Exodus 32: 1-6, “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.”
There is a tension that resonates throughout the majority of the Bible. This tension began when Satan first tempted Eve in the garden. It is the tension that exists between true wisdom and false wisdom. The first time that we discover the concept of being wise in the Bible is in Gen 3: 6 (“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”) There was more to the temptation than just just knowing good and evil, there was also the temptation to be wise. The second time that we come across “wise” in the Bible is in Gen 41: 8 (“And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh.”) In this case the Lord gave Pharaoh a message but he relied on earthly wisdom to find the meaning of the Lord’s message. Joseph finally came and delivered the true message from the Lord and Israel was saved from starvation. This shows us that false wisdom is defined by man while true wisdom is defined by God. Man’s wisdom boasts that he can define what is good and what is evil while God’s wisdom gives the true definition of good and evil. While Moses was on the mountain and the Lord was giving him true wisdom, Israel, under Aaron, decided that they wanted to make their own definition of good and evil. During this period they chose to define their own god and hence their own rules. These new rules even reached the stage where all the people were naked (Ex 32: 25, “And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)”). When Adam and Eve sinned they were ashamed because they were naked but these people were naked but they weren’t ashamed. This tension still exists today and every person who wants to follow the Lord has to take great care to submit to His wisdom and forsake all false wisdom.
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
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