Monday: Idolatry and Evil
Daily Lesson for Monday 8th of September 2025
Read Exodus 32:6. Where did their idolatry quickly lead them? (See also Psalms 115:4-8; Psalms 135:15-18; Isaiah 44:9-10.)
The golden calf resembled the Egyptian bull god, called Apis, or cow god, called Hathor. This was a blatant transgression of the first and second commandments (Exodus 20:3-6).
Image © Providence Collection at Goodsalt.com
This violation could not go unpunished because it openly broke their relationship with the living Lord. Instead of worshiping their Creator, the Israelites worshiped their own creation, which could not see, hear, smell, speak, care, love, or lead.
The Creation order was reversed: instead of understanding that they had been created in God’s image, they now made a god, not even in their own image—which would have been bad enough—but in the image of an animal. This was the god whom they wanted to serve? Thus, they had greatly sinned against the Lord (Isaiah 31:7, Isaiah 42:17).
In what ways does the golden calf apostasy reflect what is written in Romans 1:22-27?
Idolatry denies the theological understanding that God is God and man is man. Idolatry erases the gap between God and man (Ecclesiastes 5:2) and breaks the connection with Him. Whether it is blatant and open or something concealed in the heart, idolatry quickly ruptures our relationship with the Lord and leads in a downward moral spiral. No wonder the text talks about what they did the next day: after offering sacrifices to the idol, they then began to party, in what Ellen G. White depicted as “an imitation of the idolatrous feasts of Egypt.”—Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 320.
Humans are geniuses at fabricating their own idols. They create their own gods, which is bad enough, but then they go and serve those gods. The Creator is replaced with things that, sooner or later, lead to moral degeneration.
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What are ways today that humans worship the creation instead of the Creator? |
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We sometimes have this picture of the Hebrew nation as an isolated, ethnically pure nation who could proudly trace their ancestry back to Abraham. They had a background of interaction with Yahweh that gave them a sense of spiritual superiority over the nations around them. Perhaps we should reconsider.
The Exodus took place some 400 years after Abraham, representing 10 to 16 generations. During that time they had intermarried frequently with the nations around them. (Read who Jacob’s sons married to get some idea of the extent) And if modern marriages are anything to go by, such unions significantly influenced their religious beliefs and practices.
The religions in the eastern Mediterranean area frequently used bulls as symbols of divine power and fertility. Baal was often represented as riding a bull. The Minoan civilisation on Crete worshipped bulls and it is depicted in their art. In Egypt, bulls were used to represent several gods such as Apis and were thought to be reincarnations of Ptah and Osiris. There was a special temple in Memphis that kept a bull as a living god. Apparently, this cult was very popular and lasted for several centuries.
Given this background, we can understand why the Hebrews quickly reverted to calf worship. It was something they were quite familiar with. Granted they had seen a couple of miraculous events, but it underscores the idea that it takes a lot more than miracles to change beliefs and practices. These folk were still at the very bottom of the spiritual learning curve. They had much to learn and even more to unlearn.
The real miracle in this story is that God persisted with them. He had a mob of people who were glad to be out of bondage but who were still finding their feet about where to go, what to do and how to achieve it. Moses was out of the picture for 6 weeks and they had lost their sense of purpose. And it wasn’t the last time that would happen.
Now, three millennia later, we like to think we are spiritually superior to the Hebrews. I wonder if that pride is justified. Reflecting on our own spiritual progress, we must ask: where are we on the spiritual learning curve?
I thank God for being a persistent God, willing to work with us, in spite of our spiritual pride. My prayer: