“And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.” Exodus 34: 8-9
Moses, the man God called to deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, who performed signs and wonders unlike anything the world had ever seen before, whose staff parted the Red Sea but only after his fear and reluctance to approach the King of Egypt to beg for his people’s deliverance; whose life was marked by courage, character, and obedience, but also the sins of murder and unbelief. It’s true that Moses wasn’t a perfect archetype of Christ, but there is something quite wonderful in the story of the Israelites’ deliverance that shows us a beautiful picture of the Lion of Judah who was to come.
A quick recap of Exodus 32: God called Moses up to Mount Sinai to give him the 10 commandments, the famous laws that would show these former slaves how to live Godly, healthy lives. While Moses is receiving the 10 commandments, the people of Israel start to grumble (again). This time their complaint is “As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Exodus 32:2 (As a side note, I always think this verse is funny, like they actually don’t know what happened to Moses? Or were they looking for an excuse to worship something else? I think there might be a lesson in here about taking our eyes off of what we know to be true, that leads us to create a god in our own image.)
Anyways, the Israelites say they just don’t know where Moses went, so Aaron, Moses’ brother and the high priest who has literally just recieved several pages of instructions on how to worship YAHWEH in His Holy Sanctuary (see Exodus 19-31), decided to melt down some gold rings and create the golden calf. We know the rest of the story; the people start dancing and singing to a calf made of metal perhaps only days after being given the command to not go near Mount Sinai, because it is God’s holy mountain, and if they touch it they will die. So the Israelites have a pretty good idea of God’s power, and His holiness…but they worship the calf anyway. Why?? I’ve always wondered this, but I think part of the reason was that God wasn’t moving quickly enough for them. A good friend brought this up, and I think it makes total sense, that when we perceive that God isn’t acting quickly enough in our lives, we start looking around for something else to worship. Yikes.
Back to the Israelites…they did a bad thing, and they knew it. When Moses confronted Aaron about it, and said, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us…..So they gave it [the gold] to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.” Exodus 32:21-24
Several noteworthy things in this exchange:
When confronted with his sin, Aaron lied about his actions. Earlier in Exodus 32:4, it says, “And he [Aaron] received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf.”
Aaron’s lies not only sought to exonerate himself, but to blame the people of Israel for causing him to sin.
Aaron’s lies pointed to his inability to be a blameless high priest for the people of Israel. How could he atone for the people, while he himself was a sinner?
In contrast, Moses:
When confronted with the sin of the Israelites, Moses took action. “Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, ‘Who is on the LORD’s side? Come to me.” Moses then instructed the sons of Levi to kill those in the camp who had worshiped the golden calf.
Moses took responsibility for the people’ sin, even though it wasn’t his fault. And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.” Exodus 34: 8-9
Moses interceded on behalf of the people, begging God to save them, even putting himself forth as a substitute. “But now if you will forgive their sin — but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.” Exodus 32:32
And for these reasons, Moses is also the picture of the coming Messiah, the Christ, who would not just save the Israelites, but all people, from their sins. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Jesus came to call us out of our sin of idol worship, but He also came to give us the righteousness of God. Think about that: the righteousness that is alien to us — we were all like Aaron, worshiping idols and blaming other people for it — that sin, Christ took, and exchanged it so that we would be clothed in His perfect robes of righteousness. When Moses asked God to “take us for your inheritance”, this is the inheritance that’s been granted to those of us who are in Christ.
What an amazing truth that the story of Moses points us toward.