Sometimes I feel very inadequate and old.  My brother Moses keeps climbing up and down Mount Sinai, but I stay at the bottom.  He speaks to God, and I am left having to speak to the people.  They are God’s people, so I can’t be too critical of them – after all, he chose them – but I know that I would far prefer to speak to God.

But this time, while Moses was away, I made a really bad mistake which almost caused the death of everyone in the camp, including me[1].  He was away for longer than I expected, and that was probably the reason everything went so badly wrong.  Although he is my little brother, I have to say that Moses is an incredible man.  He was deeply lacking in confidence when he came back from Midian, but that’s not a problem any more – to be honest, it seems to be more confidence in God than in himself, really.  And spiritually he is so far above anyone I have ever met that I just don’t feel as though I’m in the same category at all.  Don’t get me wrong, I would dearly love to be like him, and I find his attitude a great encouragement, but I just can’t rise to his level.

And this incident just proved it all over again.

Moses went up Mount Sinai and I stayed down at the bottom with the people.  Moses told the seventy elders God had chosen[2] that if they needed answers to difficult problems, they were to come to Hur or me.  I suppose that meant we were in charge.

Moses didn’t go all the way up the mountain at first, just part of the way with Joshua, and there they stayed for seven days, waiting for God to tell him the right time to go the rest of the way up.  Seven days was no problem, particularly with the presence of God being so obvious around the mountain.  For six days there was a cloud, and then a fire came as well.  It looked as if the top of mountain was burning.  A truly amazing sight and one that made a deep impression on the people.

Then, from the flames, God called Moses, and he disappeared up into the cloud, heading up towards the fire that was the presence of Yahweh.

So Moses was gone and we were in charge.  Everything went well for about the first four weeks.  No important problems at all, just the normal day-to-day questions you get with such a large group of people.  But then, all of a sudden, people started to notice that Moses wasn’t there and to chafe at the restraints God had put on them.  The fire was impressive, but even miracles lose their impact when they become everyday events.  Manna kept coming every day – enough of a miracle to convince anyone for the rest of their life, you might think.  But no, people started to discount God’s work and to ascribe it to all the gods they had worshipped in Egypt.  Those dead idols had been left behind with all the other rubbish in the hovels we had gladly abandoned, and Yahweh had proved himself to be the author of all the miraculous salvation we had enjoyed: plagues on demand, dry paths through the sea, and drinking water when we needed it.

Yahweh was still showing himself through daily manna (except on Saturdays) and the mountain still burned with fire, but the people wanted a god they could see.  Miracles were all very well, they said, but they wanted a visible god to worship, and they hankered after all of the old gods they had worshipped in Egypt.

I know that sounds stupid – well, it is stupid – but we all seem to have a bit of “stupid” in us at times.  The people started to show theirs and I was about to show mine too.

Trying to explain what you’ve done when it is so stupid is very hard.  It’s also hard not to try to excuse myself, but I’ll do my best.

The normal ringleaders of whinging came to me, the very same ones who used to complain so much about the conditions in Egypt, yet now talk about it as if it were a holiday resort people would pay to visit.

“Make us gods,” they said.

I said, “No.  You have a God – Yahweh.  He brought you out of Egypt.”

“Moses brought us out of Egypt,” they countered, “but he’s gone.  He went up the mountain and now who knows where he is?  We need a god we can see.”

I waved at Mount Sinai as it rumbled and glowed above us, “Look at the fire,” I replied.  “your God burns the mountain with fire.  You don’t need to see God: see his work; eat the manna; hear the thunder from the top of the mountain.”

“We want gods, or at least one god we can take around with us,” said one; another said, “Moses led us out of Egypt, but we don’t know what has happened to him;” to which a third replied grimly, “He probably got burned up.”

The one thing they all agreed on was “We want a god we can see.”

Hur decided to take a literal interpretation of Moses’ words, and said this wasn’t a matter for a legal decision, so he wouldn’t be involved.  That was all very well, but if we didn’t do something, we would have idols springing up everywhere.

So they pestered me every day, becoming more demanding and aggressive each time.

Well, then; what should I do?  How could I minimise the damage until Moses came back?  Surely he should be back soon?  By then, he had been gone for more than five weeks, but there was no sign of him or of young Joshua.

Anyway, two days ago, it all came to a head.  Early in the morning, the delegation came again, with more hangers-on than ever, and a belligerent attitude all round.  They were not taking “No” for an answer this time, and I knew that if I didn’t do something to placate them, there would be idols and orgies all over the camp before nightfall.

That was when I made a really bad decision.  Look, minimising trouble and harm is all very well as an idea – laudable, in fact.  But when things are right or wrong, any toying with wrong is just plain wrong.  Unfortunately I wasn’t strong enough to say that – Moses would have – and I genuinely believed that what I was doing would work out for the best.

So I tried to give them a little of what they wanted, but still keep them on the right path.  Needless to say, it didn’t work.  I thought I could just give in to a little bit of wrong and keep it under control.

I was wrong.  Dead wrong.

Sometimes the only choice we have is to be either absolutely right or absolutely wrong.

I was absolutely wrong, and that’s why I’m writing today.  Don’t follow my example.  When God says “Do” or “Don’t”, then “Do” or “Don’t” as he directs; don’t try to mix God’s ways with any other ways.

About 3,000 men died yesterday, and it could easily have been everybody had it not been for Moses.  I feel responsible for it.  I don’t know what would have happened if I had stood up for God as I ought to have, but at least I would have a clear conscience now.  Maybe God will have to get rid of other rebels as we travel to the land of promise, but maybe he will leave it up to us again as he did yesterday.  I can tell you, it’s really hard going around killing people for their sins when you know that you have made it easier for some to join in who might have stayed on Yahweh’s side if you had set a better example as leader.

“Give me all of your gold earrings,” I said, “and your wives’, your sons’ and your daughters’ earrings as well, all of them.  Bring them here and I will melt them all down and see what I can do.”

I was still hoping that Moses would come back before they brought the rings, but no, they were amazingly quick, and soon I had piles of golden earrings lying on a mat in front of me, easily enough to make the sort of hollow image they wanted.  After all, it had to be light enough to carry around with us.

And there were all the volunteers you could ever have wanted: helpers to make sure we had enough fuel for the furnace, helpers to light the furnace, expert helpers to make a rough mould, helpers with crucibles and ladles, helpers to sort the earrings and remove any that weren’t pure gold. Helpers everywhere!  But no helpers with any brilliant ideas of how to slow the process down until Moses returned.  So the furnace swallowed up all of the gold, and after a while we had liquid gold glowing in several large crucibles.  The mould was ready and heated, too, and little rivers of fire coursed down the sides of the mould as the crucibles were emptied into it.

[1] Deuteronomy 9:20
[2] Exodus 24:1