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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