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Spiritual Gifts, Volume 3
“And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two
tables of the testimony were in his hand. The tables were written on
both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.
And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing
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of God, graven upon the tables. And when Joshua heard the noise of
the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of
war in the camp. And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for
mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome;
but the noise of them that sing do I hear. And it came to pass, as soon
as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing.
And Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands,
and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they
had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed
it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.”
As Moses beheld the children of Israel shouting and dancing in
an excited manner, in imitation of the idolatrous feasts and idol-
worshipers of Egypt, so unlike the reverential worship of God, he
was overwhelmed. He had just come from the presence of God’s glory,
and although he had been warned of God that the people had corrupted
themselves, had made an idol and had sacrificed to it, yet he was in a
measure unprepared for the dreadful exhibition which he witnessed of
the degradation of Israel. He threw down the tables of stone in utter
discouragement and wrath, because of Israel’s great sin before God.
The act of Moses in burning the calf and grinding it to powder,
and making them drink of it, was to show them the utter worthlessness
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of the God which they had been worshiping—that their God had no
power at all. Men could burn it in the fire, grind it to powder and drink
it without receiving any injury therefrom. He asked them how then
could they expect such a God to save them, or do them any good, or
any evil? Then he rehearsed to them the exhibitions which they had
witnessed of the unlimited power, glory, and majesty of the living God.
“And it came to pass, when ye heard the voice out of the midst of
the darkness, (for the mountain did burn with fire,) that ye came near
unto me, even all the heads of your tribes, and your elders. And ye said,
Behold, the Lord our God hath shewed us his glory and his greatness,
and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. We have seen
this day that God doth talk with man, and he liveth. Now therefore
why should we die? for this great fire will consume us. If we hear the