The Calf of Gold

Moses was up on the mountain a long time — forty days and forty nights. And down in the camp the people grew tired of waiting. They crowded around Aaron and said, “Get up and make us gods to go in front of us! This Moses, the man who brought us out of Egypt — we do not know what has become of him.” And Aaron said to them, “Take the gold rings out of your ears — yours, and your wives’, and your daughters’ — and bring them to me.” So all the people brought their gold, and Aaron melted it in the fire and shaped it with a tool, and made it into a calf of gold. And they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” And Aaron built an altar in front of it, and the next morning the people got up early and brought offerings to the calf, and sat down to eat and drink, and got up to dance and play.

And up on the mountain the Lord said to Moses, “Go — hurry down. Your people have turned aside from the road I told them to walk in. They have made themselves a calf and bowed down to it. Let me alone now, and in my anger I will make an end of them — and I will make you into a great nation.” But Moses begged for them. He said, “Lord, why should your anger burn against your own people, whom you brought out of Egypt with such great strength? Do not let the Egyptians say you brought them out to destroy them in the mountains. Remember Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, your servants, and the promise you swore to them.” And the Lord had mercy, and did not do the harm he had spoken of.

Then Moses came down the mountain with the two stone tablets in his hands — the writing of God, cut into the stone on both sides. Joshua was waiting for him partway down, and he heard the noise from the camp and said, “There is a sound of war in the camp.” And Moses said, “That is not the sound of men winning a battle, and it is not the sound of men losing one. What I hear is singing.” And when he came near enough to see the calf and the dancing, Moses was so angry that he threw the two tablets out of his hands, and they shattered at the foot of the mountain. He took the golden calf and burned it in the fire, and ground it down to powder, and scattered it on the water. Then he turned to his brother and said, “What did these people do to you, that you brought such a great sin on them?” And Aaron said, “Do not be angry, my lord. You know this people — how quick they are. They said to me, ‘Make us gods.’ So I told them to bring me their gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.” And then Moses stood at the gate of the camp and called out, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me!” — and all the sons of Levi came and stood with him. And he sent them through the camp with swords, and about three thousand people died that day. It was a terrible day.

The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. Now I will go up to God — perhaps I can make it right for you.” So Moses climbed the mountain again and said to the Lord, “I beg you, Lord — these people have sinned a great sin; they made themselves gods of gold. And now, if you will forgive them — forgive. But if you will not, then blot my name out of your book, the book you have written.” And Moses would not go one step further without God. He said, “If you yourself do not go with us, then do not send us up from here at all.” And the Lord said, “I myself will go ahead of you, and I will give you rest.” Then Moses asked for something no one had ever asked for. He said, “Show me your glory.” And the Lord said, “I will pass by in front of you in all my glory, and I will call out my own name. But you cannot see my face — no one can see my face and live. Look, there is a place beside me. Stand on the rock, and when my glory goes by I will put you in a crack in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed. Then I will take my hand away, and you will see my back.” And so it happened. The Lord came down in a cloud and stood beside him, and passed by in front of him, and called out his own name: “The Lord God — full of pity and mercy, slow to get angry, full of kindness, and true; forgiving what is wrong and what is sinful — and never calling a guilty man clean.” And Moses hurried and bowed all the way down to the ground and worshiped.

Then God told Moses to cut two new stone tablets like the first ones and carry them up the mountain. And Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights, and ate no bread and drank no water; and the ten words were written on the tablets again. And when Moses came down the mountain with the two tablets in his hands, something had happened to him that he did not know about himself: his face was shining. He had been talking with God, and the light of it was still on him. Aaron and all the people saw his shining face, and at first they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called them, and they came, and he told them everything the Lord had said. And afterward he would put a veil over his face; and whenever he went in to speak with the Lord, he took the veil off again.