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The Beginning of the End
destruction of the people whom He had honored would bring a slur
on His name. How great is the responsibility on those whom God
has highly honored, to make His name a praise in the earth!
As Moses interceded for Israel, the Lord listened to his pleadings
and granted his unselfish prayer. God had proved his love for that
ungrateful people, and Moses had nobly endured the trial. The well-
being of God’s people was more important to him than becoming the
father of a mighty nation. God was pleased with his faithfulness and
integrity, and committed to him the great responsibility of leading
Israel to the Promised Land.
As Moses and Joshua came down from the mountain and were
nearing the camp, they saw the people shouting and dancing around
their idol—a scene of heathen riot, an imitation of the idolatrous
feasts of Egypt. How different from the solemn and reverent worship
of God! Moses was overwhelmed. He had just come from the
presence of God’s glory, and he was unprepared for that dreadful
display of Israel’s degraded condition. To show his horror at their
crime, he threw down the tablets of stone, and they were broken in
view of all the people, a sign that as they had broken their covenant
with God, so God had broken His covenant with them.
Moses Punishes the Wrongdoers
Taking hold of the idol, Moses threw it into the fire. Afterward
he ground it to powder and scattered it on the stream that came down
from the mountain. In this way he showed the utter worthlessness
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of the god they had been worshiping.
The great leader summoned his guilty brother. Aaron tried to
defend himself by relating the clamors of the people, stating that
if he had not done as they asked he would have been put to death.
“They said to me, ‘Make us gods that shall go before us; as for this
Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not
know what has become of him.’ And I said to them, ‘Whoever has
any gold, let them break it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I cast it
into the fire, and this calf came out.” He wanted Moses to believe
that a miracle had taken place—that the gold changed to a calf by
supernatural power. But his excuses made no difference. He was
properly dealt with as the chief offender.