W. Robert Godfrey

But they are not very attentive.

They are not very careful.

And so in chapter 9,

Moses almost comes back to what he said at chapter five, namely, when you get into the promised land, don't forget what happened at Horeb.

Don't forget the giving of the law.

And then in particular, where does he focus?

He focuses on the golden calf.

It's interesting how often Moses returns to the incident of the golden calf.

It has to have been one of the most traumatic moments of his whole life.

There he comes from fellowshipping with God in the most intimate way on the mountain, receiving from God's own hand the summary of the law and the Ten Commandments, and coming down the mountain to see the whole people of Israel, including Aaron, involved in the worst sort of betrayal of the Ten Commandments.

And so this golden calf incident just lives in his heart and in his memory.

Really one of the very lowest points in the whole history of God's people.

It wasn't just that they made an image.

That was bad enough.

But they made an image and they called it Yahweh.

So it's not just that they made an image of another God, but they have taken God's own holy name and applied it to this image that they made.

And Aaron is consenting to all of this.

And Aaron offers one of the worst justifications of this that you could find almost anywhere in the Bible.

I just took the gold they gave me and I threw it in the fire and out came this calf.

Who believes that?