Exodus 32:15-20

THE WRATH OF MOSES

"And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand; tables that 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 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 the said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry from 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 he 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 with fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it."

"And the tables were the work of God ..." Some question whether this meant merely that God made the tables and wrote upon them. "through Moses," or if the tables and the writing were done miraculously by God Himself. As far as the record here is concerned, it surely seems to say that the tables with their sacred writings were produced without any use whatever of the "finger of Moses," but by "the finger of God." Other than this, nothing is actually known about "how" it was done. Jamieson declared that, "It is not within the compass of language to declare more explicitly that the engraving was miraculously accomplished."[10]

"And Moses' anger waxed hot ..." We do not really know whether or not Moses' conduct here was sinful. Adam Clarke and many of the old commentators considered it so. "But we must not excuse this act; it was rash and irreverent: God's writing should not have been treated in this way."[11] Most current writers excuse it on one basis or another. Esses called Moses' anger in this place, "righteous indignation".[12] Honeycutt viewed the action of breaking the tables as harmonious with God's will, a "sign of the annulment of the covenant."[13] We have discovered no basis for resolving the question either way. It seems significant, however, that God is nowhere said to have rebuked Moses for breaking the tables. Unger's comment on the passage is tailored to support some of the irresponsible findings of the solifidians:

"The whole episode shows the inability of the Law to make men good. Depraved man is never saved by Law-keeping, but by faith. Faith alone is the way to justification and salvation in every age, as well as the way to sanctification of life."[14]

Although true enough that people are not saved by Law-keeping, their damnation can most certainly result from their presumptuous and arrogant failure to keep the Law of God. The very episode in this chapter proves this to have been true with them, no less than with ourselves. Also, faith alone is dead (James 2:17); and no one in the whole history of redemption was ever saved by faith alone.

"Burnt it with fire, ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water ..." With regard to the remark that, "gold will not burn," it should be remembered that it will melt, however, and that this procedure preceded the grinding of it to powder. It is not necessary to suppose a wooden center or form of the calf, although of course, that is possible. One could not possibly suppose a more complete destruction of an idol than that recorded here.

The object of this was certainly not to make them ashamed by compelling them to swallow their own god, but to set forth in a visible manner both their sin and its consequences. The sin, as it were, was poured into their own bowels along with the water, a symbolical sign that they would have to bear it and live with it, just as a woman suspected of adultery was obliged to drink the curse-water (Numbers 5:24).[15]

Jones added this comment: "So it is with God's judgment of false religion in every age, when people must drink water fouled by their own religious leaders!"[16]