The Golden Calf Rebellion

Not long after God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and gave His laws to them, they rebelled against Him and created a golden image to worship.

Moses read all the laws to the people, and twice more, they declared, “All the LORD has spoken we will do; we will be obedient.” The LORD God wanted to live with His people and let His presence be known among them. So He called Moses back up the mountain to give him instructions for building a tabernacle—a structure where God’s presence would be, where the Israelites could go to have their sins expiated and worship God.

To the people it seemed like forever that Moses was on the mountain, so they gathered around Aaron and said, “Do something! Make us gods to lead us. We don’t know what has happened to Moses.”

So Aaron told them to bring him all the gold earrings they had, and he shaped the gold into a calf. Then the people shouted, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt!” Aaron observed this, built an altar, and announced, “Tomorrow we will have a festival to the LORD.” So the people got up early the next day and sacrificed burnt offerings. The whole thing turned into a wild, drunken party.

These were the people that declared, “All the LORD has spoken we will do; we will be obedient.” They broke the first two commandments in worshiping this bull, and who knows what other commandments during the orgy!

God knew what was happening, so He told Moses, “Hurry down the mountain. Those people you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have already stopped obeying me and made an idol in the shape of a young bull. They bowed down to it, sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, Israel!’”

When Moses got close to the camp and saw the bull and the people dancing around, he was furious. He threw the tablets of commandments down, smashing them to smithereens! Then he took the calf, burned it up, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it. The next day, Moses said to the people, “This thing you have done is a great sin. But I will go up to the LORD to see if I can do something to remove the offense of your sin.” Moses attempted to be a mediator between God and the Israelites.

So Moses went to the LORD and cried, “How great is this people’s sin! They made gods of gold. Please forgive their sin—but if not, blot me out of the book you have written.”

The LORD responded, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. But go, lead the people to the place I told you about; my angel will go before you. But know this: when the time comes, I will punish them for their sin.”

So the LORD punished the people with a terrible disease for what they did with the idol.