I enjoy watching a skilled worker doing a job. I once watched a professional painter paint a line straight down a wall in a wide angle corner without painters tape- and it was perfect. It was baffling and wondrous to behold. I’ve watched incredibly skilled musicians play and I’m just frozen with awe.

Once, in a remote village in Mexico, I tried to flip tortillas with my bare fingers 😳. The stovetop was a piece of flat metal like a big pizza pan over a small open fire. The women would grab the tortilla off that hot metal sheet and flip them so fast you couldn’t really see how they did it. I happily provided entertainment for them (and a few misshapen tortillas) with my nervous attempts. They made it look easy. It wasn’t.

We tend to downplay things we’re really good it because, to us, it doesn’t seem very special. Just because you think making a pie from scratch or setting up a computer network or refinishing a table is easy, don’t assume that it’s actually easy. I think playing a piano and singing is easy but I’m told that’s not necessarily so.

If you’re wondering what it is that God has called you to do, don’t overlook the things that come easily and the things you enjoy that others might find difficult or intimidating. (I once met a couple who enjoyed preparing their tax return.) Who could you help with the thing that comes easily to you?

God picked out Bazaleel and Oholiab to make (and oversee the making of) all of the things for the tabernacle. God said:

“And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom and with skill and with knowledge and with every kind of craftsmanship…” Exodus‬ ‭31‬:‭3‬ ‭LEB‬‬

Recognize that talent and wisdom and skill come from the Lord. A skill isn’t like the flu. You don’t just come down with it all of a sudden. You have to work at it. But the verse above is saying that even the dedication and discipline it takes to develop skills is from being “filled with the Spirit of God.”

After all this talk about working to manufacture the tabernacle, the Lord follows up with rest. The Sabbath:

“It is a sign between me and the Israelites forever, because in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh he ceased and recovered.”
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭31‬:‭17‬ ‭LEB‬‬

This verse is really great evidence for a literal, 7-day creation week (rather than the Gap Theory or the Day-Age Theory of creation). God Himself says that the pattern of a 6-day work week followed by a day of rest exists because that is how He made the visible universe.

The word translated “recovered” is naphash (naw-fash) and it means “to breathe.” We still use these concepts today when we say, “I just need a minute to catch my breath.” Or, “Let’s stop and take a little breather.” Or, “I’ll get my second wind after lunch.”

God intentionally stopped working and breathed.

😌

I’m writing this on Friday night so I can attempt to follow God’s example on the Sabbath. I encourage you to take time today to get your breath.

It’s now been 40 days since Moses vanished into the fiery cloud on the mountain. And the thing that we think of as the climactic moment appears as one little verse – practically a footnote – at the end of the chapter. God gives Moses the stone tablets.

Incidentally, the “stone table” is where Aslan the Lion is killed in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. This was of course to help us connect the dots between the Law and the death of Christ as the penalty of the broken law.

Those stone tablets are only going to exist for the length of one downhill hike.

---

The Golden Calf Incident

I think chapter 32 has THE most hilarious verse in all scripture. It’s Aaron explaining the golden calf to Moses:

“So I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, let them tear it off.’ Then they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.” Exodus‬ ‭32‬:‭24‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

🤷🏽‍♂️ Just popped right outa there on its own!

We make really lame excuses when we get caught. I know. Just look at me:

If Aaron had just stayed put on the mountain and waited like Moses asked him to, none of this would’ve ever happened.

Aaron: But I didn’t know it was gonna take 40 days! Moses couldn’t have known it either. He surely wouldn’t have told me to wait if he had known he’d be gone that long.

We should be careful when we feel that God is taking too long. That got Abraham in trouble too. Remember?

No one offered to go try to find Moses. No one consults Yahweh in prayer. They just concoct a plan to make a graven image. It’s only been about a month and a half since they all agreed to not do that. And Moses sprinkled them with the blood of the covenant. Apparently they weren’t that serious.

Probably the thing that most blows our minds today is Aaron’s involvement. I mean, this is the guy who struck the Nile with his rod and watched it turn to blood. But he told them to bring their gold and he made the idol and the people announced that it was “the god who brought them out of the land of Egypt..,”

“Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” So the next day they got up early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and got up to engage in lewd behavior.”
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭32‬:‭5‬-‭6‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

Notice that they aren’t rejecting Yahweh. They think they are celebrating Him. They’re confusing Him with a thing made with their own hands.

Selah. 🪑🤔

You know how we mentioned that Yahweh rides on a cherubim? The descriptions of cherubim in Revelation 4:7 and Ezekiel 1:5-10 include calf features; calf feet and legs and the face of a bull.

Have you ever seen a cheruvim statue? Cheruvim weren’t unique to Israel. The other ancients knew about them too.

Look at Ezekiel’s description:

“Now over the heads of the living beings there was something like an expanse, like the awesome gleam of crystal, spread out over their heads. Now above the expanse that was over their heads there was something resembling a throne, like lapis lazuli in appearance; and on that which resembled a throne, high up, was a figure with the appearance of a man.”
‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭1‬:‭22‬, ‭26‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

Who ate a picnic on the mountain and saw this very same sight of a gleaming pavement and Yahweh Himself? Aaron did. Do you suppose he noticed the golden-gleaming bull-featured cherubim upon which Yahweh was sitting?

The idea behind the golden calf was probably not as simplistic as we think. Technically they didn’t make an image of Yahweh. They made an image of the cheruvim upon which He sits. In Aaron’s thinking, this isn’t a problem, it’s an object lesson. The people didn’t get to see what he and the 70 elders saw. He’s simply making a visual representation of it. It’s likely that in his mind, they’re not worshipping the calf- they’re worshiping Yahweh who invisibly rides on it.

And now you know how easy it is to rationalize one’s way right into sin.

We don’t do this today. Surely. Christians would never compromise like that. Surely people who claim to follow Yahweh wouldn’t blatantly disregard a direct Divine command in the name of making God more visible; more understandable. More relatable.

And as still happens today, when people go down this road, perversion inevitably follows.

God gets angry and is ready to wipe them off the face of the earth but Moses intercedes; mainly because of God’s reputation among the nations. Then Moses gets angry and he throws down the stone tablets that held the very writing of God, and they shatter into a million pieces.

Since they were so into object lessons and needing to see visual representations- here’s a visual representation of what they just did. They broke their covenant with Yahweh to smithereens.

Then Moses did the OT equivalent of washing their mouths out with soap and called for anyone who was on the Lord’s side to come to him. And his own tribe – Levi – responded. They went thru the camp executing the rioters. 3000 people.

Our pastor pointed out the connection to me that on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, 3000 people were saved. Pentecost was to the Church what the giving of the Law was to Israel. While later rabbis taught that Pentecost (Shavuot) was the anniversary of the giving of the Law, this view is not without its problems.

Moses Mountain Climbing Meter: 6️⃣

🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋

Moses goes back up to see if he can work things out with God.

“Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, this people has committed a great sin, and they have made a god of gold for themselves! But now, if You will forgive their sin, very well; but if not, please wipe me out from Your book which You have written!” However, the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will wipe him out of My book. But go now, lead the people where I told you. Behold, My angel shall go before you; nevertheless on the day when I punish, I will punish them for their sin.”
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭32‬:‭31‬-‭34‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

Moses tries to do the noble thing and throw himself on the live grenade of God’s anger. But here’s something crucial that we see displayed in this event: God’s anger is completely controlled and holy. God says- No. That’s brave of you, Moses, but you can relax. I’m not pitching a fit here. If I was, the universe would’ve exploded by now. I don’t condemn the righteous along with the wicked. The one who sins will be wiped out of my book. (God has a book. 🤓📖) I forgive them for cheating on me a month into this marriage. We’re sticking the plan. Oh, but I’m coming to visit them. It won’t be a nice visit.

And the Lord sent a plague on them because of the calf they made.

P.S. Let’s not turn Sunday morning into a golden calf and think we’re worshiping the lord when we’re actually worshiping the work of our own hands- the music, the experience… Let this be a cautionary tale.

This is a rather sober note to end on but it is important to know that Yahweh is both merciful and gracious, yet, He does not let guilty go unpunished.

And that is exactly how He is about to reveal Himself to Moses. And this time, instead of Moses disappearing into a cloud, we’re going to get a front-row seat.