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Exo_32:1-6
Of all these transactions, the space to which we are limited allows us only to notice particularly the sin of Israel in the matter of their setting up and worshipping the golden calf during the protracted absence of Moses in the mount in his high intercourse with God. We do this the rather seeing that the transaction has been much misunderstood. Some, conceiving that it amounted to a renunciation of the God who had brought them out of Egypt, and whom they had solemnly accepted as their King, have used this as a handle for discrediting the miracles which attended that deliverance. It is argued, in effect, that it is morally impossible that a people who had witnessed such great miracles of God, should so soon have called his being and sovereignty in question; therefore, no such miracles were witnessed by them—none such were performed. The plain answer to this is, that the Israelites did not deny their God or question his being—they transgressed, not the first commandment, but the second. They made an image after the imagination of their own hearts, or rather after the notion they had imbibed in Egypt, to represent or symbolize the Lord, debasing “their Glory to the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.” This simple view of the matter renders all the obscure parts of the history, as commonly understood, very easy of explanation.
Moses had been away in the mountain no less than six weeks, when the people began to give vent to their uneasiness at the absence of the leader to whom they looked to give effect to their new institutions, and to lead them out of the wilderness into their promised heritage. Impelled by these feelings, they presented themselves in a tumultuous manner to Aaron, with a proposal which, however deplorable, conveys no intimation of a wish to renounce the authority of Moses, or to abandon their fealty to their divine King. They said, in effect, Since Moses, who undertook to be our leader, and to whom, if he were present, we should address ourselves, delays his return so long, make then for us an image, through which we may address our worship to the God whom we have taken for our guide. In estimating the force and purport of this application, it should be recollected that the tabernacle and the ritual worship were not yet established, nor the ark with its hovering cherubim established in the sanctuary; so that they had not then the visible symbols and forms of service which they afterwards possessed, and the need of which, to them, this very application strikingly manifests. In fact, Moses was at the very cry time receiving instructions in the mount for the mode in which a form of visible service was to be establishing among them; ignorant of which, and yet craving something of the kind, they were resolved to set up a form of service and symbols for themselves, although they were still willing that the brother and representative of Moses should give effect to their wish. We shall fail to apprehend aright the reason for these things being recorded, if we do not see in all this a clear indication of the peculiar fitness of the material and sensible forms of worship, which were conceded to them, for a people like the Israelites. Nor can this tendency in their be estimated fairly, unless we recollect that there was not then in the world any people who could, more than they, understand or be satisfied with a worship purely spiritual.
The proposal was, however, a clear infraction of the second commandment; and Aaron, at least, could not be ignorant of this, though, from his conduct in the matter, it may be doubted whether even he was fully sensible of the criminality of their request. His conduct now lacked the simple firm-handed rectitude and singleness of purpose which we find in Moses, and shows how wisely God had chosen, between these brothers, the one who should be the leader of his people, while yet employing the other for such service as his more showy gifts and capacities qualified him to render. Aaron seems to have temporized in the dread that his opposition would have urged the people to cast off the authority they were still willing to recognize; or the manner in which he met the proposal may be regarded as having been dictated by policy, and conceived in the hope, that if he could not, by interposing the force of selfish motives, arrest the progress of the scheme, he might delay its accomplishment until Moses should return, and by his authority stay further proceedings. It required from them a sacrifice which he might hope they would not be very ready to make, and which could not, at all events, be accomplished without some expense of time. “Break off,” he said, “the ear-rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.” He had under-rated the earnestness of the people, if he supposed their ardor was to be thus chilled. In a very little time the required ear-rings were produced, and Aaron found himself involved in an implied engagement from which he had not the courage to recede; and he proceeded to cause a symbolical representation of the Almighty to be made in the form to which they had been used in Egypt, where the most honored of the gods was worshipped under the similitude of a bull. As to the form, called in contempt a “calf,” there cannot be a doubt that it was that of the Egyptian god Apis, or the corresponding Mnevis of Lower Egypt, primarily represented by a living bull, and by various images of that bull dispersed throughout the land. An image must have some form or other—and while the familiarity of this symbol in Egypt would suggest it most readily to the mind, it is certain, that whatever symbol had been chosen, the same question might still have been raised. Why this symbol rather than another?—and probably we should not, with regard to any other, have found so obvious an explanation.
Much question has been raised as to the mode in which this image was executed. In the text we read, “He received them at their hands, and fashioned it with a graven tool, after he had made it a molten calf.” The simplest view of this is, that this idol was a solid molten image, molded, cast, and afterwards touched up with the graving tool, in the ordinary style of finishing. To this idea, it is admitted, that no objection can be brought, either from the particular recital of the circumstances, or from the general state of art at the time. The great quantity of precious metal requisite on this plan, and uselessly consumed, or else the very small size of the idol, presents the only ground of suspecting its correctness. It would, however, have been only a higher step in mechanical practice, and by no means beyond the existing resources, while it is equally consistent with the sacred text, to suppose that the image was a perfect molten work, cast hollow, and consequently modeled with more dexterity. But there is another class of opinions in this matter, proceeding upon the view that the idolatrous work in question was one of laminated art. In such a case, the inner substance must have been formed of some soft and easily carved material, as wax in miniature, and clay or wood in large figures. The case, or frame-work, being thus quickly finished, could be rapidly covered over with thin plates of the external coating, which, in the instance before us, was of gold. These laminae either overlapped at the edges, or were fitted into each other. The facility with which such a work could be executed suits the exigency in question, while the beauty and utility of similar artistic operations are abundantly proved by the earlier works of the Greeks, and by the wonderful chryselaphantine sculptures of Phidias. Of the archaic specimens of this art, we still possess such information as seems clearly to demonstrate that to this species of art belonged the sculpture of Aaron. Pausanius describes a statue of Jupiter by Learchus—the most ancient then known—having been executed in the eighth century before our era, formed of plates of brass hammered round, and fastened by rivets, with a “case” or “foundation” of wood—exactly as the calf in the wilderness is supposed to have been constructed. Of this character are all the most ancient metallic statues; and to this description of sculpture all the accounts of the art to be found in Homer refer. A head of Osiris, with the internal wooden nucleus still subsisting within the metal coating, has been published among the antiquities of the Dilettante Society; and other examples of the similar application of ivory exist. Thus the earliest classic records lead us up to Egyptian practice—for from Egypt all admit the parentage of ancient art—and thence we easily obtain the most probable idea of the true nature of Aaron’s performance—“Israel’s molten god.” Note: Dr. Memes on Fine Art among the Jews—in Journal of Sacred Literature, vol. iii. pp. 69, 70.
The people received the image with gladness, and hailed it as the symbol of the God which had brought them out of the land of Egypt—a clear indication that they did not intend it to represent any other god. Note: The Authorized Version does indeed convey the impression that it did. “These be thy gods, O Israel, that brought thee out of the land of Egypt!” but the words rendered “gods” is simply the name of God in its usual plural form Elohim, and translated “God,” except when supposed, by the translators, to apply to idols, as here. But the mere fact, that the image itself was but one, shows that the plural is here very improperly employed. When Aaron witnessed the enthusiasm with which the image was received by the people, he knew that they would not brook delay in celebrating the rites of worship before it; and, therefore, still bent on keeping the objects of the service in a right direction, he caused an altar to be set up before the image, and proclaimed throughout the camp that the morrow was to be regarded as a feast to Jehovah. That feast the people rose the next morning early—so eager were they—to celebrate before their new bauble, and after the fashion in which such feasts were held by idolaters. Profusely did they offer the flesh of their cattle, and the wine of drink offering; and then, as was the custom, they sat down to feast upon the remainder of that which had been offered. When they had feasted, and their senses were excited by wine, they rose to the dances, and games, and wanton sports, which formed then, and do still form, the mode in which the rites of some (not all) idols were celebrated. This was probably among the things that Aaron dreaded, but could not prevent, after his temporizing conduct had given a sort of sanction to their proceedings. How much more becoming, had he from the first raised his voice on high against their device, which he knew, however they may have glozed it, to be in direct contradiction to the commandment which had but lately been given, in an audible utterance, from amidst the terrors of Sinai. It is true they might have slain him. The probability, however, seems to be that they would not have gone so far. But what if they had? Moses would have died—we can feel sure of that—rather than have moved one inch in this evil way. And they who undertake to lead a people into new ways of righteousness and truth—as Aaron as well as Moses did—should be at all times ready to give their life’s blood to evince the earnestness of their purpose, and to show forth their own conviction of the supreme importance of the objects they set before the people. No man is truly great who has not before him great objects for which he would think it worth his while to die. Yet, nevertheless, it is true that the real martyr spirit is rare in every age. It was rare in that age—it is rare in this.