Moses is gone a long time, so the the people grow restless and begin to question him, and decide to make gods of their own. Aaron - Moses' brother and the high priest of Israel - not only allows this to happen, but is instrumental in the fashioning of the golden calf that the people then worship. If anyone should have known better, it was him, but he screwed up most spectacularly. No one is infallible. There is some comfort to be taken from that, but at the same time we must not use it to excuse our own bad behaviour. Saying "everyone else is doing it" does not make it acceptable.
God sees the people worshipping the golden calf and sends Moses away "that [His] anger may burn against them and that [He] may destroy them". Things could go very badly for the Israelites, but Moses appeals on their behalf, asking God to remember His promises and not to give the Egyptians any cause to question Him, and God listens to Moses and He relents. He reacts violently in the first instance, but then He calms down and acts mercifully. We are made in God's image and so we inherit His characteristics. For some that will mean having a quick temper, and that's okay as long as we learn to control it. We must mimic God's behaviour as well as His temperament.
Moses goes back down the mountain to the people and in his anger and disappointment he destroys the golden calf and smashes the two stone tablets on which God had written the Ten Commandments. He then calls the faithful to him and tells them that God has ordered them to go throw the camp, killing friend and brother and neighbour. It's another one of those passages that you wish didn't exist, but I think it has something to say about loyalty and faithfulness - following God may mean making some difficult decisions and carrying out some tough tasks, but in all things His word is sovereign and His will is to be obeyed.
After striking the people with a plague – He may have promised not to bring disaster on them, but the law still demanded that He punish them – God tells Moses to move on and go up to “the land flowing with milk and honey”. But this time, He says He will not be going with them because if He did He would destroy them. At this point, we are told of how “the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend”. I can barely speak, let alone write sensibly about a sentence like that. Almighty God, Creator of the Universe, Lord of Heaven and Earth spoke to Moses like a friend. He didn’t just bark orders at him or use him as a messenger or errand boy. He spoke to Him as an equal and chatted to him as a friend. It’s a mindblowing image, and it can often seem so incredible that surely it can’t be for us, but it is. That’s the sort of relation ship every single one of us can have with God. Wow. Just wow.
As Moses talks with God, he asks Him to teach him His ways, that he may know Him and continue to find favour with Him; and he asks Him to reconsider and go with the Israelites, that all may know that they are His people. God agrees to everything Moses has asked, but he still wants more. He knows that God is more than just a friend and He wants to know Him in all His fullness, so he asks God to show him His glory. It may sound rather cheeky, asking things of God, but I believe He welcomes it. God won’t force Himself on us, so if we want to see Him, we must seek Him out. He’s not hard to find, because He wants to be found. God tells Moses to meet Him on the mountain the following day, and He will show him His glory. All of His goodness will pass before him and He will proclaim His name, but he will cover him until He has passed so that he will only see His back, because no man can see the face of God and live (so presumably when the writer said God talked to Moses “face to face” it was a figure of speech). So the next day, Moses goes to the mountain and everything happens as God had said it would. God passes by Him and declares Himself as a God of love and compassion and forgiveness. Is it any wonder that when Moses returns to the people His face is glowing? Do we glow from our experiences of God?
Much of the rest of Exodus repeats commandments and instructions already given. I’m not entirely sure why these things need repeating at such length in the same book, but there you have it. Maybe it is something to do with the way the text was compiled, or maybe it is to make the point that we often need to be told something over and over gain before we’ll pay any attention. One small difference I have noticed, however, is the emphasis this time around on the involvement of the whole community. That phrase is used several times, and the writer seems to be at great pains to point out that that means both men and women. The Bible can be so patriarchal and misogynistic that it makes a refreshing change for the role of women to be noted so definitely. We have plenty to give too.
Exodus ends with the completion of the tabernacle and the consecration of the priests. It seems all is forgiven, because despite his earlier mistake, Aaron is still consecrated a priest to the Lord and God comes down to dwell among his people. And we are told that in all their travels, the Israelites moved on only as the cloud that was the presence of God moved, and so the cloud was in the sight of the Israelites always. God may not always be so visible in our own lives, but He is just as present and He wants us to follow Him. I guarantee it will be an adventure.
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