Exodus 35:4–19
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
Israel has just committed high treason against their divine King. They fashioned a golden calf, a bovine deity borrowed from their former masters in Egypt, and threw a festival for it. This was idolatry and spiritual adultery of the highest order. The covenant was shattered, quite literally, as Moses threw down the tablets of the law. Judgment fell, three thousand men were executed, and the presence of God was very nearly withdrawn from them permanently. He stood in the breach, and God, in His staggering mercy, relented and renewed the covenant. And so what is the very first thing God commands after this great apostasy and this great restoration? After the people demonstrated their innate genius for corrupt worship, God’s immediate response is to teach them the grammar of true worship. He is showing them, and us, the only proper response to grace.