Tag Archives: Exodus 30-32

Daily Bible Study

January 28, 2024 Bible Study — It Takes More Than Good Speaking Skills to Make a Leader

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 30-32.

Moses was on Mt. Sinai for a long time talking with God and receiving God’s commands for the Israelite people.  This led the people to become discontent with sitting there at the base of Mt. Sinai and start to complain about why they weren’t travelling towards the “land of milk and honey” they had been promised.  Some of the people around Aaron told him that he needed to do something to maintain control, and probably suggested that he needed to make an idol to be the god of the Israelites.  So, that is what Aaron did.  It would also explain why Aaron did not lose his position as high priest for this affair.  After Aaron made the idol for the Israelites to follow as their god, they held a festival with sacrifices and other activities to celebrate their new god.  When Moses came down from the mountain the party was still going on, and the people, or, at least some of them, refused to stop partying.  So, Moses rallied the Levites to his side in order to restore order in the camp.  They had to kill 3,000 of the people in the camp before order was restored.

All of this happened because Aaron was not a strong leader.  He was in his position because he was a good public speaker (and Moses’ brother).  While there is much more to be learned from this passage, it illustrates the danger of selecting leadership because they are great orators.

 

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

January 28, 2023 Bible Study — Using Scent To Deepen Our Worship Of God

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 30-32.

As you may guess, I love my cat

Usually I skip over the the first part of this passage and write something about Aaron, the golden calf, or Moses’ reaction to it, but this time I want to touch on something else first.  God tells Moses that no one may use a perfume which smells similar to the anointing oil for the priests and no one may burn an incense which smells similar to the holy incense, aside from priests doing so as part of the priestly duties.  I never really thought of the significance of that before today.  Over the last fifty years science has come to understand that smells trigger thoughts, memories, and emotions in ways which bypass our rational thought processes.  God gave this command regarding the holy anointing oil and the holy incense because He wanted those scents to only be associate with worship of Him.  Once those scents were used for worship within the Tabernacle, those who worshiped there would unconsciously associate them with the Holy.  If those scents were used in other settings two things could result.  On the one hand, if people only smelled those scents in places of genuine worship of God, those scents would help them focus more clearly on God when they smelled them.  On the other hand, people might be given a sense of righteousness while doing that which was sinful if those scents were present there.    What all of that made me realize is that we could use scents today to aid in our worship of God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

January 28, 2022 Bible Study — Moses Petitioned God To Have Mercy On The Wicked

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 30-32.

I want to note that when the people asked Aaron to make them gods for them to worship it had been less than two months after they had said, “We will do what the Lord has said.”  And one of the things they were agreeing to was to make no gods out of gold or silver.  However, I want to focus on the fact that Moses intervened with God for the sake of sinners.  It reminds me of when Abraham negotiated with God on how many righteous  people it would take for God not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.   I think both of these instances represent behavior we should follow.  We should pray for God to have mercy on those whom we know have done things which have terrible consequences.  The Israelites did not deserve God’s mercy, but then, neither do we.  Let us petition God to have mercy on those we know do not deserve it.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

January 28, 2021 Bible Study The People Worship The Golden Calf

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 30-32.

There are some interesting points about the account of the golden calf and its aftermath.  First, Aaron and the people referred to it in the plural, even though there was only one calf.  Some scholars have suggested that the reference to the calf in the plural was a later addition to make sure people connected this incident with the calves which Jeroboam had made when he rebelled against King Rehoboam.  Personally I believe that they referred to it in the plural because they wanted to have a pantheon like the nations around them rather than just one God.

Second, the account tells us that Moses ground up the statue, mixed it with water, and made the people drink it before he calls the Levites to kill those who were committing idolatry.  There are several other aspects of the story which do not quite fit together.  To me it reads like the account was compiled from what several different people remembered.  The different people did not know where what they remembered fit in with what the others remembered.  So, the author of this stitched their stories together as best he could.  The camp would have been very large, so it would make sense that people only remembered portions of  what happened and did not know how they tied together with things which happened in other parts of the camp.  Another explanation for the way the account is constructed is possible. This also works logically because the camp was very large and people in one part would not have been fully aware of what was going on elsewhere.  This explanation goes like this: Moses ground up the calf and made those who had been celebrating and worshiping it near it drink it.  However, elsewhere in the camp were those celebrating and worshiping the calf who were unaware of what was going on there.  Moses sent the Levites to settle things down and they killed those who refused to give up their new “gods”.

Daily Bible Study

January 28, 2020 Bible Study — It Only Takes a Few People Willing to Stand Up For What Is Right

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 30-32.

There are a couple of points in the account about the Israelites and the gold calf which Aaron made for them which I don’t think I have ever seen anyone discuss.  A casual reading of the passage leads one to believe that all of the Israelites were involved in worshiping the gold calf, but a closer reading suggests otherwise.  The first hint that not all of the Israelites comes when Moses calls for people to join him and side with the Lord.  Now, if all of the people were taking part in the celebratory worship of the calf, why would Moses expect anyone to join him?  More importantly, after the Levites joined him, he told them to go through the camp and kill everyone, yet they only killed around 3,000.  Does that mean that only 3,000 of the Israelites were worshiping the golden calf?  No, probably not.  

It reads to me like a group of malcontents became convinced that everyone was looking for an alternative now that Moses had been gone for over a month, but in fact only a small portion of the population had given his extended absence any thought.  When Aaron declared the celebration many of those who were part of the original group and many others joined the celebration, but when Moses called for people to join him a lot of those sobered up and moved away from the celebration.  The 3,000 killed represents those who chose to oppose Moses reasserting his authority over the Israelites.  Another point worth examining is that the passage says that all of the Levites sided with Moses.  Yet, after the battle to re-establish Moses’ control, Moses told them that some of them had killed their own sons and brothers.  That tells me that either some members of the tribe of Levi did not side with Moses, or the “Levites” mentioned here were not necessarily members of the tribe of Levi, instead being those who sided with Moses whether they were descendants of Levi or not.  

Now that I have said all of that, what does this mean for us?  It tells us that it does not take a large number of people to start a larger group down the wrong path and, more importantly, it only takes a small number of people willing to stand up to them to get people to come to their senses.  It may seem like everyone is doing wrong, like their is no point in standing up for what is right.  But, you will usually find that if you stand up and say, “Wait, that is wrong,” more people will side with what is right than you expect…and fewer people will stand with the wrong than you thought.

Daily Bible Study

January 28, 2019 Bible Study — Moses and the Gold Calf

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 30-32.

Today’s passage continues with instructions for making furnishings for the Tabernacle.  In the middle of this God gave the command for what was referred to as the Temple Tax in the Gospels.  The most important element of this tax was that it would apply equally to everyone, rich and poor.  Everyone had an equal share in the maintenance of the Tabernacle.  This tax was to be collected whenever the leaders felt it necessary to conduct a census of the fighting men of Israel.  The tax, and the count, only applied to those men who were over 20 years of age.  There are references to this elsewhere, but here is one of the places that a man was not eligible to be part of the Israelite Army until after his 20th birthday.

The story of the gold calf in today’s passage contains some elements which I never noticed before.  It seems to me that there are either missing details, or the order of events was different than the order in which they are written.    When Moses came down the mountain and saw the people reveling in worship of the idol, he smashed the stone tablets which God had given him.  Next it tells us that he burned the gold calf, ground it into powder, mixed the powder with water, and made the Israelites drink it.  Then it tells us that he stood at the entrance to the camp and called for those on the Lord’s side to join him.  It says that all of the Levites joined him and he told them to go through the camp from one end to the other killing everyone.

However, the passage tells us that only about 3,000 people died that day.  Now thinking about this from a perspective of how stories get told and of how things are likely to happen allows us to see how this discrepancy would occur.  The first point on that I want to make is to remind everyone that writing was laborious and writing materials expensive.  So, one did not simply discard what one had written and start over if you realized that you had left something out.  You added it on where you were at.  I am not quite sure what exactly happened here, but it seems likely that Moses smashed the tablets and called for those who were on the Lord’s side to join him before destroying the gold calf.   From there I am not quite sure.  Perhaps those who died were those who resisted Moses’ destruction of the gold calf, or perhaps it was those who refused to drink the concoction he made out of it.  My initial thought was the latter, but further thought makes me believe it was the first.

 

Daily Bible Study

January 28, 2018 Bible Study — Not a Bull, But a Calf

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 30-32.

    This passage describes the census tax which later became the Temple tax which Jesus had Peter pay for both of them by taking money from the mouth of a fish. I also find it interesting that when God gives Moses the recipe for the Tabernacle incense and the priestly anointing oil, He gives strict instructions that no one shall make incense or oil similar to those for any other usage or purpose. The importance of this comes from the subliminal impact which scents have on our thoughts and emotions. Things we smell can have a subtle effect on how we think and feel. God knew that if people experienced the scents of the anointing oil or the incense in other settings it would have one of two results. The first would be to cause people to feel worshipful towards whatever was the focus of activity in that other setting, which would be idolatry. The second would be to cause people to associate those scents with something other than worshiping God so that when they smelled them during worship they would be reminded of that other thing and be distracted from worshiping God.

    Initially, when Moses went up on to the mountain the people felt that it was a good thing to stop where they were and begin getting their lives organized (reading between the lines on this). However, after a while they began to feel like it was time to begin moving forward again but Moses had not yet returned. So, they went to Aaron for guidance. Aaron had no idea what they should do next, nor did he believe that he had the ability to keep the people unified. So, Aaron did what many leaders throughout history have done, he created a visual representation of God. I find it interesting that this visual representation was a calf. What is interesting is that later, when Jeroboam led the Northern Tribes to separate from the Southern Tribes, he built two golden calves at the place of worship he intended to replace Jerusalem. The other interesting thing is that it was a calf, not a bull. Many ancient peoples worshiped a bull god and/or a cow god, but when the Israelites made an idol it was a calf. I am unsure of the significance of this, but I am sure that it tells us something about their understanding of God.

Daily Bible Study

January 28, 2017 Bible Study –Why Did Aaron Choose a Calf?

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 30-32.

    The passage continues with further design instructions for the furnishings of the Tabernacle (including the recipe for the incense to be used and the anointing oil). Among those instructions is a tax to be levied whenever a census is taken of the men of Israel. I have heard some people state that failure to collect this tax was the sin which King David committed when he held his census. This tax was to be used for the care of the Tabernacle. It is my understanding that this passage was the basis for the Temple Tax mentioned in Matthew 17. What I find interesting about this passage is the combined facts that this tax was to pay for the upkeep of the Tabernacle, but no frequency was given for taking a census.

    There are a lot of elements to the story about the golden calf which Aaron had made which are worth some thought, but I want to take notice of the fact that Aaron chose a calf as the image of God. It was not a bull, nor was it a cow, it was a calf. It is worth noting that many years later when Jeroboam led the Northern Tribes in rebellion against Rehoboam, he set up two calf idols so that the people would not go to Jerusalem to worship. The Egyptians did not worship a god for which the representation was an idol in the form of a calf, nor did the peoples among whom the Israelites would later come to live. Many commentators I have read conflate the calf in this passage, and Jeroboam’s later ones, with the bulls representing gods worshiped by other peoples in the area. I think this is a mistake and that we can learn something about the early Israelite understanding of God from the fact that they represented Him with a calf from time to time (despite His explicit instructions to not represent Him with any physical object).

Daily Bible Study

January 28, 2016 Bible Study

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading. I had been using One Year Bible Online, but it was time for a change.

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Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 30-32.

    God gave Moses a recipe for anointing oil and for incense to be used in the Tabernacle. The people were forbidden from using a similarly scented oil or incense for anything else. Studies have shown that we remember scents on a much more basic level than anything else. Because these scents came from the oil used to consecrate things and people in the Tabernacle and from the incense used to worship God, the children of Israel would associate them with worship. If these scents were used elsewhere they would be likely to trigger a subconscious response on the part of those who smelled them. This subconscious response might lead people to worship something other than God, or it might be used by the unscrupulous to cause people to trust those that they would otherwise distrust. Therefore the people were forbidden from using this oil and this incense in any other setting.

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    While Moses was on the mountain getting God’s instructions for the people, the people got impatient. I cannot say that I blame them. Moses was up on the mountain for forty days. However, rather than demand Aaron find out what was taking so long, they demanded that he come up with some other god(s) for them to follow. Aaron for his part did not attempt to dissuade them. He promptly gathered their gold and made them a calf. When Aaron saw how excited this made the people, he declared that they would have a festival to the Lord. So, we have two sides sinning here. The people for giving up on God and Moses and Aaron for having a plan as to what to do when they did. However, one of the things that struck me about this passage is that the primary sin committed was not the worshiping of the golden calf in place of God. Reading between the lines it seems to me that the biggest sin they committed was giving credit to an idol they watched being made for the mighty works which God performed to bring them out of Egypt.