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For I know the plans I have for you,declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jer 29:11 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Thursday, August 5, 2021
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :The Golden Calf [3] Bible Verse:Exodus 32:15-24 (ESV) "Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”" Message:
We see, first, that the ten commandments are inscribed on both sides of the stone tablets — front and back. When we see depictions of the tablets, they appear (inaccurately) to be inscribed on the front only. Even odder, the entire text might have been inscribed on each tablet — Moses having “an original and one copy” — for this was the common practice of the time, to make an original of a writing to be kept in official storage and a copy to be read by the people. But we cannot be certain — all we know for sure is that two tablets were kept, unseen, in the Ark of the Covenant.
Moses, who has already been told by God what has happened, is able to identify the noise he and Joshua hear as they come down the mountain. When they come near the camp and can see the scene, Moses becomes angry and breaks the tablets. Was this a spontaneous outburst, or had Moses formed a plan to break the tablets in advance? It was certainly a bit of theater that impressed the wayward Hebrew revelers, a glass of ice water in their face to break the momentum of the festivity.
golden calf
Egyptian bull-god
But whether planned or spontaneous, the action vividly symbolized the seriousness of the idolatry and impressed the fact on the watchers’ minds, that their sin could completely destroy their protected relationship with Yahweh. God has been patient with the Hebrews, but the time has come for them to start taking obedience seriously.
It was common practice for conquerors or rulers to grind statues to dust and scatter them across land, so that they were destroyed utterly, beyond recomposition. The golden calf was, remember, primarily made of wood and thus burned easily. But Moses goes beyond the usual scattering and puts the dust into the water supply, so that it will be eaten by the Hebrews. The material of the idol (including valuable gold) thus ends up in the most demeaning place possible — at the bottom of a latrine.
In the account Aaron gives to Moses, many commentators see some coloration of defensiveness and self-excuse, on the one hand, or confession, on the other hand. But, really, he almost parrots the preceding verses describing how the idol came to be made. He simply tells Moses the truth. We might say that Aaron should have stood his ground and opposed the Hebrews who wanted to ignore the Word of God, and of course he sinned greatly, but which of us might cast the first stone? He was simply the first of a long, long line of Jewish and Christian leaders to knuckle under to pressure from a misguided majority.
The scene is our first view of how destructive church politics will become. The pressure on church leaders from wrongminded congregations, who dislike or do not agree with the clear teachings of the Bible, has been with us ever since. God’s Word is not determined by popular opinion or majority vote.
Meditation : Prayer : May I go in peace, with God and with his other children, and may we love one another as Christ taught us. May I follow the example of good men of old, and may God comfort and help me and all who believe in Him, both in this world and in the world which is to come......Amen |
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