Exodus 32-40
Introduction
This lesson completes the study of the book of Exodus, from the golden calf disaster to the finalization of the Tabernacle and God’s presence at the Tent of Meeting. Again, please refer to these resources as well: this commentary, the NETS Bible, and this LXX Interlinear.
Exo. 32
The previous lesson went over the solemn, careful procedure to ratify the conditional covenant between God and Israel, and Moses’ 40-day meeting alone with God. Now we see that the people have quickly become impatient, and the guardians Moses appointed were nothing of the sort. Israel, including Aaron and the elders, seem to have an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude in spite of all the signs, miracles, plagues, fires, noises, and their own repeated words of allegience to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were afraid of God’s presence and asked for an intermediary, but this put just enough distance between themselves and God to erase their memory.
As the saying goes, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play”, and that’s exactly what Israel does. Aaron volunteers to make a calf-shaped idol for them out of their gold jewelry and says, “These are (plural) your gods who brought you out of Egypt!” So they make sacrifices to the idol, then have a feast and a wild party. The first 3 commandments were already broken, and now they pretty much break the rest. They have made a god in their image, with their own hands, a cheap substitute that could make no demands— and no promises.
At this point, God tells Moses what’s happening, and he refers to the Israelites as your people. Then he basically tells Moses to stand back while he wipes them all out and starts over with him. But Moses, the intercessor, pleads for their lives, and he reminds God that if he destroys Israel, the Egyptians will scoff at him and say he only led them out of Egypt to kill them— which is exactly what the Israelites kept saying to Moses as they traveled. So God backs off, and this brings up an interesting observation: that our prayers can indeed move the hands of God, who in his sovereignty allows us a significant amount of free will, of choices within boundaries. It may well be that God allows certain things to happen just to see whether we’ll try to intercede or offer points for him to consider. And it could also be that God was testing Moses as a mediator.
So Moses goes back down the mountain accompanied by Joshua, who hears the roar of the crowd and says “They’re at war!” But Moses says, “No, they’re singing and partying!” And when they get close enough to see as well as hear, Moses does what a lot of us do when we’re outraged: throw something― in this case the stone tablets written by God Himself― and they shatter. Why not, since Israel had already shattered the covenant in every other way?
Next Moses takes the idol, melts it in the fire, grinds it to a powder, scatters it on the water, and makes all the people drink it. (Do you think maybe he’s a little upset?) As the ultimate insult to them and their idol, by drinking the gold it was made from, they would literally defacate this false god.
As an interesting side note, Constable makes a connection between this drinking of the gold dust with the later test of adultery in Numbers 5:24. Here, Israel has committed adultery against God and is made to drink dust. In Numbers, if a husband suspected his wife of adultery, he would take her to the temple, and the priest would make her drink water with dust in it from the temple floor. If she survived she was innocent.
This seems barbaric to us, but not only does it stand as a testimony to the unfaithfulness of the whole nation, it also formally acquits an innocent woman who has been falsely accused in a public place, and publicly shames the husband who tried to ruin her life. Because of this risk, husbands would have to think twice before making rash accusations against their wives, who would be destitute if divorced. Again, God is protecting the most vulnerable members of society from those with power.
Now as angry as Moses obviously is, he still saves them from complete extinction, but there’s a price to pay. He confronts his brother Aaron, who makes up the lamest excuse since Adam: He shifts blame to the people, then claims that the calf formed itself out of the fire!
Of course Moses isn’t buying it at all. And as he sees that Israel’s enemies are gloating over the people running wild since Aaron utterly failed to control them, he shouts out to the people: “Whoever is still loyal to God, come stand with me!”, and only the tribe of Levi comes. So he tells the men of Levi to get their swords and go kill all the others. Verse 28 totals the dead at 3,000 men, so clearly not every single person was killed. But because of their loyalty and devotion to God even if it meant punishing their own people, the Levites are designated the priestly tribe. In the Genesis study we made note of the fact that Levi himself was a scoundrel, but that his tribe would later redeem themselves, and this is when that happens.
At this point, Moses returns to the presence of God to make atonement for their sin, even to the point of offering to trade his own life for theirs. God replies that he will only take out those who remain rebellious, and he sends a plague on them for now, but complete punishment will be delayed.
Exo. 33
Here we see that they will break camp and move toward the Promised Land, but they will go without God’s immediate presence. Almost sarcastically, God gives the reason: If he goes with them, he just might kill them after all! Though God has not completely abandoned Israel, there is now great strain between them because of their shallow character. Constable’s chart for this passage shows point-by-point how the restored covenant is much more restrictive than the original.
Of particular importance is that the Tent of Meeting would no longer be at the Tabernacle in the center of the camp but at Moses’ tent, which he moves to the outside of the camp to show that Israel had effectively thrown God out of their house. Also, only Moses would see the glory of God from this point on, and the stone tablets are to be replaced.
Now Moses is concerned about the absence of God’s presence as he leads the people out, so God tells him that he’ll at least be with him. But Moses needs assurance in a more concrete way after all that has happened, so God arranges a certain place where Moses can only see a glimpse of his back rather than his face, since to see his face would mean instant death. This reminds me of a story I heard long ago, about a little boy who was afraid of a storm and wanted his parents to stay in his room with him so he could go back to sleep. They assured him that God would protect him, but he replied, “Yes, but I need God with skin on!”
Exo. 34
This is the point where God tells Moses to make new stone tablets. Though verse one says God would write on them, verse 28 says Moses does the writing. The clearest reconciliation of these two verses would be that the words are God’s, but the actual writing is to be done by human hands. The whole procedure is repeated, of Moses going alone up the mountain and spending 40 days with God, who again dictates all those ordinances.
During this time, God seems to add another festival called the Feast of Weeks, which is described in more detail in other passages. But commentators argue that this is actually part of the Feast of Firstfruits; that is, Firstfruits is the first day of the week after the Passover, but it begins the counting off of seven weeks to what this verse calls “a harvest in the middle of the year”, meaning the middle of the harvest season, known to us as Pentecost.
All the feasts from Passover to Pentecost constitute the spring feasts, and you might want to check this source for more detail. As that article points out, Jesus was crucified on Passover, buried on Unleavened Bread, raised on First Fruits, and sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. God always has reaons for his rules.
As Moses returns to the camp, he doesn’t realize that his face is glowing from being with God. Since it disturbs people, he says he’ll cover his face in the future until the glow wears off after each time he meets with God. At least they’d still have some proof that God is with them and Moses is still God’s chosen leader for them.
Exo. 35-40
From this point in the text is a repetition of instructions for Tabernacle materials, which they finally begin to build. Constable puts the timing at about a year after Israel left Egypt, which is 9 months after they arrived at Mt. Sinai/Horeb. When it’s finally finished (ch. 40), God tells Moses exactly what must be done to initiate the use of all this.
When everything is ready, God’s cloud covers the Tent of Meeting and his glory fills it, and whenever the cloud would lift and move, that would be the signal for Israel to break camp and move out. As for the routine from that point on, you might want to see Constable’s notes on Exodus for a handy chart of the ancient Hebrew calendar.
Conclusion
If this study of Exodus has taught us anything, it’s that God allows his people enough freedom to delay or alter his plans, but not enough to ruin his plans. His people are chosen not because of their perfection but in spite of their imperfection. He does everything possible to shower us with blessings and reluctantly uses discipline to keep us from going too far astray.
His laws for Israel were exclusively for them, as his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was for them, mediated and enacted formally through Moses. If Israel obeys, then their blessings can extend to the world. There would be many more speed-bumps to come for the nation of Israel, and a final one remains even in our day. But through the Messiah, the Passover Lamb, blessings to the world have already begun for those who, like Moses and the tribe of Levi, have accepted God’s terms.