Exodus 30:11–34:35: Weighed in the balance of faith and found wanting

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:19:58 — 20.8MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Have you ever felt like you were lost in the sea of faces? Or that if you disappeared from the Earth no one would notice? It’s not phenomenon of modern life. The Torah reading כי תשא Ki Tisa (“when you take [a census],” Exodus 30:11–34:35) kicks off with a numbering of the redeemed people of Israel and includes the infamous golden calf incident. Yeshua the Mashiakh (Jesus the Christ) touched on the reasons for such numbering of the people of the Kingdom of Heaven when he said the Heavenly Father knows the number of hairs on our heads (Matthew 10:28–33).

Wasn’t it sinful to take a census?

“The LORD also spoke to Moses, saying, ‘When you take a census of the sons of Israel to number them, then each one of them shall give a ransom for himself to the LORD, when you number them, so that there will be no plague among them when you number them.’” (Exodus 30:11–13 NASB)

It seems odd that one has to atone for taking a census as though counting how many people in your community is a sin. God Himself commanded a census be taken. Yet, according to God’s Torah, atonement has to be made with each person being counted bringing a half-shekel. The way God calls a census is to count the coins the men bring, not the men themselves.

David’s census (1Chronicles 21; cp. 2Samuel 24) was a census of military-age men only, which got him into some trouble. God wanted the people of Israel to be uncountable.

When human governments take a census (2Chronicles 2:17; 25:5), they do it to ascertain their military and financial strength. They are testing and challenging God’s promise to make His people as numerous as the sand of the sea.

The word in Hebrew for half-shekel is מַחֲצִית machtzit (Strong’s lexicon No. H4276). It can be understood in the terms of the census shekel to communicate “between life and death.”

Did ancient Israelites use cannabis?

“Take also for yourself the finest of spices: of flowing myrrh five hundred shekels, and of fragrant cinnamon half as much, two hundred and fifty, and of fragrant cane two hundred and fifty, and of cassia five hundred, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and of olive oil a hin.” (Exodus 30:23–24 NASB)

The Hebrew for these two words are different even though in modern English cinnamon and cassia are similar. The cassia (קִדָּה qiddah Strong’s H6916) in scripture may either be a plant similar to cinnamon in which the bark is ground to make an aromatic spice. It may also be a plant similar to hemp or marijuana, which is a common weed in many areas of the Middle East. It does not resemble the marijuana commonly used for psychotropic effect.

What is ‘work’ on Shabbat?

“The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, “You shall surely observe My sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. Therefore you are to observe the sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people.” ‘ ” (Exodus 31:12–14 NASB)

God considers the Shabbat a very important day. It is a day when God’s people are not to perform any work. What does work mean? What would it mean to work on the Shabbat?

Work is defined in two ways in Rabbinic thought: creating and gaining. Shabbat is not acquisition, whether they are goods or services. Shabbat is about resting, recharging and remembering where our real treasure is. Gaining spiritual treasure is perfectly acceptable on Shabbat. Gaining earthly treasure on Shabbat is not acceptable.

Creating is fashioning, building, arranging or producing something for gain or profit. You don’t have to make a profit from something to gain, though.

Helping someone is not work. This is an important lesson Yeshua taught us. There are two kinds of help: physical and spiritual.

An example of physical help is when one renders first aid to a hurting person. An example of spiritual help is teaching Torah.

Was it Elohim or elohim represented in the golden calf?

In Egypt, they had gods for literally everything, as the people of the Indian subcontinent do now. In Egypt at the time of Israelite slavery, they had a community of gods that controlled specific objects or natural phenomenon, such as a god of the Nile, a god for the tree, etc. The pharaoh, as the representative of the sun god, was supposed to be the pre-eminent of them all.

Also, each city and town had its own god and each god was represented in a different way and these gods developed into a pantheon in the cultures they dominated. God wanted to teach Israel that there is only one God. Rocks, stones, rivers and trees have no power of themselves.

When the Israelites asked Aaron to make them gods, they are asking Aaron to designate the gods to represent different objects. Instead, Aaron makes a golden calf, which is one god. The calf god was one of the strongest gods in ancient Near Eastern culture.

“Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.” (Exodus 32:10 NASB)

While the children of Israel are building this calf and having a big party for themselves, God is talking to Moses.

Why was Aharon later made high priest after making the calf?

God doesn’t stop the people of Israel from performing their plan. He waits to tell Moses about what was going on in the valley until they had already built the calf, worshiped it and were having a big party over it. God waited for Israel’s iniquity to reach its full. I think God was testing Moses more than He was testing the people.

How does Moses handle the test? He tells Yehoshua (Joshua):

“And he says, ‘It is not the sound of those taking the lead by force or the sound of those taking the lead in a rout, but the sound of those taking the lead in wine I hear.’” (Exodus 32:18 New English Translation of the Septuagint)

The sound in the camp was very distressing to God and to Moses. It was the sound of marriage and the sound of “taking the lead in wine” — not directed to God but to a false god.

“Now when Moses saw that the people were out of control — for Aaron had let them get out of control to be a derision among their enemies….” (Exodus 32:25 NASB)

Aaron exposed the sin laying in hiding in the camp. It’s supposed to be the high priest’s job to cover the people’s sin, yet here Aaron exposed it. Now, it’s Aaron’s job to fix his mistake and cover the people. This job of covering the people’s sin is hereditary for his descendants.

God’s testing of Moses is very unique. God is showing Moses something deeper about Himself. God is showing Moses how to walk out the tightrope between justice and mercy. This is Moses’ filling a messianic role.

“Then the LORD smote the people, because of what they did with the calf which Aaron had made.” (Exodus 32:35 NASB)

Moses and the Levites killed 3,000 people, but God dealt with the people that Moses missed.

“Whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent; and the LORD would speak with Moses. When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would arise and worship, each at the entrance of his tent. Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.” (Exodus 33:9–11 NASB)

Moses didn’t have to see God’s literal face to speak with Him, but Moses was in God’s presence. When we are told that God spoke with Moses face to face, it has nothing to do with Moses literally seeing God’s face, which he never could have done and survived to tell the tale. What it means is that God spoke to Moses in a unique, more familiar manner than He spoke with the prophets that came after Moses.