You'll recall what a fearsome sight it was when the glory of the Lord descended on Mount Sinai in smoke and fire and lightning and thunder. You'll recall how the people trembled at the voice of God, so much so that they begged Him not to speak to them directly but to relay His instructions by Moses. As we'll see in our study today, sometime during Moses' sojourn on the mountain the people fearfully concluded he either perished in the fiery blaze of glory or else he decided his responsibilities were too much and took off for parts unknown. The notion that they've lost Moses has caused a complete breakdown of peace and order in the camp. With him out of their sight, many of them have fallen into doubt and despair. I can think of a couple of likely reasons why this happened.
First, I think they had their eyes on Moses more than they had them on the Lord. I think they trusted Moses more than they trusted the Lord, which isn't saying much since they regularly found fault with Moses. Their trust in Moses was tenuous at best; he just barely managed to keep things from descending into chaos, so we can see why they weren't willing to accept either Aaron or Hur as a substitute for him. But at least while Moses was present there was a fairly consistent routine. While he was present there was someone they could see and touch who was the Lord's spokesperson. But with Moses out of their sight they began to doubt the faithfulness of the invisible God because up til now they've placed more faith in the one they could see than in the One they can't see. This should be a lesson to us all because we are never to place more trust in a human being than we place in God. Human beings will let us down whether they intend to or not. If my faith relies on how well my pastor represents the Lord, my faith could easily falter if my pastor says or does something that offends me. If I'm following the example of a fellow Christian more than I'm following the example of Jesus Christ, and if that person messes up in a way that distresses me, I may come to the false conclusion that God has let me down when instead it's my fellow human being who has let me down. Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful to have godly friends and godly role models, but our faith must never depend on these people. They're imperfect human beings just like we are and they are going to make mistakes just like we do. When they mess up----and they will mess up sometimes and offend us or hurt our feelings----we can't let that throw a wall up between us and God. We can't let their behavior make us angry at God, which brings me to my second theory for why things in the Israelite camp fell apart so quickly.
I think they are angry at God. Although He brought them out of a land of slavery, it was the only land they'd ever known. Life there may not have been pleasant but at least it was familiar and predictable. Have you ever heard the saying, "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't?" What it means is, it's better to keep dealing with the familiar (even if the familiar isn't terrific) than to trade the familiar for the unknown which may not be any better. Confused and afraid, right now the people would rather go back to the devil they know (Egypt) than to keep pressing forward into the unknown without their visible human leader and without a clear picture in their minds of how things are going to work out for them in the promised land. So I think they're angry with God for bringing them out of Egypt into the wilderness by the hand of Moses whom the Lord has urged them to trust but who now appears to have run away or been killed on the mountain. They are having a crisis of faith, just like they had when they didn't immediately find a water source and said, "Why did the Lord bring us out of Egypt to kill us with thirst in the wilderness?" Remember when they had used up their food supplies and weren't sure where their next meal was coming from and they said, "Why did the Lord bring us out of Egypt to kill us with hunger in the wilderness?" And remember when they got to the Red Sea and realized they were being pursued by Pharaoh's army and felt they were trapped between the army and the sea and concluded the Lord had brought them to this location to kill them, saying, "It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!" Every time a difficulty crops up they accuse the Lord of having evil intentions toward them and I think the difficulty of having Moses absent is no different. They believe they're on their own. They think the Lord either allowed Moses to leave them or the Lord allowed Moses to die, but either way they see this as a betrayal. Why would He bring them this far only to take their leader away from them? If He loves them, how could He let such a thing happen?
They're completely wrong about what's going on, of course. While they're having suspicious thoughts about the God who loves them, God has been telling Moses of the wonderful plans He has for Israel and He's been directing Moses to build a tabernacle where He will come and meet with the people. He's been writing the tablets of the law so the people can form a functioning society and a fair legal system. Everything God has been doing has been for their benefit, but they misinterpret His intentions. They jump to conclusions---wrong conclusions. But don't we all do that? When we hit a rough patch in life, don't we start thinking things are only going to keep getting worse? Don't we fall into doubt and depression? We may not actually believe God has deserted us, but we may think He's not being fair to us, or we may feel like He's letting us down when actually He's working on our behalf. The work He does on our behalf isn't always pleasant for us but it's necessary. Having Moses be absent from the camp isn't pleasant for the Israelites but getting Moses off to himself is the only way the Lord could impart the laws and instructions Israel is going to need in the years to come. If Moses were present in the camp, daily judging disputes and legal cases, daily settling squabbles, and daily giving godly advice, when would he have had time to listen to the Lord? We learned earlier in Exodus that Moses barely had time to eat or sleep, much less spend a long period of quiet quality time on his knees in his tent speaking with the Lord. There's a purpose for Moses' absence and there's a necessity for Moses' absence, but the people interpret it as the Lord having evil intentions toward them. As a result they become angry and, perhaps as a way of "getting back" at God, they slip into idolatry. They don't want to serve the God who took Moses away from them so they make a shocking request of Moses' brother Aaron, the priest of the camp.
"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. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him.'" (Exodus 32:1) They no longer want to claim Moses as one of their own people but instead distance themselves mentally and emotionally from him by referring to him as "this fellow Moses" as if he is a stranger or an impostor. They're rejecting him in their hearts and by extension they are rejecting the God he serves and speaks for.
Aaron also speaks for God as a priest of God, but the people appeal to him to fashion idols before which they can bow. And Aaron says no, right? Surely he stands firm in his faith and stands up for the living God and refuses to participate in this sinful venture, doesn't he? I wish that were the case. In tomorrow's study we'll see just how far into sin the entire camp, including Aaron, falls while Moses is gone.
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