Exodus 34:14-17

"For thou shalt worship no other God: for Jehovah, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God; lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot after their gods, and sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; and thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods, and make thy sons play the harlot after their gods. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods."

"For thou shalt worship no other god ..." This is Commandment I of the Decalogue, indicating that everything in this passage is not a "ritual decalogue," but specific elaborations for the Decalogue already given. The children of Israel, having just demonstrated their tendency to fall into exactly the same type of immorality practiced by the pagans of that era, should have been aided by these specific prohibitions designed to aid them in keeping their covenant with God.

"And they play the harlot after their gods ..." Keil stated that this is the first place in the Bible where departure from the worship of God is called, "playing the harlot."[16] It is based primarily upon the fact of God's covenant with Israel having in many respects a resemblance to the marriage bond, an analogy that is continued into the N.T., where the church of our Lord Jesus Christ is frequently spoken of as "The Bride of Christ." But there is even more to it than that. "Playing the harlot is all the more expressive on account of the literal prostitution that was frequently associated with the worship of Baal and Astarte."[17]

"Thou shalt make thee no molten gods ..." This is Commandment II of the Decalogne, although stated a little differently. There, "the graven image" was forbidden, but, in all probability, as we have seen, the image Aaron made was a cast image of pure gold, a "molten calf," as invariably called, and we agree with Gordon that the different terminology was designed to close any "loophole" Aaron might have thought he found by making his image "molten" instead of "graven." "That accounts for the difference."[18] Since Israel had so brazenly broken the command regarding the worship of other gods, "Most of the commandments here are connected with worship,"[19] but it is a climax of absurdity to blow this fact up into a ridiculous theory about a "ritual decalogue."