by
Damien F. Mackey
Aaron hilariously (if it weren’t so serious) replies (Exodus 32:24):
“So I
said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off’, and they gave it to me.
When I
threw it into the fire, out came this calf!’”
As if the end
result were pure accident.
Introduction
Once mighty Egypt, now - following on from the devastating
Plagues and the Exodus - would cease to be a power for a long time, virtually
disappearing from the Bible for roughly half a millennium. And, despite the
fact that the Exodus Israelites had, in their first encounter with an enemy,
defeated the Amalekites at Rephidim (Beer Karkom), the Amalekites would
continue for that period of time to be a dominant power in the land of Canaan.
They may well even have overrun fallen Egypt, as the warlike
Hyksos people, referred to by some (e.g. Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky) as Egypt’s “Eleventh
Plague”.
The great man, Moses, who had been commissioned to leave his
settled existence in the land of Midian in order to lead his people out of the
House of Bondage (Egypt), now found himself carrying on his shoulders a people
who continued to be ungrateful and rebellious.
The burden would be eased to some extent by his sage
Midianite father-in-law, Jethro, advising him to delegate responsibilities, so
as not to exhaust himself (Exodus 18:18): ‘You’re going to wear yourself
out—and the people, too. This job is too heavy a burden for you to handle all
by yourself’.
Returning back to Mount Sinai, Moses will receive from the
hand of Almighty God the Ten Commandments, and he will be given a code of Laws:
all included in the Torah.
This important set of regulations will be emulated by
nations down through the ages.
For example, the famous Hammurabi, King of Babylon, wretchedly
mis-dated and thought to have influenced Moses - but actually reigning centuries
later than Moses, at the time of King Solomon - will depict himself as
receiving from the hands of his god, Shamash, the famous Law Code, which
includes the lex talionis (“eye for an eye”).
The Spartans, for their part, have totally appropriated
Moses in their famed Lawgiver, the, albeit fictitious, Lycurgus.
The young warrior, Joshua, who had “defeated Amalek and his
army with the sword” (Exodus 17:13), was fast becoming Moses’s right-hand
man, even accompanying him up the sacred mountain (24:13-14).
Aaron and Hur, and other elders, were instructed to “bow in
worship at a distance” (24:1). Would this be taken as a slight, prompting later
rebellion?
Moses was also given instructions to build the Tabernacle,
the model for the later Temple built by King Solomon in Jerusalem, and the Ark
of the Covenant (Exodus 25), and to include other liturgical features and
offerings (Book of Leviticus), such as the priestly garments, so beautifully
described much later by Sirach 45:6-17:
The Lord raised up Aaron, a holy man like his brother
Moses, of the tribe of Levi. He made an eternal covenant with him, giving
him the privilege of serving as priest to the Lord's people. He honored him by
clothing him with magnificent robes and fine ornaments, perfect in their
splendor. He granted him the symbols of authority: the linen shorts, the shirt,
and the robe with the pomegranates around the hem. Gold bells were also
around its hem, so that when he walked, their ringing would be heard in the
Temple, and the Lord would remember his people. The Lord gave Aaron the
sacred robe with the gold, blue, and purple embroidery; the breastpiece with
the Urim and Thummim; the red yarn, spun by an expert;
the precious stones with names engraved on them, mounted in a gold setting by a
jeweler, placed on the breastpiece to remind the Lord of the twelve tribes of
Israel. He gave him the turban with the gold ornament engraved with the
words Dedicated to the Lord. It was expertly crafted, a beautiful work of art,
and it was a high honor to wear it. Before Aaron's time such beautiful
things were never seen. No one but Aaron and his descendants ever wore them, or
ever will. The grain offering is to be presented twice a day and burned
completely.
Moses ordained Aaron to office by pouring the sacred
anointing oil over his head. An eternal covenant was made with him and his
descendants, that they would serve the Lord as his priests and bless the people
in the Lord's name. The Lord chose Aaron out of the whole human race to
offer sacrifices, to burn fragrant incense to remind the Lord of his people,
and to take away their sins. He entrusted the commandments to Aaron's
keeping and gave him the authority to make legal decisions and to teach Israel
the Law.
As I. Kikawada and A. Quinn would point out in their
classic, Before Abraham Was. The Unity of Genesis, 1-11 (1984), Moses
was presenting himself here as a ‘new Noah’, an Ark builder, covenant maker,
etc.
Though no legend supports it, so I believe, it would be a
nice symmetry if Karkom were the place where Noah, too, had built an Ark.
We read in a previous article, “Brilliant reconstruction of
the Tabernacle in the wilderness”, how engineer Flavio Barbiero and his brother
were able to reconstruct to exact specifications, from the imprint that it has
left at Karkom, the Tabernacle that Moses had built.
See Flavio Barbiero’s book on this (2025), and his article:
THE
CAVE OF TREASURES ON MOUNT HOREB
(14) THE CAVE OF
TREASURES ON MOUNT HOREB
Now the troubles will really begin.
Israel’s Revolts
(i)
The Golden Calf
With Moses spending long periods of time with the Lord on
the holy mountain, the briefly gruntled Israelites were now becoming totally
disgruntled, dissatisfied and rebellious (Exodus 32:1): “When the people saw
that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered round Aaron
and said to him, ‘Come, make gods for us who will go before us because
this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt – we
don’t know what has happened to him!’”
Joshua, ever staying close to Moses, would have no part in any
of this.
The story of the Golden Calf is well known.
I would just like to recall the ridiculously lame excuse
given by Aaron when confronted by his angry brother Moses (Exodus 32:21): “Then
Moses asked Aaron, ‘What did these people do to you that you have led them into
such a grave sin?’”
Aaron hilariously (if it weren’t so serious) replies (Exodus
32:24): “So I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off’, and they gave it
to me. When I threw it into the fire, out came this calf!’”
As if the end result were pure accident.
For me, Aaron’s
comment ranks with two other occasions of Old Testament humour, whether
intended or not.
One, Gideon, the Israelite
warrior, and leader of 300, who has been appropriated into Greek folklore as
Leonidas and the 300 (Gid-eon Grecised to [N]id[as]-[L]-eon).
Gideon,
under fierce pressure from the Midianites and the Amalekites, fires back (though
respectfully) at the Lord, who had just said through his angel (Judges 6:12): ‘The Lord is
with you, mighty warrior’, to the effect that, ‘If you are with us, Lord, then
why are we copping this shellacking’?
Two, the remark made by the Philistine
king of Gath, Achish, ‘… am I so short of madmen …?’, when David, who had
been forced to flee the wrath of King Saul, feigned madness, dribbling and scratching
at the doors of Gath.
“Achish said
to his servants, ‘Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? Am I
so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like
this in front of me?’” (I Samuel 21:14-15).
After Moses
had, by the agency of armed Levites, slaughtered about 3000 of the rebels, the
Lord weighed in by sending a plague upon the Israelites (Exodus 32:27-35).
Moses will
be consoled not long afterwards by encountering the Glory of the Lord (Exodus
33:18-23).
When, in
Deuteronomy 18:15, 18, Moses states to Israel that:
‘The Lord
your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you’, he was not,
as certain Moslem apologists hopefully insist - to deflect from its proper
fulfilment in Jesus Christ (Acts 3:22) - referring to natural similarities,
such as being married, having children, leading battles, and so on.
No, Moses
was referring to his being empowered to speak “face to face with God” (Exodus
33:11).
Mohammed was
unable to do this - well, for one, because he never actually existed!
See e.g. my
article:
Zakir
Naik’s apologetical tactic meant to embarrass Christians
(14) Zakir Naik's
apologetical tactic meant to embarrass Christians
After all of
the liturgical items (Ark of the Covenant, Tabernacle, vestments, etc., etc.) had
been completed, the Glory of the Lord (popularly known as the Shekinah)
filled the Tabernacle.
Later it
would fill the Temple in Jerusalem built by King Solomon (2 Chronicles 7:1).
The new
Israelite liturgy was soon in full swing.
(ii)
Miriam and Aaron oppose Moses
Numbers 12:1-3
Miriam and Aaron began to talk
against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. ‘Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?’ they
asked. ‘Hasn’t he also spoken through us?’ And the Lord heard this.
(Now Moses was a very humble
man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)
Joseph of
Egypt, likewise much favoured by the Lord, had experienced the same sort of
jealousy from his older siblings.
For this,
the Lord struck Miriam leprous.
Moses immediately
interceded for her and she was healed (vv. 10-15).
Because
Moses had a “Cushite wife” - and perhaps because of legends having Moses leading
Egyptian armies into Ethiopia (Cush) - commentators can argue that the wife of
Moses, Zipporah, was actually a dark skinned African.
We know, however, that she
was a Semitic Midianite.
And Flavio
Barbiero, again (op. cit.), has explained, with reference to Habakkuk
3:7: “I saw the tents of Cushan in distress, the dwellings of Midian in anguish”,
that Cush- was also a term associated with Midian.
Aaron and
Miriam may have been put off by her foreignness. Even though Zipporah’s
Midianite people, too, were Abrahamic, their practices did not always conform
to those of Israel. For instance, Moses got himself into serious trouble with
the Lord for failing to circumcise his son, Gershom (Exodus 4:24-26) - he no
doubt bowing to pressure from his Midianite relatives whose practice was to
circumcise late, before marriage.
(iii) Korah’s rebellion
Numbers 16:1-4
Now Korah, the son of
Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of
Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men:
And they rose up before
Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of
the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown:
And they gathered
themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye
take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy,
every one of them, and the LORD is among them: wherefore then
lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the LORD?
And when Moses
heard it, he fell upon his face:
Here,
again, led by a Levite, Korah, are those rotten, revolting, Reubenite rascals,
Dathan and Abiram, whom we met already back in Egypt as troublemakers for
Moses. They are the Jannes and Jambres (Mambres) whom Saint Paul will much
later excoriate as “men of depraved minds” (2 Timothy 3:8).
Some
of these various opposers of Moses may have been men of high standing in
Egypt’s mighty Twelfth Dynasty, so-called.
One or
other of the two brothers is supposed to have said to Moses (Exodus 2:14): ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?’ Moses,
as the important Mentuhotep, was, indeed, a “ruler” (Vizier) and (Chief) “judge”
at this particular time.
Like
Aaron’s sons (Leviticus 10:1-2): “But Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron,
each took his censor and put fire in it and put incense upon it and offered
strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them. Therefore, a
fire went out from the LORD and devoured them. So they died before the LORD”, these
wicked men, Korah, Dathan, Abiram, etc. would suffer a terrible, fiery fate.
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