Exodus 32 – Avenues for Future Study
Sometimes I get picked on because of the length of my sermons. Truth is, most of them are a lot shorter than they could be! (You can thank the Pastor’s Cutting Room Floor for that!) Exodus 32 is a familiar chapter, but packed with controversy and textual puzzles all along the way. When I was done writing this sermon, the word count for my footnotes was greater than the word count for my actual manuscript! I was beginning to worry that I’d need a Cutting Room Floor for my Cutting Room Floor…
Anyway, instead of just picking one or two issues in Exodus 32 to dive into deeper here, I figured it might be fun to list and briefly describe a few areas that might interest the student of God’s Word to study deeper at a later date.
“god or “gods” (32:1, 4) – When the people come against Aaron, they command him to make for them “gods” (ESV) to lead them. A big part of the debate in Exodus 32 is whether the people intended to replace the one true God (Yahweh) or whether they intended to merely represent Him physically with an idol. In other words, are they breaking the first or second commandment?
The Hebrew term elohim can be translated either “God” or “gods” depending on context. Here, in 32:1 and 4, the verbs used are plural, indicating that the proper translation is indeed “gods” (note they also say “These are the gods” in verse 4 instead of “This is the God”). So it is clear that they are talking about a plurality of gods. However, Aaron only makes one calf. And Aaron himself declares a feast to Yahweh (vs 5), not to multiple gods.
This may be Aaron’s attempt at directing the sin of the people (so to speak). In other words, he is trying to move them to a place where they are not violating commandment #1 (no other gods before me) but instead “only” violating commandment #2 (no idols). It’s also possible that the plural is a rhetorical way of telling us they were adopting other religions into theirs (Garrett, Exodus, 616). Some liberal/critical scholars believe the plural is carried over from 1 Kings 12:28, which they believe was written first, and that it refers to the dual idols in Jeroboam’s sin (see below; Noth, Exodus, 248). There are other options as well. At the very least, it makes us pause and consider the nature of their sin and realize that, no matter which way we cut it, idolatry and polytheism seem to be involved in this terrible act of rebellion.
Jeroboam’s Golden Calves (1 Kgs 12:25-33). Following Solomon’s death, the kingdom of Israel split, with the southern half following his son Rehoboam and the northern half following Jeroboam. Since Jeroboam did not have Jerusalem and the temple in his control, he needed a way to “unite” the people in religion, and so he formed two golden calves, one set in Bethel in the south and one set in Dan in the north. The astute reader might recognize many allusions and connections when this text is read next to Exodus 32. To name but one example (besides the obvious “golden calf”), when Jeroboam sets up the calves, he announces, “Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (12:28b ESV). This is a clear echo of Aaron’s words in Exodus 32.
Or is it? Some scholars believe 1 Kings 12 was written first, with Exodus 32 borrowing language from that text. So instead of Jeroboam echoing Aaron, Aaron echoes Jeroboam. Most of these scholars obviously do not hold to a Mosaic authorship of Exodus. Their reasoning comes from the plurality of the word elohim that was discussed above. Though an interesting way to explain the linguistics in Exodus 32, I am not convinced that this view is necessary to understand the Golden Calf narrative, nor is it a respecter of the way Scripture presents itself (namely, with Exodus being written by Moses). Nonetheless, it is an insightful exercise to compare the two passages, which mainly has benefit for the reader in 1 Kings, which is why I did not choose to discuss it in this sermon.
The “singing” (32:17-18) – The short little poem that Moses recites in reaction to Joshua’s observance that “There is a noise of war in the camp” (32:17) has engendered much discussion. To translate ultra-literally:
It is not the sound of singing of strength
It is not the sound of singing of weakness
the sound of singing I am hearing.
Or, more loosely:
They’re not singing because of victory
They’re not singing because of defeat
But they sure are singing.
The Hebrew word I translate “singing” is the same throughout each line, except in the third line it is “pointed” differently by the Masoretes, meaning that an ancient group of scribes saw it conjugated differently than the other two words (even though the letters are the same in all three). Moses was likely trying to communicate that this isn’t “war noise” (celebration after a victory or mourning after a defeat?), but there was something else going on in the camp. What it was, from that far up on the mountain, they could not be sure. Perhaps it was the haphazard rhythm of a paganistic orgy, or the sinful musical dance that worshiped the crass idol. Whatever it was, the poem itself is an interpretive mystery worthy of deep meditation.
“burned… ground… scattered…” (32:20) – When Moses encounters the sin at the camp, the text tells us that he shattered the tablets upon the ground, then took the calf and “burned” it, “ground it to powder” and “scattered it in the water” before making the people drink the water. At first this might seem like a curious order of the verbs. Once the calf was burned, how could it then be “ground”? And apart from this, how is gold “burned” and “ground” anyway?
Some answer this by guessing that the calf was made of wood with gold overlaying it, like many of the Tabernacle artifacts. This is a guess (though not a bad one at all, considering the evidence), but perhaps an even more intriguing answer may lie in the Ugaritic (Canaanite) parallel that describes the goddess Anat’s destruction of another god. You might guess how she does it – she “burns,” “grounds,” and “scatters” his body (Fox, The Five Books of Moses, 445; see ANET 140:ii). This may indicate that this sequence of verbs is a stereotypical description of absolute destruction (Propp, Exodus 19-40, 558). Others think that his actions imitate later destruction of idols. This may be especially true in Deuteronomy’s version of the events (Deut 9; Garrett, Exodus, 628-631).
“drink it” (32:20) – A related problem is the issue of why the Israelites were forced to drink the powdered idol. I breezed over a few possibilities in the sermon, but I thought they might be worth mentioning again here. It could be that this anticipates the “adultery test” of Numbers 5. There, if a woman was suspected of committing adultery but the husband had no proof, he could take her to the priest, and she is to drink a special concoction that would later indicate whether she was guilty or innocent (this is a passage definitely worth reading in full!). Does this drinking test in Exodus 32 reveal who was guilty of the worst of the sin? Could that be connected to who the Levites were to slaughter later in the passage?
Several scholars have a more scatological reason for the drinking. Both Houtman (Exodus V3, 614, 660) and Stuart (Exodus, 678) note that it could be as simple as the idol comes out as waste after the Israelites consume it. And that is what an idol truly is – excrement!
Deut 9:7-21, Neh 9:16-19, Ps 106:19-23, Acts 7:38-43, 1 Cor 10:6-7 – Both Testaments have plenty to say about this particular episode in Israel’s history. An entire sermon could’ve been devoted to the biblical interpretation of this chapter. The references gives here are some of the main passages that give an “interpretive” view of the events, but there are many, many other allusions throughout Scripture. Pay special attention to the way these passages depict the role of Moses, the Israelites and God.
There are numerous other small issues in the text. What exactly is a “graving tool” (32:4). Was the idol cast metal, metal overlaid over wood, and how did the graving tool factor in? Was the slaughter from the Levites a systematic venture or more haphazard (32:27-28)? The issues go on and on.
It’s quite the text, full of surprises and challenges. But the message of the passage is a clear warning against straying from devotion to God and a clear picture of what successful (and non-successful) intercession looks like. It leaves us looking forward to what is to come with the Israelites in chapter 33.
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