Wednesday, Oct. 2
Exodus 32:1 – 33:6 Read it here
Even as God is providing direction to Moses as to how the people are to worship him, back at the camp they are growing impatient.
Much later a psalmist will write “Be still and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46:10), but both stillness and recognition that God is God require discipline and maturity that’s difficult to master. The people are unsure they can trust Moses and this God he speaks of, so they return to more familiar ways.
What we see called a “calf” is probably a young bull, similar to the Egyptian god Apis. To the Egyptians this was a god of power and fertility whose worship would have looked much like the raucous scene Moses and Joshua returned from the mountain to find.
While both Moses and God are angry at this unfaithful display, Moses is quick to intercede on behalf of the people. God first says he will destroy the people and start over with Moses as the founder of a great nation (similar to what happened with Noah and the ark).
Yet, when Moses pleads for the lives of the people, God relents. There is still punishment in the form of many deaths and a plague, but the extended family of Abraham lives on to eventually make its way to the promised land. God’s promise and his people live on, injured but not destroyed.
This is far from the first, or last, time we will see God’s anger reduced by the pleas of a righteous follower. If there were ever a reminder of the importance of the faithful lifting up prayers of intercession, this is it.