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 a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.” And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
Comment: The people having lived in Egypt for several centuries were used to seeing ‘gods’. Jehovah God is a Spirit. He later graciously sent Jesus so that we are correct in a limited sense to anthropromorphicize (attribute human characteristics or behaviour to a god, animal, or object) Jehovah God but God refuses to be imaged as anything which man makes to worship! You cannot see the wind, but you can see where it is blowing and you can experience its power! You cannot see God but most certainly you can see His Power working! The Israelis wanted a ‘god’ that they could see and so they provided the gold with which Aaron had made a golden calf. It could neither walk or talk. It had power but only over their evil minds and they used their evil minds to have animals killed and maybe to offer other stuff in sacrificial worship of an expensive dead nothing! They ‘played’ before their new god – and ‘played’ didn’t mean cards, but from what I read about other contemporary religions of their time their playing probably had a sexual aspect!
Prayer: Father it is so easy to be fooled by our own ignorance and Satan’s evil mischief! Please help me to be absolutely honest to You, my God.
As I read it! 