Deuteronomy 9:7-24

The Voice

⁷Remember—don’t forget—how you kept infuriating Him in the wilderness. From the day you came out of Egypt until the day you arrived here, you’ve been rebelling against Him.

⁸Even at Horeb, you infuriated Him. The Eternal got so angry with you He was ready to destroy you! ⁹When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets—the tablets of the covenant He made with you—I stayed on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights. I didn’t eat or drink anything all that time, preparing myself to receive these holy words. ^10-11At the end of those 40 days and nights, the Eternal gave me those two stone tablets of the covenant. On them He’d engraved with His own finger everything He told you on the day you gathered at the mountain, when He spoke to you from inside the fire. ¹²The Eternal told me, “Get up, and go back down the mountain as fast as you can! While you’ve been up here surrounded by My holiness, the people you led out of Egypt have become corrupt! How quickly they’ve left the path I commanded them to stay on. They’ve melted gold and poured it into a mold and made themselves an idol! ¹³I’ve seen how stubborn and obstinate these people are. ¹⁴Don’t try to stop Me—I’m going to destroy them! I’ll wipe out every last trace of them under the sky, and I’ll make a bigger and stronger nation out of just you.”

¹⁵The mountain was still blazing with fire as I hurried back down it, carrying the two covenant tablets in my hands. ¹⁶I saw with my own eyes how you had sinned against the Eternal, your True God: you’d cast an idol in the shape of a young bull!

This young bull is made in imitation of the Canaanite fertility gods. The bull is a prominent symbol of Baal. Creating this idol requires a long, intentional process of collecting enough precious metal for a statue, melting it down and purifying it, pouring it into a mold that also has to be designed and crafted, and making sure the statue cools evenly so that it doesn’t break apart. (Perhaps the Israelites learned these crafts by observation or practice in Egypt.) This was no casual slip into an unintentional religious compromise. This is a deliberate embrace of a god other than the Lord, right at the moment when He is drawing up His covenant of love with Israel. They are as unfaithful to the Lord as a person who has an affair while on his honeymoon!

Moses: How quickly you left the path the Eternal commanded you to stay on. ¹⁷Right before your eyes I took the two tablets, hurled them onto the ground, and smashed them to pieces. ¹⁸I went back up the mountain, and for another 40 days and nights I prostrated myself before Him, lying face down on the ground in grief and petition, not eating or drinking anything as before. You had sinned so seriously—you did what the Eternal had just told you was wrong, and this made Him furious! ¹⁹I was afraid^[a] He was so violently angry with you that He’d destroy you, as He said He would. But one more time, the Eternal One listened to me, and He spared you. ²⁰I had to pray particularly for Aaron because the Eternal was furious with him for making the idol—He would have killed my brother! ²¹I took the calf idol you made, that embodiment of your sin, and I burned it up. Then I crushed what was left, ground it into tiny pieces until it was as fine as dust, and threw the dust into the riverbed that rushes down the mountain.

²²You and your parents were always making the Eternal furious! At Taberah, you whined and complained;^[b] at Massah, you were sure the Lord was going to let you die of thirst;^[c] at Kibroth-hattaavah, you said you were sick of the food He provided!^[d] ²³At Kadesh-barnea, when you finally reached the promised land,^[e] the Eternal sent you in: “Go and take possession of the land—I’ve given it to you!” But you defied this direct order from the Eternal, your True God! You didn’t trust Him, and you didn’t listen to His voice. ²⁴You’ve been rebelling against Him from the day I met you!