HE MOST momentous act of idolatry in the Old Testament
IDOLATRY
1. THE GOLDEN CALF
HE MOST momentous act of idolatry in the Old Testament | was that recorded of the children of Israel when they demanded of Aaron during Moses' absence in Sinai that he make them gods (Exod. xxxi. 1ff.).
What was the matter with this giddy multitude? (a) They were weary of waiting for the promised land. 'They thought themselves detained too long at Mount Sinai, though there they lay very safe and very easy, well fed and well taught, yet they were straining to go forward. They had a God who stayed with them, and manifested His presence with them by the cloud; but that would not serve—they must have a god to "go before them'. They were for hastening to "the land flowing with milk and honey", and cannot stay to take their religion along with them.
(b) They were weary of waiting for the return of Moses. When he went up into the Mount he had not told them, for God had not told him, how long he must stay. Therefore, when he had outstayed their time, though they were in every way well provided for in his absence, some evil people advanced I know not what surmises concerning his delay.
(c) They were weary of waiting for a divine institution of religious worship among them. They were told that they must "serve God in this mountain"', and fond enough they would be of the pomp and ceremony of it; but because that was not appointed them so soon as they wished, they would set their own wits on work to devise signs of God's presence with them, and would glory in them, and have a worship of their own invention, probably such as they had seen among the Egyptians. Stephen remarked that when they said unto Aaron '"' Make us gods"' they did in heart turn back into Egypt (Acts vii. 39, 40).
This was a very strange motion, "'Up, make us gods." If they did not know what had become of Moses, and thought him lost, the decent thing would have been for them to have
Idolatry ES appointed a solemn mourning for him for certain days. But see how soon a great benefactor is forgotten. If they had said, "Moses is lost, make us a governor'', there would have been some sense in that. But to say "Moses is lost, make us a god"' was the greatest absurdity imaginable. Was Moses their God? Had he ever pretended to be so? Whatever was become of Moses, was it not evident beyond contradiction that God was still with them? And had they any room to question his leading of their camp who fed them so well every day? Could they have any other God who would provide so well for their needs as He had done—nay, as He now did?
Yet they cry, "Make us gods, which shall go before us." Gods! How many would they have? Is not one sufficient? "Make us gods'? And what good would gods of their own making do them? They must have such gods to go before them as could not go themselves farther than they were carried.
So wretchedly besotted and intoxicated are idolators; "they are mad upon their idols" (Jer. i. 38).
So Aaron made them a calf, and, seeing that they were fond of it, was willing yet further to humour them. He "built an altar before it'', and proclaimed a feast to the honour of it (Exod. xxxii. 5), a feast of dedication. Yet he calls it a feast to Jehovah, for, as brutish as they were, they did not imagine that this image was itself a god, nor did they design to terminate their adoration in the image. They made it for a representation of the true God, whom they intended to worship in and through this image.
The people "rose up early on the morrow" to show how well pleased they were with the solemnity, and, according to the ancient rites of worship, they offered sacrifice to this newmade deity, and then feasted upon the sacrifice. Thus having at the expense of their earrings made their god, they endeavour, at the expense of their beasts, to make this god propitious. Had they offered their sacrifices immediately to Jehovah, without the intervention of an image, they might (for ought I know) have been accepted (Exod. xx. 24). But having set up an image before them, as a symbol of God's presence, and so changed the truth of God into a lie, these sacrifices were an abomination, nothing could be more so. When this idolatry of theirs is spoken of in the New Testament, the account of this feast upon the sacrifice is quoted and referred to (1 Cor. x. 7). They ''sat down to eat and drink"' of the remainder of what had been