Exodus 32

On Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost), at Mount Sinai, YHVH entered into a marriage covenant with the children of Israel, but they were not ready to live up to the terms of that covenant. Those terms, simply stated, involved the Israelites being faithful and obedient only to YHVH, Israel’s Elohim (God) and spiritual husband, and to follow his instruction in righteousness, the Torah. This Israel quickly demonstrated they were not willing to do, for they had hardly said “I do” to their marriage vows (Exod 24:3, 7) when they turned their hearts away from YHVH and began worshipping the golden calf—a pagan deity from Egypt. After the golden calf incident and up until Yom Teruah (the Day of Trumpets or Shofar Blasts) when Moses received the second tablets of stone from YHVH containing the Ten Commandments, the children of Israel, the bride of YHVH, prepared herself not only to receive YHVH’s instructions again, but this time to be faithful to her marriage vows. This Israel did. She remained faithful to YHVH for approximately 38 years while trekking through the wilderness of Sinai, after which she entered the Promised Land and “stayed the course” until after the death of Joshua.

Sadly, the cycles of history often repeat themselves. This time, it involved the descendants of the children of Israel who were at Mount Sinai. In the early first century a.d.,  the redeemed Israelite followers of Yeshua received the Torah written on the fleshly tablets of their hearts by the finger of the Spirit of Elohim on the Day of Pentecost (Shavuot) as recorded in Acts 2. But starting at about a.d. 70 with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and continuing up through the Second Jewish Revolt of a.d. 135 until the time of Emperor Constantine (in the fourth century), the first-century spiritual bride of Messiah had, to a large extent, abandoned YHVH’s Torah-commandments and turned, to one degree or another, to a mixed form of worship (of which ancient Israel’s worship at the golden calif was a prophetic foreshadow) where some pagan practices were assimilated into the early churches’ belief system (most notably, Sunday replaced the Sabbath, and Christmas, Easter and other paganistic holidays replaced the biblical feasts).

Moses’ descent of Mount Sinai on Yom Teruah with the second set of tablets containing the Torah prophetically foreshadows Yeshua’s second coming. As Moses renewed YHVH’s covenant with the repentant Israelites after the golden calf incident and the Israelites remained faithful for a long time afterwards, even so, Yeshua, at his second coming, will establish a renewed covenant with his faithful end time saints who have come out of golden calf-type religious systems.

In our day, YHVH is calling out a remnant of people from the church who are leaving behind the pagan traditions of golden calf worship and who are returning to the ancient blessed paths of YHVH’s Torah-instructions in righteousness. The book of Revelation speaks of a group of end-time saints who will say “I do” to YHVH, and whose identifying mark is their faith in Yeshua the Messiah (i.e., the gospel message) and yet who faithfully keep YHVH’s Torah-commandments (Rev 12:17 and 14:12).

When Yeshua returns on or near Yom Teruah at the end of the age, he will be ready to marry a bride that is without spot and wrinkle and who has come out of the end-times Babylonian religious whore system (Rev 18:4). This bride who will be wearing the robes of righteousness of Torah-obedience (Rev 12:17; 14:12; 19:7–9) will be ready to enter into a new covenantal agreement—a wedding contract or ketubah —with Yeshua (Heb 8:7–13), the Bridegroom, ever to remain faithful to him and never again to return to Baal or golden calf worship. He will lead his wife into the Messianic Age or Millennium, even as Joshua, a prophetic foreshadow of Yeshua, led the younger generation of wilderness Israelites into the Promised Land.

Exodus 32:1–35, The Israelites were saved by the strong arm of YHVH and the blood of the lamb on the door posts of their homes. They then left Egypt, and were given YHVH’s instructions in righteousness at Mount Sinai concerning how to live a set-apart life. Yet when the going got rough they reverted to the pagan practices and gods of Egypt all the while deceiving themselves into believing they were worshiping YHVH (Exod 32:3–8):

Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to YHVH.” So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. Then YHVH spoke to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’”

History repeated itself at the time of Jeroboam and again in the first-century a.d.—the early church era. On the Day of Pentecost Israel was again given the Torah (written on their hearts by the Spirit or Ruach of Elohim), yet when persecution arose at the end of the first-century a.d., Israel of the early church went into apostasy forsaking the weekly Sabbath and annual Sabbaths (the biblical feasts), the kosher laws, and many other aspects of the Torah, and they accepted pagan practices (Christmas, Easter, Sunday, and so on), which they melded with the truth of the Scriptures—the Word of Elohim. How does “golden calf worship” reflect in the mainstream church culture of our day? In what way does the mainstream church worship idols and end up breaking YHVH’s commandments? Why are so many Christians beginning to recognize that “our [spiritual] fathers have inherited lies” (Jer 16:19), and that they have followed “traditions of men by which the Word of Elohim has been made of none effect (Matt 15:6 and Mark 7:7, 9)? Is the Father calling a people out of religious Babylon (confusion or mixture, see Rev 18:4), and preparing a set-apart people to be the bride of Yeshua, who will be without spot and blemish, and will be adorned in the robes of Torah-righteousness through the power of the resurrected Yeshua (Rev 12:17; 14:12; 19:7–8)?

Exodus 32:4–5, Your gods…a feast to YHVH. This is the first example in the Scriptures of YHVH’s people mixing pagan practices (i.e., evil) with the truth of Elohim (i.e., good). Who is the author such mixture and what are its origins? (Read Gen 2:9 cp. 3:1–6.) The Hebrew word babel or Babylon means “confusion or mixture.” It is the mixing of evil with good, error with truth, darkness with light, death with life. What should be the saints’ response to spiritual mixture or Babylonianism? (Note Rev 18:4; 2 Cor 6:14–17.) What are some examples of mixture in Christianity? In Judaism?