Chapter 9: The Aaronic Calf and Israel's Idolatry

The Aaronic Calf — The occasion of its making — The people demanded not the supreme God but an intermediary — They did not believe the calf to be God — It was so called metonymically — Whether it was made in the likeness of the Egyptian Apis — Golden images of the lost Apis — The figure of a male calf — Apis a female cow — Why the calves of Jeroboam were called heifers — No god other than Jehovah was worshipped in the calf — A superstition hateful to God — The lies of the Gentiles concerning the worship of an ass's head at Jerusalem —

The occasion and pretext of the fabrication — A passage of Tacitus noted — Moses ground the calf to powder and scattered it upon the water — Whether in imitation of the submersion of Apis — Aaron ineptly defended by the Jews; falsely defended by Morin — The true crime of Aaron.

I. There follow those things in which they sinned in the manner and means of religious worship, substituting arbitrary worship in place of what was instituted. And here the Aaronic calf first presents itself (Exodus 32:1-5). Moses having been absent on the mountain for some days, the carnal people, eager for a visible sign of the divine presence promised to them and not yet instructed in the full worship common to the whole assembly, compelled Aaron to cast a golden calf for those purposes. "Come," they said, "make us gods who will go before us; for as for this man Moses, who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." They sought gods, that is, not to take the place of Jehovah, but to take the place of Moses, through whom they might consult God. For what they were committing to Aaron to be fashioned that day, it was scarcely possible for them to believe would become a true deity by the next day. Moreover, to attribute the name of God to images metonymically was customary even among those who by no means believed that the images themselves were gods. They therefore set about forming and fashioning for themselves a visible sign of the divine presence. II. Some consider that Aaron fashioned this calf in the likeness of the Egyptian Apis, or rather of the golden image which the priests were accustomed to consecrate in memory of an Apis that had been lost or had died. He may also have had in mind the animal itself, always held to be of the highest excellence on account of the labors from which we obtain the fruits of the earth. Scripture does indeed seem to indicate that this calf was an image of a male calf; for at Psalm 106:20, a masculine participle is attached to the name by which it is designated, whereas Herodotus in the Euterpe teaches that the Egyptians consecrated female cattle to Isis and sacrificed males. Nor does this create a difficulty with the fact that the prophet Hosea calls the calves of Jeroboam — fashioned after the pattern of this wilderness calf — by a feminine term, at chapter 10:5, which word the LXX render by the feminine form meaning "heifers," since the prophet calls them so in contempt, as Jerome most correctly notes on the passage. Scripture also implies that the image was large, when it teaches that the Israelites "exchanged their glory for the form of an ox that eats grass" (Psalm 106:20). There is moreover the fact that Stephen affirms that on account of the erection of this calf, "they turned back in their hearts to Egypt" (Acts 7:39) — namely, where they had seen such images.

III. That the people had no intention of worshipping any god other than Jehovah in the calf is clear from the history of what was done. We showed above that they demanded not the supreme God in place of Jehovah, but an intermediary in place of Moses; and when the calf was seen, they said: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it and proclaimed, saying, Tomorrow shall be a feast to Jehovah." "Your gods" — that is, your God; for there was but one calf, and it was consecrated to one. So also Nehemiah 9:18: "When they had made for themselves a molten calf, they said, This is your God who brought you out of Egypt" — that is, an image of your God, or a visible sign of His presence in your midst. The people were certainly foolish and rebellious; but that they were so bereft of reason as to believe that a newly made calf, which they had made in the desert only two days before, had brought them out of Egypt — no one can suppose this, unless he also thinks they were not only cast a single calf but were themselves all transformed into calves. Furthermore, when the people were summoned to consecrate the calf, Aaron proclaimed "A feast to Jehovah." "Tomorrow," he said, "shall be a feast to Jehovah" — that is, dancing before this image we will celebrate Jehovah. The feast was instituted for Him, not for the calf, not for Apis, not for Osiris or Isis. It is therefore certain that the wilderness Israelites resolved to worship no God other than Jehovah. This argument was once argued most learnedly in the books on idolatry and in the lectures on the Book of Revelation by the ornament of his age, John Reynolds.

IV. How great a crime the people incurred by devising this arbitrary worship, and how hateful that superstition was to God, became most quickly apparent from the horrible outcome. This is not the place to recount the matter at length; but from those words of Exodus 32:34, "On the day when I visit, I will surely visit their sin upon them," there passed into a proverb among the Jews: "No punishment is inflicted upon Israel in which there is not an ounce of the calf."

V. By occasion of this crime as well, the whole people had been besmirched with the most shameful and lasting stain of infamy among other nations. For it was from no other source than this calf-idolatry that certain persons seized the occasion to forge that most celebrated fabrication about the golden head of an ass being worshipped in the temple at Jerusalem. However utterly filthy the lie was, this folly — or rather this madness that surpassed all folly — does not allow us to suppose that the fabulists were entirely without any pretext. The words of Tacitus, Hist. V, chap. iv, are: "They consecrated in the innermost sanctuary an image of the animal by whose indication they had dispelled their wandering and their thirst." He had previously said that animal was an ass. That remarkable man seems to have achieved here, with a concise and compressed manner of expression, what no one since the birth of mankind has ever surpassed — uttering more lies in fewer words. Yet it cannot be denied that some shadow of the true history and of what was actually done, however obscurely, can be discerned through the windings of these lies. Sacred history teaches that the people were several times oppressed by thirst and the confusion of their routes in the vast wilderness. We know that they clamored urgently for a leader and for water; but that they happened upon a herd of asses going to water and made use of them as guides — that is an old wives' tale. But that they cast that golden calf with the intention of using that visible sign of God's presence as a kind of oracle in their distresses, and of continuing their journey under its auspices, is plain from the narrative of what was done. Also, long afterward, when they were settled in Canaan, led by no other example than that wilderness one, they consecrated the same image in certain inner sanctuaries — namely at Dan and Bethel. Remarkably, by a confusion of everything, the Gentiles transformed the golden calf into a living ass, the miracle of drawing water from the rock into a spring or stream found with the aid of asses, and Dan and Bethel into Jerusalem. And lest Josephus — otherwise the most diligent narrator of the antiquities and deeds of his nation — should furnish any occasion for continuing these lies of the Gentiles, he suppressed with deep silence this history of the Aaronic golden calf. The Targum of Uzziel, however, concerning this crime: "Their evil report went out among the peoples of the earth, and they acquired for themselves a bad name for their generations."

VI. This calf, ground to powder, "Moses scattered upon the surface of the water and commanded the people to drink," (Exodus 32:20). From this act of Moses, Selden and Grotius conjecture that he alluded to the submersion of the Egyptian Apis; for at an appointed time they would solemnly submerge Apis in the Nile. But that submersion of Apis was a part of idolatrous worship, and by far the most superstitious part. That Moses imitated it — especially in that act by which he inflicted punishment with the utmost ignominy upon the idolaters — is in itself incredible and is plainly contradicted by sacred history.

VII. The teachers of the Jews, from those words of Aaron in Exodus 32:24, "I cast the gold into the fire, and this calf came out," invent — in order to clear him of the crime — that he threw the mass of gold into the fire with the intention of despoiling the Israelites of those ornaments which they were foolishly going to squander on idolatry, and that the calf came forth by the work of magicians, some of whom were from that Egyptian rabble which had gone up with the people into the desert. Jonathan ben Uzziel adds that Satan, having slipped in among the gold, produced that form — things that scarcely accord with what sacred history records about Aaron's act, in ver. 4, namely "that he received the gold from the hand of the people, fashioned it with a graving tool, and made from it a molten calf." François Morin also endeavors to remove every suspicion of crime from him in that book to which he gave the title "Aaron Vindicated." But in those dissertations — composed, to say nothing harsher, for the display of wit — he boldly and rashly fabricates many things that I marvel could ever have entered the mind of any mortal of sound head. He imagines that Aaron was at that time the high priest; he imagines that Aaron had seen the likeness of the calf on the mountain, even though God had expressly declared that no one had seen any likeness; he imagines that Aaron fashioned the calf after the pattern of the cherubim which Moses afterwards erected at God's command; he forgets that God had strictly forbidden them to form any image; and he contradicts the Holy Spirit to His face on many points, and advances many other things which it is distasteful to recount. Although Aaron did not propose to the people that any god other than Jehovah be worshipped in the calf, he nonetheless bound himself and the people in that manifest crime that, without God's command, he devised the way and manner of arbitrary worship in a visible sign.

The Calves of Jeroboam — The occasion of their making — The motivating reasons and their use — What sort of images the Teraphim were and how they were made — The Teraphim of Micah — The Ephod of Gideon — The Bronze Serpent — The captivity of the ten tribes.

I. After the manner of Aaron's calf, two other golden calves were erected long afterward by Jeroboam. For I trace here the origin and occasion of Jeroboam's superstition. The things that some report concerning Joseph are too forced. They say that a calf had once been dedicated to his memory in Egypt — which is indeed most uncertain. Then they say that Jeroboam, an Ephraimite of the stock of Joseph, chose this image to consecrate in worship, in order to keep the people in veneration of his own family. But these things, as we have said, seem too harsh and forced. It is more satisfying that the memory of Aaron's calf provided the occasion for making these others. For how greatly the ancient deeds of their fathers — whether rightly or wrongly done — were held in reverence among that people is attested by what is recorded concerning the bronze serpent likewise fashioned in the wilderness, and the ephod of Gideon, and other such things. The Holy Spirit relates the history of these calves in 1 Kings 12:28–32. The reasons for Jeroboam's plan are more fully set forth in 2 Chronicles 13:6–9. The entire tribe of Levi, and very many of the pious among the Israelites, adhering to the ordinances of God, left their ancestral homes and withdrew to the territory of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin; for it was certainly not free for them to go into the Judean dominion and return whenever they wished. For in the manner of those who hold power — especially when the novelty of a new kingdom and the lust for ruling concur, drawing every religious pretext in an evil direction — this Jeroboam judged that those who went up to Jerusalem for the purpose of worshipping God could safely form a plan to defect from his yoke; and therefore he took away from them all that liberty. Furthermore, by the law all males were required three times a year to present themselves before the Lord at the temple; and if they were obedient to that commandment, it would necessarily follow that the king would be deprived of all his subjects so many times, all of whom would be in the power of his most hostile enemy. He concluded that no kingdom with such a custom could endure. What then was he to do? Should he openly defect from Jehovah and His worship, and draw the people into the same wickedness? It is indeed probable that this wicked man, who had subordinated everything divine and human to his own ambition, would have attempted to drive the people — over whom he had obtained a recent and precarious rule — to that degree of impiety, if there had been any hope of it. He therefore calls to mind Aaron's calf and persuades the people that Jehovah could be worshipped in the manner Aaron had prescribed: (1 Kings 12:28), "Having taken counsel, the king made two golden calves and proclaimed to the Israelites, It is enough for you that you do not go up to Jerusalem: behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt." He uses the same words that Aaron used at the dedication of his calf. Now it is plain that Jeroboam and

the people worshipped Jehovah is plain. After the Baal worship — that is, solar worship — was later removed by Jehu, the people of the ten tribes nevertheless clung tenaciously to this practice of worshipping God in the calves, right up to their final and eternal captivity.

II. Of this kind were the teraphim. They are first mentioned among the Jews at Judges 17:5. We said something about them in our exposition of Abrahamic theology, at Genesis 31:19. What they were is not yet settled. "Images made at a certain position of the stars, with figures," says Grotius. That the small images were made in human form is indicated by the history of Michal the daughter of Saul, who, in order to deceive the messengers sent by her father to kill David, placed teraphim in his bed, by whose appearance and form those deceived supposed that they were looking at David himself lying sick (1 Samuel 19:13). That images were made in the likeness of a human face is written in the Book of Roots by R. D. K. Eliagin of Tishbe relates the manner of making them: "They slaughtered," he says, "the firstborn son, whose head they severed by twisting. The severed head they then preserved with salt; and they wrote upon a golden plate the name of an unclean spirit, and so, lighting candles before it, they worshipped it." Divination through the dead was familiar to the ancients. The Emperor Hadrian killed his favorite Antinous in order to consult the gods through his entrails, and afterward enrolled him among the gods. The custom of lighting candles before images still persists among some. That teraphim were also used for eliciting oracles the sacred history teaches: Zechariah 10:2, "The teraphim have spoken vanity;" Ezekiel 21:21, "He consulted the teraphim." But that they were consecrated among the Jews in the manner described by Elijah is a Jewish fiction; for those who used them had no intention of worshipping any god other than Jehovah. They were merely a kind of small idol, easily portable, after the manner of household lares and penates. Accordingly, the mother of Micah affirms that the silver from which those idols of Micah were cast, she had "consecrated to Jehovah to make teraphim" (Judges 17:3). Micah was also greatly pleased that he had obtained a Levite as priest (ver. 10), who would not have cared what family his priest came from, unless he had resolved to worship Jehovah, see ver. 13. These teraphim were accompanied by an ephod — that is, "a linen priestly garment." The author of the Book of Judges records that these lasted until the captivity (xvii. 30). After the captivity, he foretold that the Israelites would live without them (Hosea 3:4); for I do not agree with those who think the prophet there makes mention of true and false worship side by side — the ephod, they say, belonging to the Lord, and the teraphim to idols. But both were equipment of superstition; for the use of the ephod was no more lawful for the Israelites than that of the teraphim.

3. To this also belongs the ephod of Gideon (Judges 8:27). Nothing need be said about the form of the garment, since it is described at length in the book of Exodus. It was a gilded garment: first a votive trophy of victory, then changed over to superstitious use. Augustine thinks the ephod is taken synecdochically, and that Gideon made all the pontifical vestments in order to draw the worship of God into his own city of Ophrah — with zeal perhaps good, but with a most wretched outcome. For he established these things without God's command; yet the Gideonites did not wholly forsake God Himself. 4. Well known to all are the things pertaining to the bronze serpent fashioned in the wilderness. First erected for an evangelical purpose, then transferred to superstitious use, the pious king Hezekiah broke it in pieces and cast it away with the utmost contempt. 5. These, then, were — if not all, at least the chief — idols and the means and instruments of false worship by which this people, most abandoned to idolatry, initiated in this apostasy, defiled and contaminated themselves by rejecting the first foundation of Mosaic Theology. God caused the church of the ten tribes — wallowing in this foul flood of idolatries and incurable — to be led away into eternal captivity, without hope or promise of return (2 Chronicles 36:16). A few things still remain to be said concerning the Jewish church.