Beyond Golden Calves, Part 2: Physical Idols and False Gods
When lies take visible form
Hello brothers and sisters.
In Part 1, we explored how even God-ordained objects can become idols when they displace our devotion to God Himself. We saw how Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent— something Moses made at God’s command —because it had become Nehushtan, a mere piece of brass that people worshiped instead of the God who worked through it.
If you missed part 1, you can read it here:
But before we can recognize the subtle forms of idolatry that ensnare believers today, we must first understand the obvious ones. We must see how Scripture systematically dismantles the claims of physical idols and false gods; those visible, tangible objects that ancient peoples worshiped as deities.
This isn’t just ancient history. The pattern of physical idolatry reveals something fundamental about the human heart: We crave gods we can see, control, and manipulate. We want deities that make demands we can meet, that fit into our categories, that don’t require radical trust in an invisible, sovereign Lord.
The Bible’s relentless assault on idol worship isn’t about wood and stone. It’s about exposing the lie at the heart of all false religion: that we can manufacture our own salvation, that we can approach the divine on our terms, that we can replace the Creator with the creature.
Let’s examine three paradigmatic examples of physical idolatry, paying close attention to how both the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint handle these accounts.
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1: The Golden Calf
When Impatience Births Idolatry
The Setting (Exodus 32:1-6)
The scene is Mount Sinai. Moses has been on the mountain for forty days and nights, receiving the Law directly from God. The people wait below, and their patience grows thin. They’ve just witnessed the most dramatic displays of divine power in human history: the plagues of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud and fire, the thunder and lightning on Sinai. They’ve heard God’s voice declaring the Ten Commandments, including the explicit prohibition: “You shall have no other gods before me.”
And yet...
“When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’” (Exodus 32:1)
The Hebrew text uses an interesting word for “delayed”: בֹּשֵׁשׁ (boshesh), which comes from a root meaning “to be ashamed” or “to be confounded.” The people felt confused by Moses’ absence, perhaps even embarrassed that they’d been left waiting so long. The Septuagint renders this with ἐχρόνισεν (echron isen), “he took a long time,” capturing the sense of excessive delay from the people’s perspective.
Notice their request: “make us אֱלֹהִים (elohim).” This word is grammatically plural and can mean either “gods” or “God” depending on context. Here, most English translations render it as “gods” (plural), and the Hebrew verb construction supports this: “who shall go before us” uses a plural verb form. The Septuagint confirms this reading with θεούς (theous), the plural “gods.”
This is crucial. The people weren’t necessarily rejecting their God outright to worship a completely foreign deity. They were demanding visible representation of divine presence, something tangible that would “go before us” as Moses had been doing. They wanted a mediator they could see and control.
Aaron’s Capitulation
Aaron’s response is both swift and tragic:
“So Aaron said to them, ‘Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.’ So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf.” (Exodus 32:2-4a)
The Hebrew says Aaron “fashioned it” (וַיָּצַר, vayyatsar) with a “graving tool.” This is the same verb used in Genesis 2:7 where God “formed” man from the dust. It suggests careful, artistic work, not a hasty casting. The Septuagint uses ἔπλασεν (eplasen), “he molded/shaped it,” also implying careful craftsmanship.
Aaron spent time on this. He didn’t make a snap decision in a moment of weakness. He collected the gold, melted it down, and shaped it carefully.
Many English readers miss the subtext here. The unspoken detail is that depending on its size (which Scripture doesn’t tell us), the process of carefully crafting a calf from the gold of the people’s earrings would be a time-consuming, labor-intensive process. Assuming Aaron was a highly skilled goldworker and already had everything he would need for the work on hand, and considering the level of artistry involved, it would take at least several days but more likely several weeks if not longer to complete.
Consider that using modern technology and processes, it would take a skilled goldworker a week or more to create such a calf.
So what goes unspoken is that Moses probably wasn’t gone for very long before the people came to Aaron asking him to make this idol, and then Aaron proceeded to take a great deal of time to make it. Just further emphasizing that this was not an impulse decision. Aaron clearly put a lot of thought into what he was doing and why.
In any event, he created a calf. A young bull, which in the ancient Near East symbolized strength, fertility, and divine power. The bull was sacred to multiple cultures: the Egyptians worshiped Apis, the Canaanites associated the bull with Baal and El.
Why a calf specifically? Perhaps because the imagery was familiar and comfortable. Perhaps because it represented power and vitality. Perhaps because a visible, contained representation of deity felt safer than the terrifying, invisible God who spoke from fire and smoke on the mountain.
The Shocking Declaration
What happens next reveals the depths of Israel’s confusion:
