Skeptic's Annotated Bible
32:1 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.
Too bad for the people that Aaron was the one who accompanied Moses to Egypt to negotiate with Pharaoh; he knows God and Moses too well to betray their cause so easily!
32:2 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.
Oh crap. So much for Aaron.
32:3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
32:4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf:
Moobie the Golden Calf
and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
32:5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it;
I just don't see the Aaron character being this corruptible. He was there in Egypt, he spoke with God, saw what God did to Pharaoh, was Moses' companion. This just doesn't make any sense.
and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD.
32:6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings,
This is one of the things God was particularly worried about, that people would make sacrifices to other gods. The punishment that God spelled out for this was that the person would be "utterly destroyed." Let's see what happens to Aaron and the rest.
and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
32:7 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:
32:8 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.
32:9 And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
32:10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them:
God is letting his temper get the better of him.
and I will make of thee a great nation.
32:11 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?
32:12 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.
32:13 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.
Moses wastes his breath trying to change God's mind. This implies that Moses is more moral than God, because he can see the wrongness of what God is about to do. Will God (a) punish Moses for his insolence; or (b) be persuaded by Moses' argument, effectively admitting that he was wrong?
32:14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
God admits that he was wrong to think to do evil to his people. God repents! Now I wonder how to reconcile this with the view of God as an omniscient being. If he were omniscient, he would have known all along that he wasn't going to harm his people, in which case there would be no reason for him to repent. None of this makes any sense.
32:15 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.
32:16 And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.
32:17 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.
32:18 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.
32:19 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.
Moses smashes the tablets with God's writing on them, because he's angry that the people are worshiping the golden calf. Just after he calms God down from contemplating harming the people, Moses himself loses his temper.
32:20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
He made them drink it? What on Earth for? And, that can't possibly be healthy, can it? (Apparently gold is inert to body chemistry, so it has no nutritional content or calories, and is just expelled by the body. So this was just a symbolic gesture.)
32:21 And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?
32:22 And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief.
Aaron's defense for the betrayal of the Israelites: you know how mischievous they are!
32:23 For they said unto me, 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.
Right. You don't know what happened to Moses, so you decide to make a golden calf. Non sequitur much?
32:24 And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.
32:25 And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)
Again the completely boneheaded view of nudity. Don't confuse modesty for shame. There's nothing to be ashamed of.
32:26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the LORD's side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him.
Levi the mass-murderer.
32:27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.
Oh, well, then I guess the sons of Levi were a good choice!
32:28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.
Okay, first Moses convinces God that he shouldn't contemplate evil thoughts against the Israelites. Then Moses loses his temper and smashes the tablets, and then sets a posse of killers against those who didn't declare their allegiance to God.
Another bloody slaughter. I take it back; Moses is not more moral than God. They're both monsters.
32:29 For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves today to the LORD, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day.
Kill for blessings.
32:30 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.
32:31 And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.
32:32 Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.
32:33 And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.
32:34 Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them.
32:35 And the LORD plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made.
So God wasn't so repentant after all. I guess this means he lied? Or changed his mind again? What a baffling deity.
Okay folks, what would a moral version of this story be? When the people you are responsible for mess up, you should correct them and teach them, not slaughter them. Your job is to guide them to appropriate behavior, before they cause harm to themselves or others. What was the terrible crime that these people committed? They got naked and danced around a golden statue. This is actually not a crime. It's misguided, sure, and I can see how it would be insulting to God and Moses, but why on Earth would you punish this behavior with death? Not only is this confusing behavior, but it is supremely immoral to kill these people in this way.
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