These Are Your Gods, Israel
1 When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.” 2 Aaron said to them, “Take off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 All the people took off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 He received what they handed him, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a molded calf. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation, and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh.” 6 They rose up early on the next day, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. 7 Yahweh spoke to Moses, “Go, get down; for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves! 8 They have turned away quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’” 9 Yahweh said to Moses, “I have seen these people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore leave me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of you a great nation.” 11 Moses begged Yahweh his God, and said, “Yahweh, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, that you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians talk, saying, ‘He brought them out for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the surface of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath, and turn away from this evil against your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the sky, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 So Yahweh turned away from the evil which he said he would do to his people.
The nation does not change gods; it makes an image of the one it has, and Moses argues God out of destroying them.
When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.”
Forty days. The covenant they agreed to three times is not yet a year old, and the fire is still visible on the summit. What they cannot tolerate is not absence but delay, and the request is for something that will go before us — a visible leader to replace the one who has not come back.
Aaron does not refuse. He asks for their gold, takes it, and fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a molded calf Exodus 32:4 — a young bull, the standard image of strength and fertility in Egypt and Canaan alike.
The words that follow are the key to the whole episode. These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt Exodus 32:4. And Aaron's next move: he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation, and said, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh" Exodus 32:5.
Nobody has changed gods. The name is right, the deliverance credited is the right deliverance, and the festival is announced in Yahweh's name. What has happened is that the second commandment has been broken while the first is loudly kept. This is the sin of the golden calf, and it is not apostasy in the ordinary sense; it is worship of the true God through an object that can be seen, carried, and controlled — which is precisely what the commandment forbade Exodus 20:4, and precisely why the two commandments are separate.
They rose up early on the next day, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
The last verb is doing considerable work, and Paul quotes this verse when warning against idolatry 1 Corinthians 10:7.
Yahweh spoke to Moses, “Go, get down; for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves!
Your people, whom you brought up. The pronouns have shifted, and Moses will shift them back in his reply. Then the offer: leave me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of you a great nation Exodus 32:10.
It is a real offer and it is also a test, and the phrase leave me alone is an invitation as much as a dismissal — it tells Moses exactly where the door is and that it is not locked. He does not take it. Nothing in his answer concerns himself, and it rests on three grounds, none of them the merit of Israel: they are God's own people, brought out by his own power Exodus 32:11; Egypt would draw the wrong conclusion Exodus 32:12; and there is an oath sworn to three dead men Exodus 32:13.
So Yahweh turned away from the evil which he said he would do to his people.
The sentence is startling and should not be softened into a change of appearance only. What it records is an intercession that mattered — offered by a man who had been given the chance to become a nation himself and argued instead for the people who had just abandoned him.
settled What this mark means