God is understandably angry.Īstonishingly, God decides to continue his partnership with Israel - not because of their merit but because of his grace, compassion, and loyal love.īut he wants Israel to know his patience is not an excuse to continue in this type of betrayal. Talk about insulting! This is like the bride kissing a groomsman during her wedding ceremony. Israel created an idol to take the place of God while God was forming an eternal covenant relationship with them. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” (Exodus 32:1-4) He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. Could they really trust God would provide for them? Why was Moses taking so long?īefore Moses even made it back down the mountain, the Israelites took matters into their own hands.
He had already spent 40 days and 40 nights atop the mountain with God (Exodus 24-32), and during his absence, the Israelites got impatient and scared. God is investing heavily in this group of people, and he is requiring that they, in turn, live a certain way.īut this is actually Moses’ second time atop Mount Sinai, formalizing Israel’s covenant with God.
God has just rescued the Israelites from slavery and oppression in Egypt, and the covenant relationship he’s forging with Israel will display his loving character to the nations. In fact, it’s set against the backdrop of an extremely important description of God’s character.Įxodus 34 finds Moses at the top of Mount Sinai, formalizing Israel’s covenant relationship with God while everyone else stays below. Like any challenging biblical claim, this verse doesn’t come out of nowhere. God’s Justice is About a Covenant of Loveįirst, let’s look at the context. God is warning his people that each generation will be held accountable if they repeat the sins of the previous generation. But if we dig a little deeper, we’ll see that God isn’t saying he’ll bring his wrath upon totally innocent children for their parents’ actions. In this text, we’re confronted with the intimidating concept of generational accountability. But will we really be punished for something our parents did? It is clear that who our parents are, and even the choices they make, affect us greatly. We inherit things like physical features, health issues, mannerisms, and ways of viewing the world from them. And this seems a little harsh, right? It’s one thing to say we are shaped by our parents - we all know that. So does God hold us accountable for the mistakes our parents make? These verses in Exodus seem to say so. does not leave the guilty unpunished he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth. It makes the next words in the passage all the more challenging (and potentially shocking). It’s not hard to understand why this passage in Exodus is the most referenced Scripture throughout the Hebrew Bible - who doesn’t want to be reminded of some of the most beautiful aspects of God’s character? It’s wonderful, gracious, and encouraging.