Saturday, August 8, 2020

Exodus 32:1-6 comments: Aaron makes a golden calf to worship and the Hebrews engage in a heathen religious orgy




Exodus 32:1 ¶  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 heathen 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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