272
Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
Moses prevailed. God granted his earnest petition not to blot out
His people. Moses took the tables of the covenant, the law of Ten
Commandments, and descended from the mount. The boisterous,
drunken revelry of the children of Israel reached his ears long before
he came to the camp. When he saw their idolatry, and that they
had broken in a most marked manner the words of the covenant, he
became overwhelmed with grief and indignation at their base idolatry.
Confusion and shame on their account took possession of him, and
he there threw down the tables and broke them. As they had broken
their covenant with God, Moses, in breaking the tables, signified to
them that so also God had broken His covenant with them. The tables
whereupon was written the law of God were broken.
Aaron, with his amiable disposition, so very mild and pleasing,
sought to conciliate Moses, as though no very great sin had been
committed by the people, over which he should feel thus deeply. Moses
asked in anger: “What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought
so great a sin upon them? And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my
Lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief.
For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as
for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we
wot not what is become of him. And I said unto them, Whosoever hath
any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into
the fire, and there came out this calf.” Aaron would have Moses think
that some wonderful miracle had transformed their golden ornaments
into the shape of a calf. He did not relate to Moses that he, with other
workmen, had wrought out this image.
Aaron had thought that Moses had been too unyielding to the
wishes of the people. He thought that if Moses had been less firm,
less decided at times, and that if he had made a compromise with
the people and gratified their wishes, he would have had less trouble,
and there would have been more peace and harmony in the camp of
[299]
Israel. He, therefore, had been trying this new policy. He carried out
his natural temperament by yielding to the wishes of the people, to
save dissatisfaction and preserve their good will, and thereby prevent
a rebellion, which he thought would certainly come if he did not yield
to their wishes. But had Aaron stood unwaveringly for God; had he
met the intimation of the people for him to make them gods to go
before them to Egypt with the just indignation and horror that their