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This is a very heavy section of scripture. God tells Moses about the people’s rebellion and calls on Moses to check on the people. God tells Moses that he is willing to take very drastic measures to punish the people and promote Moses to an even higher level.
Thought Questions
Why was Aaron so quick to give into the people?
Why did God offer Moses the opportunity to be the patriarch of a new people?
How did this happen so quickly after the crossing of the Red Sea?
What were the earrings the people gave to Aaron?
Why are these chapters listed in Scripture?
Did Moses “delay” while on the Mountain? How long was Moses up on the Mountain? Is that a long time?
Who was being tested, Moses or the people?
Who made the Golden Calf? Why did Aaron make an altar to this calf?
What day did Moses come down? What “feast” did Aaron call?
What is “stiff-necked”? Why did God tell Moses he was willing to destroy all the people and start over? Was God going to break His promise to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph?
What was the first thing Moses did when he came down from the mountain?
What did Aaron say to Moses when Moses confronted him?
What did Aaron say about the people?
Reader: David De Fever. Speaker: Richard Agee
2 replies on “Exodus 32-33 — two tablets of the Testimony and the golden calf”
I am studying the ten commandments but am stumped as to why we say the Tablets of the Testimony are the ten commandments of Exodus 20 (why for that matter we limit the commandments to ten when Exodus 20 has many laws). I find the progression to what’s in the Ark goes from the “Testimony” of God in the pentateuch “Covenant” of God later in OT to, by the Psalms, “law”. Deut 6 tells us plainly that the purpose of the law so we wold fear the Lord and so that it may go well with us, so Testimony, Covenant, and Law all serve that purpose. But what is written on the stones or Tables of Testimony? Is it ten of the laws in Exodus 20? The instructions from chapter 24? What God had just spoke to Moses on the mountain?
The reason the “10 Words” of Exodus 20 are considered to be what God wrote on the two tablets of the Testimony is that’s what Moshe reminded the people God did (Deut. 4:13–32), specifically:
You’ve observed that there are more than 10 instructions in the Torah, including Exodus 20, and that the Psalms — especially Psalm 119 — use “law” to refer to more than the 10 Words. In the historical books of the Hebrew Scriptures and in the Apostolic Writings, “the Law” or “the Law of Moshe” refers as much as the all five books of the Torah. For example, Yeshua says the two “greatest commandments” come from “the Law,” though they come from Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19 (Matt. 22:34–40). Perhaps, some of the confusion over the term “the Law” has resulted from the artificial and unsupportable distinctions of “moral law” (the 10 Words and certain other “universal” laws such as homosexuality, incest and marriage) and “ceremonial law” (usually, “Jewish” laws such as appointed times, sacrifices, rules for separation, etc.).