Where we left off was with Moses interceding on behalf of the Israelites. For those who are reading along at home, you will have noticed that we skipped the gap between Moses's intercessions. This is where we come back to the Israelites.
After his talk with Yahveh, Moses comes back down from the mountain with his aide Joshua (he of the Amalekite battle) and the two tables of stone with the Commandments written on them. As they get closer to the camp, they started hearing the sounds of the celebration wafting up to them. Being the soldier, Joshua immediately assumes that someone is attacking the camp. But Moses, who already knew what was going on, told Joshua that there was party going on.
Up to this point, Moses seems like the coolest head among all the characters in the story. The Israelites had panicked when Moses hadn't returned, Aaron caved under pressure, Yahveh had wanted to eradicate the Israelites, and Joshua was ready to fight a war.
But when he walks into the camp and sees the Israelites dancing around the Golden Calf, he goes bananas. The Bible says that his anger "burned hot." Moses slammed tables of stone against the rocky ground, shattering the 10 Commandments. He then took the Golden Calf, ground it into powder, and tossed it into the water, forcing the people to drink their god.
He wasn't done yet. He rounded on Aaron, demanding what the people had done to him to make him cave. Aaron, in typical spineless fashion, immediately threw the people under the bus, saying that they had forced him and all he had done was to throw their gold in the fire and the calf just magically appeared. Moses didn't really buy it.
Finally Moses begins the executions. He asks the Israelites who is for Yahveh and the Levites volunteer. Moses orders them to strap on their swords and go through the camp, executing anyone who led out in the idolatry. Three thousand Israelites were killed, earing the Levites a commendation for their loyalty.
What is going on here? Doesn't this seem a bit dichotic? I mean just a few verses earlier, Moses was begging Yahveh not to go nuclear on the Israelites and now he flips out on them. And doesn't this seem like a bit of an overreaction too? I mean making them drink the gold water and executing thee thousand Israelites just after pleading for their lives. Why is Moses doing this?
The answer is because he cares. This may seem simplistic, but think about it. Moses cares about Yahveh. Yahveh is Moses's friend, best friend. So when Moses sees his people dancing around an idol, it was like he walked in on his best friend's wife cheating on him. And there was no one sticking up for Yahveh. Needless to say, it made him mad.
Essentially Moses came to the defense of his friend. He was not going to stand Yahveh getting insulted like that. And so he got mad.
But more than getting mad, he did something about it. He didn't just sit there and stew; he called the Israelites out on what they were doing. Admittedly, it was a bit violent, but he did not just let Yahveh's name get trashed. Moses cared.
We live in a world that very casual about how it treats Yahveh and his laws. Popular media and many non-religious people openly mock Yahveh, treating him with dismissal and disdain. The society we live in is almost as flippant towards Yahveh, if not more so, than Moses's Israelites of three and a half millennia ago.
And we do nothing. Now I'm not advocating that we go to the measures that Moses went to. It could be argued that he was a little extreme, although I personally don't think so. But at the same time, we don't stand up for Yahveh and say, "Hey, back off! Treat the God of the Universe with a little respect." Why?
Some of you may point out that if Yahveh is the almighty God of the Universe, then no amount of mocking or derision is going to affect him. That would be like the ant scorning the boot that steps on him. And to a degree, you would be right; we are so beneath Yahveh that we can't truly insult him.
But that's also not the point. This isn't about Yahveh per se; it's about us. What do we do when Yahveh is mocked? Because what we do reflects how much we care about him.
Think of it this way. Has someone ever talked smack, as they say, about a family member or close friend of yours? Unless you have no friends, probably. What did you do? Did you just sit that and say nothing? Join in the jokes? Or did you come to that person's defense?
If you're like most decent human beings, you came to your friend or family's defense. Why? Because you love them and care about them and that is what you do when you care about someone; you defend them even if you know that they'll never hear this critics or really be affected in anyway by it. That smack that has been talked makes you angry and you're going to do something about it.
So why don't we do anything when Yahveh's name is on the line? Could it be that we don't care about him nearly as much as we think or say we do? Could it be that we'd rather sell him out for the sake of our mortal acquaintances then stand up for the person who saved the universe?
The title of this blog is God Likes Us. If you go way back in posts to one of the first ones, I explain a bit about what that means. It means that God (Yahveh) likes us, meaning he enjoys our company and desires our friendship. He wants so badly that he had the Israelites build him a tent so that he could live among them. Yahveh even went so far as to exchange immortal perfection for mortal humanity and then die in our place so that we could live forever with him, if we so chose.
And how do we return this friendship? Often by selling him out or throwing him under the bus. It is sad but true and forces us to think about how much we really do care about Yahveh, the best friend a person could ever wish for. How much we do care and how much we should care.
So next time you hear Yahveh mocked or defied (and there will be a next time), think about Moses. He cared enough to stand up for Yahveh. Do you? Will you?
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