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Faithful, Earnest Warnings
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demands of the people, they would take his life; and he did as they
desired. He collected the golden ornaments, made the molten calf,
and fashioned it with a graving tool. Then the leaders of the people
declared, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of
the land of Egypt.” When Aaron saw that the image he had graven
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pleased the people, he was proud of his workmanship. He built
an altar before the idol, “made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow
is a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early on the morrow, and
offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people
sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.” They drank and
feasted, and gave themselves up to mirth and dancing, which ended
in the shameful orgies that marked the heathen worship of false gods.
God in heaven beheld it all, and warned Moses of what was
taking place in the camp, saying, “Now therefore let Me alone, that
My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them:
and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the
Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth Thy wrath wax hot against
Thy people, which Thou has brought forth out of the land of Egypt
with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the
Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did He bring them out, to
slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of
the earth? Turn from Thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against
Thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Thy servants,
to whom Thou swarest by Thine own self, and saidst unto them, I
will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I
have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it
forever. And the Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do
unto His people.”
As Moses came down from the mountain with the two tables of
the testimony in his hand, he heard the shouts of the people, and,
as he came near, beheld the idol and the reveling multitude. Over-
whelmed with horror and indignation that God had been dishonored,
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and that the people had broken their solemn covenant with Him,
he cast the two tables of stone upon the ground and broke them
beneath the mount. Though his love for Israel was so great that he
was willing to lay down his own life for them, yet his zeal for the
glory of God moved him to anger, which found expression in this act
of such terrible significance. God did not rebuke him. The breaking