Reflection on Exodus 32:7-14

Wootten R CWTH4010 Assign 2

Write a reflection on one of the following texts below

This should include a discussion of the text’s meaning in its original context and theological reflection on its relevance to contemporary Christian life and witness.

Genesis 1:24-31

Exodus 32:7-14

Deuteronomy 17:14-20

1 Samuel 15:17-26

Introduction:

In this reflection I have chosen Exodus 32:7-14. This paper will review the passage, look at the theology behind it and its original context and. examine its relevance to Christian life today In order to ensure the passage is fully understood in its original context, it is necessary to reference other parts of the Bible as well as review modern scholars and their interpretations. It is necessary to explore the possible author(s) of the passage/text along with attempting to draw some conclusions as to who the passage was originally intended for and what it may have meant to them. In this essay we will also examine what this may mean to us today.

Setting the context:

The answer as to who wrote the books of the Old Testament is unclear at best. One way of validating ancient books and documents is to compare the document with other texts and books of the same time. It was almost impossible to do this with regard to the Old Testament until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, however Marc Brettler suggests in his essay that researchers were able to date certain books in the Bible due to the fact that some books are written in a style of Biblical Hebrew (Brettler, 2012) whereas others are written in Greek or Aramaic which dates them based on when the languages were popular and more widely used. As a result, the Torah was attributed to Moses until the 19^th Century. However, Robert C. Walton discusses in his book the theory that it may not have been Moses but his acolytes that wrote the Torah. The evidence suggested within Walton’s book is that it may not have been Moses who wrote the Torah as it contains details of Moses’ death and also contains material from later times, (Walton, 1980). This is pertinent as Exodus 32:7-14 falls within the Torah and it is important to understand the context of which we are working in. Whoever the author(s), we can be sure that we were not the intended audience, as it is understood that when writing the Torah, it was most likely aimed at those people at that time. Due to much later historical records we now understand that they were not writing the Bible as we know it today. It was developed into a Canon of Scripture around the 5^th Century CE. The Life Application Study Bible helpfully gives a preface to each of the biblical books. For Exodus, it voices the opinion that the original audience would have been the people of Israel (James C. Galvin, 2005).

Prior to verses 7-14, Moses had gone up to Mount Sinai for the first time. Whilst he was there, his brother Aaron was ministering to people. The people had become disillusioned and turned away from God looking for other Gods to worship. Aaron asked them to take off their earrings and fashioned them into a golden calf.

At the time of the early Israelites, the surrounding areas were more motivated towards polytheism than monotheism and in turn, idolatry. Babylon to the north-east and Egypt to the south had both developed polytheist religions. It is therefore reasonable to accept that the people of Israel were used to worshiping idols and a pantheon of Gods as a result of interaction with those nations and trade. Thus, when Moses is made aware of the fact that they had been making sacrifices to the calf it would be upsetting but not a surprise to him.

Reflecting on the passage:

Verse 7 is interesting as God says, ‘Go down, because your people whom you brought up out of Egypt…’. Yet in verse 11 Moses reverses this when he says to God ‘…Whom you brought up out of Egypt’. What is most interesting here is the acknowledgment of one to the other of their role in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt and freeing them from slavery and persecution. To an observer, it almost seems as though God is identifying with humanity in his statement to Moses, or alternatively that they both acknowledge once again that Moses is an instrument of God.

In verses 7-8, God tells Moses to go back down the mountain as the people have abandoned Yahweh and turned back to worshipping false idols. As previously stated, idolatry was not uncommon in the area in those times, however, God had been in conference with Moses on Mount Sinai. The first commandment is ‘You shall have no other God before me’ yet, in a matter of approximately forty days, they had broken this commandment.

In verses 9-14 Moses appeals to Yahweh not to anger at his people nor to destroy them and because of this appeal, God’s wrath becomes defused. This implies God changed his mind (Howe, 1992). However, in his Exodus Commentary, Alan Cole suggests that God didn’t change his mind but rather that God regretted something that he was about to do (Cole, 1977). Cole therefore does not believe that Moses altered God’s mind. Malachi 3:6 supports this theory as it states, ‘I am the Lord, I do not change…’. Another supporting approach is that God sits outside of time (Brace, 2005), therefore, regretting a decision that has currently not been carried out is feasible. However, much later in the Bible we have a reference to God changing his mind in Jonah 3:10 where God had seen that the people of Nineveh had turned from their evil ways and He relented. There are many other examples on similar terms to this such as in 2 Samuel 24:16 where the Lord had sent a plague on Israel and an angel to destroy Jerusalem. Thus, the process theologian would look to Exodus 32 and see in the text evidence that God can change.

Moses, in his appeal to God in verse 12, asks God to consider what the Egyptians may say of the people of Israel. Israel is dear to Moses and to think of the Egyptians speaking of Israel harshly would be disturbing to him. Also, as Yahweh is the God of Israel, it would have been objectionable to think of the God of Israel as weak or unable to keep his people from polytheism (Benson, 2004). In Verse 13 Moses reminds God of Abraham, Isaac and the promise to make their descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. In his appeal to Yahweh, Moses is, in effect saying if Israel is cut off what would happen to the covenant made with the patriarchs.

In the Life Application Study Bible an alternative view is expressed in the commentary that God was willing to forgive His people and show mercy (James C. Galvin, 2005).

This passage suggests to us that God is omnipotent, forgiving and merciful.

Relevance to Christian Life and witness:

Since the New Testament we consider God to be a much more merciful God than how he was portrayed in the Old testament, which is why many Christians skip over the Old Testament or just consider it setting the scene for Jesus’s appearance. However. the Old Testament is much more than that.

In verse 10 we have what many Christians dislike about the Old Testament – an angry God willing to wipe out all of the people and start again. Here is the dichotomy – God, although portrayed as angry, was willing to show mercy. Therefore, we have the God traditionally characterised by the New Testament. There are many times in the Old Testament that God has, or at least threatened to, strike out at humanity. If we look at Numbers 14:12, we can see that God promised to make them, the people of Israel, into a great nation after He threatens to destroy them, much like He does in Exodus 32:10.

Rolf Jacobson argues via his website that the reason the early Israelites had lost their way was that they had lost their spiritual leader and as such lost sight of God and their direction (Jacobson, 2010). It is perhaps fair to say that many people in the western world have lost sight of God and lost their direction as many people in today’s society are happier to follow the celebrity on Instagram than attend the local church.   

In contemporary society we tend to worship new idols. We only have to look at the cult of celebrity and the worship that people give them. Idols do not have to be actual images of God but could easily be money, fame, status, power or material things that mark status or power. Some Protestants may argue that the Catholic faith worships idols in their appeal to the images of the saints and statues to Jesus (Kreeft, 2017). Mark Clavier discusses consumerism and our worship of the consumer state in his 2019 book ‘On Consumer Culture Identity the Church and the Rhetorics of Delight’. In his research he suggests that the church has to compete with the massive marketing machine that keeps our consumer driven society motivated. (Clavier, 2019)

What we cannot know from the Bible passage relating to Aaron is whether he was just trying to appease the people and keep everyone settled until Moses’ return or did he revert to the old ways of worshiping idol-gods. What we do know is that Moses’ people had committed a sin. Clavier goes on to explain that sin is addictive and likens it to Gollum from ‘Lord of the Rings’ in that sin becomes ‘our precious’  (Clavier, 2019).

Conclusion

To conclude in this reflection, I have reviewed Exodus 32:7-14. When considering the original context, it is important to remember that we were not the original audience. There is a school of thought among many theologians and scholars about God changing his mind or, as according to Cole, not changing His mind but regretting the decision he was about to make. The Bible has a number of instances where God has done this.

If we believe the Torah to be written by Moses’ contemporaries after his death, we must ask the question; why include this? I believe that Exodus 32;7-14 is primarily an illustration of the peoples’ sin and the failure of the law. Its inclusion in the Old Testament was to remind people not to stray from the laws of God. Like many of the books in the Old Testament its inclusion makes us think and leads us towards faith. Bringing that into the Christian perspective we can also understand that to mean we should be following Gods path. When Jesus was asked which of the commandments was the most important he replied in Matthew 22:37 ‘Love the Lord with all your heart and with all soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself. ⁴⁰ All the Law and Prophets hang on the two commandments’. If we were able to keep just those two commandments, we would be a much more peaceful society.

Bibliography

Brace, R. A., 2005. DOES GOD DWELL WITHIN, OR....... OUTSIDE OF TIME?. [Online]
Available at: http://www.ukapologetics.net/2godoutoftime.htm
[Accessed 24th March 2019].

Brettler, E. &. H., 2012. The Bible and the Believer. First ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Clavier, M., 2019. On Consumer Culture Identity The Church and the Rhetorics of Delight. London: Bloomsbury.

Cole, A., 1977. Exodus. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press.

Jacobson, R., 2010. Commentary on Exodus 32:7-14. [Online]
Available at: https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=751
[Accessed 17th March 2019].

James C. Galvin, 2005. Life Application Bible (NIV). London: Hodder and stoughton .

Kreeft, P., 2017. Catholics and Protestants - What Can We Learn from Each Other. 1st ed. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

Walton, R. C., 1980. A Basic Introduction to the Old Testament. London : SCM Press.