The story of the “golden calf” in the wilderness, to me, has always presented a couple of questions. Aaron and Hur were in charge while Moses was away (Ex. 24:14). Aaron devised the plan to bring him their gold (32:2,24) and he “fashioned” a molded calf (32:4), yet Aaron tells Moses that the calf “came out” of the fire (32:24). The LORD lays the blame on the people (32:7-10), even though Aaron made the calf (32:35). When Aaron fashions the calf it is “they,” the people, who say, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.” And Aaron also lays the blame on the people (32:22), though Moses indicts both Aaron and the people (32:21). In Deut. 9:19-20 we read that Moses not only interceded for the people (32:11-14,30-34) but also for Aaron, for which we have no record.
Barnes Notes:
The golden calf - The people had, to a great extent, lost the patriarchal faith, and were but imperfectly instructed in the reality of a personal unseen God. Being disappointed at the long absence of Moses, they seem to have imagined that he had deluded them, and had probably been destroyed amidst the thunders of the mountain Exodus 24:15-18. Accordingly, they gave way to their superstitious fears and fell back upon that form of idolatry which was most familiar to them.
My response to Barnes: The people had already agreed to worship the LORD (19:7-8) and been commanded to worship no other god and have no graven images (20:3-6). My question is, where were Israel’s leaders? 70 of them had been up on the mountain, with Aaron, Moses and Joshua, and saw something amazing, and fellowshipped with the LORD (24:9-18). Perhaps we see in Aaron that fatal flaw we see later in his sons (Lev. 10:1-3).
Gaebelein's Annotated Bible (Arno C. Gaebelein, 1922):
Here we find man’s heart fully uncovered, that wicked heart of unbelief. What manifestations of God’s power they had seen! … And now when Moses delayed, they requested of Aaron, “Up, make us gods.” God was not mentioned at all by the rebellious mass. It seemed Moses and not God was the object of their faith. The heathen had gone that way and “changed the glory of the Uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts and creeping things” (Romans 1:23). The favored nation shows that their heart is as corrupt as the heart of the Gentiles, who know not God. … And Aaron plays the leading part in this awful scene of degradation and wickedness. He announces a feast unto the Lord, after he had made the golden calf from the golden ear-rings (copied, no doubt, after the Egyptian idol Apis; see Psalm 106:19-20). Then the people “rose up to play”; wild dances, licentious and filled with the abominations of the heathen, the flesh let loose, is what followed. The people were naked (verse 25).
My response to Gaebelein: Perhaps the upside to this story, if we have to have one, is the establishment of the Levites who stood with Moses (32:26-28). They are, of course, Moses’ kin, but then again, so was Aaron! And while we are at it, Moses’ rising to the place where he stands with Israel, even willing to be blotted out of the LORD’s book, is something the LORD had been working on with Moses. He needed to become a true shepherd, willing to give his life for the sheep.
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