1 ¶ And when the people saw that Moses delayed to
come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron,
and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for
this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not
what is become of him. 2 And Aaron said
unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your
wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.
3 And all the people brake off the
golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto
Aaron. 4 And he received them at
their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten
calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up
out of the land of Egypt. 5 And when
Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation,
and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. 6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and
offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down
to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
These people who have spent so long in Egypt with the worship of
pagan gods want Aaron to make gods for them to worship. That is what they have
known for hundreds of years and they are quick to abandon the singular devotion
to the magnificent God who created them and called them out of Egypt with such
mighty signs. This is a problem for Christians as we are often not willing to
wait for God to do something in our lives and rather quickly began looking
backwards into the things that we leaned on before we came to Christ.
As far as they were concerned, Moses might have died on the
mountain. Aaron is either a creature of public opinion, maybe afraid of the
masses, or he also doubts whether or not Moses will return. So, he calls for
their earrings.
Earrings had a special significance, which I pointed
out in Genesis. Jewelry played a part in ancient
worship. Earrings were not merely ornamentation for both men and women but
were, scholars tell us, sometimes amulets and charms to protect the openings of
the face and head from entry by evil spirits. They were clearly part of the
idol worship of the ancient world, the spiritual system that developed after
the Flood. If you have difficulty seeing
that side of facial jewelry just look at the hundreds of occult earrings on a
website like Etsy.com. Some verses of note regarding men and women wearing
earrings and of a possible link to their occultic practices are;
Genesis 35:4 And they
gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their
earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was
by Shechem.
Judges 8:24 And
Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that ye would give me
every man the earrings of his prey. (For they had golden earrings, because they
were Ishmaelites.) 25 And they answered,
We will willingly give them. And they spread a garment, and did cast therein
every man the earrings of his prey.
In the passage in
Genesis, chapter 35, and here in Exodus we have a very clear indication that
something linked earrings to the spirit world.
Verse 4 is an astounding statement that makes Aaron
worthy of death. Of course, if you think about it, we do very much the same
thing when we say, “good luck!” or, “oh, how lucky you were.” When we, even
absent-mindedly, attribute our good fortune or our trouble to something or
someone other than God we do blaspheme His name and diminish the glory due Him.
Malachi 2:2 If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory
unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I
will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not
lay it to heart.
Aaron made a molten calf. The calf/bull was a commonly worshipped
as a god in the Ancient Near East and in Egypt. While Moses was receiving what
may have been the introduction of the alphabet over pictographic writing the
Hebrews were falling down to worship the object symbolized by the pictographic
rendering of a calf, a young bull. Aleph, the first letter of Hebrew, is
derived from the pictographic representation of the young bull. Alpha, the
Greek letter, was derived from Aleph. With the ‘alpha-bet’ God removed the
pictures that were worshipped to letters that represented thoughts and ideas
only rather than sacred objects representing thoughts and ideas.
This is a return to Egypt in a religious sense. The ensuing nudity
and orgy was in keeping with the sexual aspects of Ancient Near Eastern
religion. See verse 25 in this chapter coming up.
To explain further, in ancient Greece and Rome orgia was a sacred
word denoting worship in the mystery cults such as that devoted to Dionysus. It
included dancing, singing, and drinking as well as promiscuous sexual behavior.
You cannot underestimate the sexual perversion of ancient religion after the
Flood. The ancient Egyptians practiced every kind of perversion in their
religion.
This was an abomination to God and a corruption of His will for
mankind to enjoy the physical bond between a husband and a wife. Below is a
summary of mankind’s religious history, from Romans, emphasizing the descent
from idolatry to perversion.
Romans 1: 19 ¶ Because that which may be known of God is
manifest in them; for God hath shewed it
unto them. 20 For the invisible things
of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made, even his
eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they
glorified him not as God,
neither were thankful; but became
vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became
fools, 23 And changed the glory of the
uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and
fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness
through
the lusts of their own hearts, to
dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and
worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for
ever. Amen. 26 For this cause God gave them
up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into
that which is against nature: 27 And likewise
also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one
toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in
themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in
their knowledge, God gave them
over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness,
fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate,
deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud,
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers,
without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they
which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have
pleasure in them that do them.
Notice in verse 5 that Aaron is mingling this pagan worship with
the worship of Jehovah God, the LORD. This is something that I discussed before
as absolutely forbidden.
You can imagine God’s wrath as He is about to psychologically
prepare Moses for what Moses is about to see. By God expressing a rage and
alleged intentions to destroy the Hebrew people He affords Moses the
opportunity to plead for mercy as we will see.
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