Exodus 32:7-10

 

While Moses was up meeting with Yahweh to receive instruction to build the ark of the covenant and construction plans to build the tabernacle or dwelling place, the Israelites abandoned Yahweh, and worshiped a golden calf, so their treachery, faithlessness and rebellion against Yahweh was a collective cardinal sin of gargantuan proportion and offensiveness.

 

Yahweh is good but Yahweh has a temper and will use violence upon evildoers. Here are some verses from The New American Bible which demonstrate God’s capacity for righteous anger and just violence conceived of, if not always carried out against evildoers. We are to be soldiers of God, not conscientious objectors who will not take up arms and fight back against evildoers: “With that, the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down at once to your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved. They have soon turned aside from the way I have pointed out to them, making themselves a molten calf and worshiping it, sacrificing to it and crying out, ‘This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!. ‘I see how stiffnecked this people is,’ continued the Lord to Moses. ‘Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them. Then I will make you a great nation.’”

 

My response: People are stiffnecked, or arrogant enough to believe they can snub, compete with, and attack God or goodness without repercussion, so obviously the lack of fear of the Lord is the beginning of damnation, personal destruction, and personal defeat.

 

Yahweh wanted to send down flame to consume them all, and then have Moses recruit a new population of chose persons, whom God would build into a great nation.

 

Here is my second quote of these verses from the Holy Bible (KJV): “And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down, for thy people, which thou broughtest out of land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them:”

 

My response: The Israelites, the chosen people, perhaps the best of peoples of the earth, were so naturally wicked and then willfully wicked, that they betrayed Yahweh, quickly turning aside from being faithful to Yahweh, that infuriated Yahweh was not sure that they were worth saving, or if he should just wipe them out and start over with a new chosen people. Wow, how rash are people to offend God so quickly, so eagerly, so repeatedly. It would seem to me that they know not what they do or they are possibly to wicked and crazy that they crave to be destroyed. Wow.

 

KJV: “they have made them a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt.”

 

My response: Notice how these frail human idolaters not only rebelled against Yahweh, they ungratefully slandered Yahweh, giving the molten calf credit for being the deity whom extracted them from Egypt.

 

KJV: “And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.”