As mentioned earlier, the Torah was given in two stages. First God spoke directly to the nation. They told Him to stop for fear that His voice would make them die. Then Moses alone ascended the mountain to receive the remainder of God’s instructions and bring them down to the people. The interval between the first stage and the beginning of the second was 40 days. During that time the former slaves grew restless and frightened. They had been led nearly 50 days’ journey into the wilderness and were completely dependent on God and His representative, Moses. Realistically they were in no discomfort; the manna and the water continued to be provided; they were not raided by any of their enemies; they just had to wait patiently.

Waiting patiently is not a human strong suit; especially when the duration of the wait has not been specified. As the wait progressed the people became more and more restless and finally decided to take matters into their own hands. Thus began the sad incident of the Golden Calf in Exodus 32.

At least initially, the people’s problem was not with God it was with Moses:

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” (Ex 32:1-5)

So it appears that initially the calf was intended to replace Moses as Israel’s connection to God. It does not seem to have represented some other deity. That being the case, why was God prepared to destroy the whole nation and begin afresh with Moses? (Ex 32:9-10)

To answer that question, look at what instructions Israel had been given before Moses left. As stated previously, the people stopped listening between the second and third of the Ten Commandments. The second commandment is the prohibition of making idols. Hence, in fashioning the golden calf, Israel was directly disobeying.

Moses interceded with God “And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.” (Ex 32:14) But that raises yet more questions.

When Moses came down the mountain and saw what was happening, he smashed the tablets, called the Levites to himself and slew 3,000 men on the spot. God further sent a plague which took an unspecified additional number. If God had relented, why was anyone killed at all, and why was Moses gone for 40 days?

As to the forty days, Scripture says that God created everything in six days; so surely it did not take Him forty days to write out two tablets of stone. Similarly, He routinely spoke with Moses while he was down in the camp; so one could presume the forty days was not needed by Moses to memorize the instructions. That seems to leave the conclusion that the forty days was a test. Having conducted a fifty day course in liberty, trust, and faith; He perhaps wished to know how well the lessons had been absorbed.

Scripture is silent as to the identity of those killed. It surely relates to the two commandments that were given before Moses’ departure. God is perhaps unique in forbidding images to be used in His worship. Pretty much every other ancient religion appeals to the eyes to focus worship – statues, icons, idols, etc. In fact, the very first biblical vignette, the temptation of the woman in the garden emphasizes the eyes:

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (Ge 3:6-7)

If not through visuals, how then does God desire to relate to people? The obvious answer is through the ears. Over and over in the Torah Moses tells Israel to listen to God. In fact, biblical Hebrew has no word for “obey.” Where translators of scripture into English use obey, the underlying Hebrew is some variant of “SHMA,” listen or hear.

In addition to being directly forbidden, the golden calf brought the liturgy of the pagan gods into the camp. After Moses returned to the mountain to get the second set of tablets, God specified in great detail how worship in the tabernacle was to be performed. During the first forty day absence, Israel had no instruction about God’s liturgical requirements. Having been immersed in Egyptian society for centuries, the Israelites would have been familiar with Egyptian worship practices. It is reasonable to assume that when they constructed an idol, they would have fallen into pagan worship practices. Thus, although the initial intention of the golden calf may have been to replace Moses in connecting with God, it is very likely that Israel quickly fell into the abominable practices of pagan worship:

And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” (Ex 32:25-26)

It is not clear what “broken lose” means, but it was not good. Presumably it had to do with worship practices similar to those of the Egyptians.

The criteria for determining who died may not have been solely to kill those who were simply celebrating before the idol. In Egypt Pharaoh believed that YHVH (God) is clearly a god and a very powerful one, but He is one among many. If one didn’t like what a particular god was offering it was perfectly acceptable to approach another. Many of the Israelites were very much dissatisfied with the way things had gone since they were expelled from Egypt. The Torah is liberally punctuated with accounts of their murmuring and complaining. It is very likely that some of them regarded the idol, not as a substitute for Moses, but as a connection to some other deity. Where Aaron was “only” violating the second commandment, those who saw a different god would have been violating both of the first two commandments.

In any case, the result of the forty day testing period was a chastened Israel and the removal of what one can assume were the ring leaders of the sad business of the golden calf.