I try to dwell among you, and what do you do?  

Yesterday my post was all about laws. Laws and laws and laws. Today that continues for a big, with instructions upon instructions about making a sanctuary for God. But the reason I'm not bored with it is because there is clear purpose in what God is telling Moses.

Synopsis

The Israelites have just agreed to God's laws to become his people, his treasured posession. So Moses and Joshua are up on the mountain for forty days and God speaks to them:

Take offerings from the people, whatever they want to give, good stuff. Build a holy box exactly as I instruct you, build a big tent as a sanctuary as I instruct you, and set apart Aaron and his sons to be priests for this sanctuary. Build them really complicated clothes in order to do this just as I instruct you. All of this is so I, the LORD, can dwell among you (the Israelites). The Israelites each year must give a half-shekel to atone for their sin. Build a special basin and make special oil to anoint Aaron and his sons. I've chosen one guy from Dan's tribe and one from Judah's to be "filled with God's spirit" and to make a bunch of sweet designs for the sanctuary. Remember, REST ON THE SABBATH like I did on the seventh day of creation. Here are a couple tablets I made personally with the laws on them; put them in the holy box.

Meanwhile, down at camp Sinai, the people are sick of waiting for Moses to come down so they tell Aaron to make them a God to worship (yikes!! this is directly against God's command). Aaron uses a tool to make a gold cow for them. They go crazy worshiping this thing, which they say is the god that brought them out of Egypt.

God lets Moses know about this and tells Moses he'll just destroy the Israelites and start over with Moses, but Moses reminds God of his promise to Abraham and God relents.

Moses heads down the mountain, destroys the tablets in frustration and burns up the cow while Aaron makes excuses. Moses sees the people are running wild out of control. He calls for all who are loyal to The LORD to come to him. The Levites (of which he is one) come to his side. He commands them to kill with the sword their friends and relatives in the camp runnign wild. 3000 people are killed, and this gets everyone back in line.

Moses goes to God and asks for forgiveness for the Israelites; God relents but says there will be punishment, and the Israelites experience plagues. God says he will still give the Israelites Canaan, but he won't be able to travel with them or else he would have to destroy them for their evil.

Analysis

There is a whole lot to take in here. First of all, the parts about the sanctuary and all the details could be boring, but I have to remember that there is explicit purpose in it all: That the Israelites could know and worship God and so that he could dwell among them. It's actually a loving gesture.

So just as God is commanding this, the people completely go the other way, going against their promise to worship only God and claiming that another god, this golden calf, brought them out of Egypt! It's pretty stunning. While God is willing to destroy them for this, Moses looks a lot like Abraham as he calms God down and gets him to relent.

There is still punishment: 3000 cow-worshipers are killed and the Israelites get sick. But God is careful to not travel with them in order to withhold his judgment.