I’ve talked a lot about the people learning lessons of obedience and trust to God over the last few days. But are they learning? The evidence of today’s chapter suggests not. The key thing God wanted them to learn was to trust in him alone. But as soon as Moses disappears out of sight for more than a few days, that trust wavers and fails.
The golden calf
Exodus 32:1-6
Moses’ anger
Exodus 32:7-29
Moses’ plea, and God’s answer
Exodus 32:30-33:6
Temporary tabernacle erected
Exodus 33:7-11
Moses communes with God
Exodus 33:12-33
Instructions to hew stone
Exodus 34:1-3
Forty more days on Mount: tablets remade
Exodus 34:4
Directions renewed
Exodus 34:5-28
Law of the land given: sabbath year
Leviticus 25:1-7
Years of jubilee
Leviticus 25:8-24
I’m relieved to see little bits of Leviticus being introduced into my daily reading plan. I wasn’t looking forward to ploughing through the laws day after day, so every bit that is covered now, the pill sugared with a cracking story, is good. But as for the story - I’m not sure who is angrier, God or Moses. Certainly Moses is unrecognisable from the nervous wreck who met God in the burning bush. He talks like God, he thinks like God, he acts on God’s authority.
But everyone else doesn’t seem to be taking on God’s nature. They want something they can get their hands on - a god of their own size. Isn’t that what idols really are? Gods of our own size, that we can control, rather than scary remote Gods, speaking in thunder from mountain tops. If there is too much distance between people and their gods, they panic.
The Levitical laws are wonderful good sense. Rather than draining the land of its nutrients, it too is to have a sabbath, one year off in seven to recover. And if someone is consigned to poverty, the promise of the jubilee means that their family won’t inherit the crushing debt.
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