience wears out metaphorically and says, fine, fine, I'm going to send you Aaron, your brother. Is he not a good speaker?
So Aaron was a concession. Aaron was a plan B if Moses had had faith and he trusted God and stepped out, you know, relying on God, then none of this presumably hypothetically would not have happened because Aaron would not have been in a position of power at all. So it's interesting because if you look at the story of Abraham and Lot, and the Genesis Bible study, we've talked about how Abraham was not supposed to bring Lot, Lot became a lot of problems for Abraham. Abraham's constantly bailing out his nephew, his nephew never should have come at all.
In the same way, Aaron shouldn't have been in this position. So you can kind of look at it like what Lot was to Abraham. Aaron is to Moses here. Okay.
So in a certain sense, obviously, Moses is not to blame strictly speaking for this sin. Aaron is to blame. But if Moses had faith, then maybe this wouldn't have happened. It's one of those kind of hindsight is 20 20s and a kind of woulda, woulda, could have showed a moment here.
But this is a horrible thing that Aaron does. And it's a reversal of the Sinai covenant with God. It's these details here about Hallee Rosa early next day, burn offerings, be having, they did all of this at Sinai. If you go back to chapter 24, which we just discussed here, Israel worship God with burn offerings and peace offerings by the firstborn sons, right?
They set up an altar early in the morning and then the elders eat and drink before the presence of God halfway up the mountain. Now my friend, they're doing all of this for Abbess. This is the antithesis of Sinai. It is a perversion and a reversal of the Sinai covenant.
Really, there's one more connection here as well. But I hadn't shared it with you because in chapter 25, I'll share this with you in the next lesson. In the beginning of chapter 25, God says to Moses that all the people are to make an offering of gold or silver or whatever for the construction of the tabernacle. Well, that's because of reversal here as well, because Aaron says, give me the gold that you have in your ears or earrings.
And they do. So even the offerings are kind of a reversal. Instead of making an offering for the tabernacle, they're making offerings for the construction of this God that's got app this year. Okay.
Now it's even worse than this because for me growing up, I was a Protestant growing up. I read the Scriptures all the time. The story is pretty famous story here. And just kind of for me always seemed like, I didn't get it.
I didn't really understand what the idolatry was or I should put it this way. I didn't really understand what the temptation was to worship a calf. A calf doesn't really evoke adoration to me at least. I mean, maybe Hindus would say something otherwise.
But why worship this calf? Well, it was this fertility God. And when you worship the fertility God, you did things that evoke fertility rights. And that's what's being described here very gently when it says they rose up to play.
That doesn't mean that they were playing long games of some kind, like cornhole or batgammon or board games or you're playing some soccer or football or not. They're not hanging out and playing with each other like it's a big old barbecue, you know, on the weekend with your friends and your family. So rise up to play is a euphemism for sexual activity. Okay.
It's apparently I have to double check this by just learning this. Apparently it's the same kind of connection. If you remember back in Genesis, Isaac says that his wife, Rebecca is his sister, but King of Bimalex notices Isaac quote unquote fondling Rebecca. And he's like, wait a minute, you're not a brother and sister here.
You got to be married. Well, it's the same expression going on. That's kind of the background, all of this. What's happening, they rise up to play.
They're engaging in the fertility rights. It's a cultic or geastic right and behaviors to worship the God, and this happened all over the ancient New Year's and world that happened even in the Greco-Roman world. Like if you're worshiping a particular fertility God, I think of Aphrodite amongst the Greeks, if you're worshiping Aphrodite, the goddess of sex and fertility, they're going to be engaging in fertility rights. And so all of these temples, ancient new year's and world, and even in the Greco-Roman world, they would have cultic prostitutes, male and female cultic prostitutes that would help the worshipper adore and glorify this pagan God.
So you can imagine, I mean, with very little imagination here, why it might be so enticing for people to get involved in these fertility rights, because they're all sleeping together. They're having, it's like one big orgy, right? And so people were drawn to this and it was easy for the demons to, it's like a woodstock, right? If you know, if you know woodstock, it's like, okay, maybe it's a little bit of that going on.
I'll let you draw the connections for yourself. But it was an enticement for people, it was very easy to fall into this, to worship this God, to offer up the sacrifice, you have a participation in communal meal with a pagan deity, which is really a demon behind this pagan deity. And then you all have a quote unquote party, okay? It was a huge problem.
And so here, that's exactly what Israel is doing. That's exactly what Israel is doing. And it's a mortal sin. It's a huge sin of apostasy, turning away from God and going back to Egyptian idolatry.
They broke the first commandment within weeks of its establishment. They broke the covenant with God within weeks of its ratification here. And the witness of all of scripture really talks about how it was such a calamity here. Let's just stay in the Old Testament.
Let's look first at Ezekiel chapter 20 verse 8 here in your notes. Ezekiel says, they rebelled against me, or it's a God speaking. They rebelled against me. They would not listen to me.
They did not every man cast away that a testable things their eyes feasted on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt. After the apostles, Saint Stephen says, our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts, they turned to Egypt. They made a calf in those days and offered a sacrifice to the idol and rejoiced in the work of their hands. And Saint Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, do not be idolatchers as some of them were, as it is written, that people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
So a consistent witness throughout scripture that we're committing grave idolatry here. It's not just putting up a pretty calf and it glitters in the sun and oh, how so beautiful it's worshiped. It's not that simplistic. It is again this fertility right that they're engaging here.
And it really shows you truly how steeped and sin they had become. There's an expression that a lot of teachers will say that it's one thing to get Israel out of Egypt, but it's quite another thing to get Egypt out of Israel, right? Egypt is still in Israel. The Egyptian idolatry is still in Israel, and that's what they're reverting to when after a little while there's a lot of spiritual application here you could probably call it like the Dark Knight of the Soul.
Do they have no more constellations from God? God is not speaking them to anymore and things are very silent and very dark and they don't know what to do and so they go back to the way it used to be for them. Absolutely, there's an application there. So they go back to Egyptian idolatry.
And so because of the fertility cultic or jasic background to this, what often is taught in scripture, the scriptural witnesses that idolatry is often equated to spiritual adultery, spiritual adultery or spiritual harlotry, a grave mortal sin. I don't even know what to call this spiritual, harlotry, spiritual adultery, it's all the same thing. It's this grave sin and this quote I have for you in the notes explains it very well. This is the covenant with the Lord is frequently framed in matrimonial terms.
Hence, infidelity to the covenant is likewise frequently associated with acts of physical infidelity to the covenant of marriage. Then it gives examples from Hosea, Isaiah, and Ezekiel here. So that's what's happening here because sure, and I explained this before, there's two very famous and very frequent metaphors to describe God's relationship with his people. The first one is of fatherhood, right?
Parent son, father son. The second is of natural imagery. God is the divine bridegroom. His people is his bride.
And so essentially I'm outside my God betrothed himself to his people, wed himself, wed his people, and they are now their one, right? They're one. And now the people have turned away to turn away from their bridegroom. God to go towards to go towards and go after all the other pagan gods is adulterous idolatry, right?
It's spiritual harlotry, spiritual adultery. However, you want to say it, it is a big, big deal here, what they're doing. And it is also a connection to the sin of Adam, right? What Adam did was a huge, which a huge sin as well, right?
It's his original sin. We talk about Adam's original sin in our Bible study in Genesis. Original sin is a common doctrine amongst Catholicism and other denominations as well. But this is Israel's original sin.
Here, this great quote here, I really like this. It says, in light of the idanic role to which Israel was called in the first Sinai covenant, that's chapters 19 through 24, we may say that what the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge was to Adam, the golden calf was to Israel. Right? What the forbidden fruit was to Adam and Eve, the golden calf was to Israel.
This is their original sin, right? And they fell away soon after the covenant was ratified, just like Adam fell away very soon after the covenant of creation took place. We don't know exactly how long after creation, Adam sinned against God. But it was the consistent testimony of tradition that it was soon, right?
It was very soon afterwards. So you have these Eden, Eden, or these themes of Eden taking place in the fall of Israel. We're gonna talk more and more about that as we go on. There's a lot of themes about the fall of Israel, connecting it to the fall of Adam and Eve and the creation of Adam and Eve and connecting that with the creation of Israel.
And that's certainly going to be true next lesson when we conclude everything and we look how the tabernacle is a restoration of the Garden of Eden. So we have much more to say about all of these themes between Eden and Israel. Right now, the connection is that it's this is their original sin. They fell away from covenant with God, just like Adam fell away from a covenant of God as well.