The Blame Game

Now, after burning and grinding the golden calf, Moses now turns to Aaron and confronts him. Pay attention to what Aaron says and try to figure out why this text is right here in Exodus. Then Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you, that you have brought such great sin upon them?” Aaron said, “Do not let the anger of my lord burn; you know the people yourself, that they are prone to evil. Exodus 32:21-22

After Moses had confronted Aaron, one would have expected Aaron to be sorry and confess his sin, but no! See what he does; he instead accuses the people, saying, “You know the people yourself, that they are prone to evil. In other words, “I had no choice Moses, they are so evil”. We call that blame shifting. Aaron goes on in vs.23, “For they said to me, ‘Make a god for us who will go before us; for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him”.

From blaming the Israelites, he now subtly accuses Moses. As “For this Moses”, Aaron says, “He left”. As if to say, at least you could have told us when you were coming back! This is now the second accusation.

And so it continues. Read the next verse, vs.24, “I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, let them tear it off’. So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.” He literally tells Moses that when he threw the gold on the fire, out came this calf! It just happened, miraculously. The Targum of Jonathan paraphrased this part very well writing, “and I cast it into the fire, and Satan entered into the midst of it, and out of it came the likeness of this calf”. First, he accuses the people, then he accuses Moses, then he accuses the devil, or life’s circumstances. And see how he addresses Moses: my lord, yet he is older than Moses. Usually the younger would call the older my lord.

This section of Exodus 32: 21-24 has become a big embarrassment for many in Judaism. One opinion says that the Aaron mentioned here was not the Aaron who was Moses’ brother. In the first century, Josephus omits this whole story from his history book (Childs). Philo in his writings, tries so hard to exonerate Israel and Aaron from the blame (Childs). But, reading about Aaron in other parts of the Torah, good parts of his personality are brought up. This we find in Numbers 12:11 which tells us what Aaron also said, So Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord! Please do not lay this sin on us, in which we have done foolishly and in which we have sinned. In this case, he asks for forgiveness on behalf of the people. That is a nice gesture, and he confesses his sin by saying that we – him and the people have sinned.

So why only here in Exodus are we seeing this negative side of Aaron? Do we realize that he is the High Priest of Israel, the highest-ranking person in the nation, the one, the only one who could atone for their sins at Yom Kippur, on the day of Atonement, who is here acting like a child? Would you bet your eternal future on such an immature person? That is the question and the reason why we are given this event; to look for the other Mediator; the High Priest Who is the Messiah. Only He is full of wisdom, only He is able to save. All these circumstances lead us to Yeshua.

And as we read on, we will be so impressed by Moses and the great love he has but he was not able to save Israel either. As a pair, Moses the great, and Aaron the immature in Exodus, form a wonderful duo, telling us that no matter how great either one is, no one could ever save humanity: only Yeshua can!

But Aaron’s behavior is very much like ours can be, shifting the blame. Do you remember our original father and mother, Adam and Eve? Aaron acted like they did, and so do we. After Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, God went first to Adam, the head of the house. He graciously asked, “Where are you?”

He gave him a chance to repent and confess his sin, but no, like Aaron, what he did was to accuse his wife and said in Genesis 3:12, The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate. But the Lord had not originally spoken to Eve, but to Adam who was responsible for the well functioning of the household. Read carefully what he is saying; he not only accuses his wife, he also accuses God, Vs.10, The woman whom You gave.  This is another double hitter. We often accuse God for many of our problems as do the non-believers. It’s funny how they say they do not believe in Him, but when tragedy strikes, they accuse Him. Make up your mind!

Now God turns to Eve. Maybe He would have had more success with her. At this time, they must have been next to each other, each adorned with fig leaves which had no power whatsoever in front of God. And so, He turns to her and asks in vs.12, “What is it that you have done?” . No confession came out but what she does, like Aaron did later, is to accuse the serpent. She says in vs. 13, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

This is like saying the devil made me do it; but the devil only tempts, we are the ones who do it. He tempts but we make things happen. The devil cannot force anyone, everyone is ultimately responsible for his or her actions.  Satan can entice and urge and try to trick us, but the final choice of what to do is ours. It is said that “Satan dances with him until he finishes the sin”, and he dances well but we have the final say.  The truth is that some fall easier to sin, while others are stronger, but everyone is fully responsible for his or her actions.

So, what have we learnt? We have seen how Moses tried so hard to save his people from what he knew to be a very grave sin. He first broke the Tablets of the Law, which represented a marriage contract between God and Israel (Ibn Ezra); he broke them so that the judgment of adultery would not fall on Israel. Second, he burned the Golden Calf, grinded it into fine dust and mixed it with water, and had Israel drink it. This was his attempt to remove the sin from the camp and find out who was responsible. Third, we have seen how Aaron could not be the worthy Mediator between man and God.

After this we read in Exodus 32:30 that Moses went up the mountain in an attempt to make atonement for the people. But in all his good work, he could not save Israel. While touched by the love and dedication of this man Moses, the Lord could only delay the judgment, until the time when Yeshua came and gave His life for Israel and for the world. Without Him, there is no forgiveness of sin. This is the main message we have in this wonderful part of the Bible.

Tablets of 

Click Here for the Teaching: Exodus Sermon 32: Who Paid for the Sin of the Golden Calf