Israel's worship of the golden calf
In 32.1-35: Israel makes an idol in the form of a golden calf and worships it.
This deed violates the important prohibition in the Ten Commandments against worshiping other gods and making idols (20.3-4).
The story has a parallel in a later account about King Jeroboam, who sets up golden calves at two worship sites in northern Israel (1 Kings 12.25-33).
In verses 2-3: the gold rings presumably come from the gold jewelry given tot he Israelites by the Egyptians when they fled Egypt (12.35-36).
In verse 4: The calf or young bull was a common image for certain Canaanite gods.
In verse 7: The Lord tells Moses that now the Israelites are your people.
They are no longer God's people.
In verse 10: The Lord plans to consume or completely destroy the Israelites for their disobedience.
The Lord will then take Moses alone and make him a great nation.
That is the same promise God first made to Abraham (Gen 12.2).
In verses 11-14: Moses pleads to God that they are your people (vv. 11, 12; see 33.13).
To destroy Israel would do harm to the Lord's international reputation (v. 12).
It would also violate God's promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (v. 13; see 6.2-8).
God swore or made a promise to each of the ancestors in genesis: Abraham (Gen 13.14-25), Isaac (Gen 26.3), and Jacob/Israel (Gen 28.13).
Remarkably, Moses succeeds.
The Lord changed his mind about destroying Israel.
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