The Pulpit Commentary — Deuteronomy — Section 183

'Vcrs. 8-22.-The sin at Horeb. Moses dwells on this sin, alike as memorable in itself, and as illustrating the proposition that the people had again and again forfeited their covenant standing by their acts of disobedience. I. THE ENORMITY OF THIS SIN. 1. It was a sin committed immediately after solemn covenant with God (ver. 9). The transactions recorded in Exod. xxiv. 3-9 were not yet forty days old. The people had literally heard God spealdng to them. They had acknowledged the solemnity of the situation by entreating Moses to act as mediator. They had formally, and under awfnl impressions of God's majesty, pledged themselves to life-long obedience. Yet within that brief space of time they broke through all restraints, and violated the main stipulation of their agreement, by setting up and worshipping the golden calf. A tran~gression showing greater levity, temerity, deadness to spiritual feeling, and perversity of disposition, it would be difficult to conceive. Perha]'S the case is not a solitary one. Can none remember instances of solemn vows, of sacred engagements, of deep impressions, almost as soon forgotten, almost as recklesly followed up by acts of flagrant transgression? 2. It was a sin committed while Moses was in the mou11t, transacting for them (vers. 9-12). Moses, for an obvious reason, rehearses the circumstances of his stay in the mount, and of his interview with God. He had gone to receive the tables of the Law. He recalls, as in striking contrast witb the levity of the multitudes below, his rapt communion of forty days and nights. Sin needs a background to bring it out in its full enormity. 'l'hat background is furnished in these details. The people are pointed to the tables as the rule of the obedience they had pledged themselves to render. They are reminded that their sln was perpetrated at a time when God was yet transacting with them, and when their minds ou"ht to have been filled with very different thoughts. Do we reflect on the ll"~avati~n given to our own sins by the presence of our Mediator in the heavenly 1;;unt, and by the ceaseless and holy work he is there conducting on our behalf? 3. It was a sin of daring enormity in itself. The making of the golden calf, after what had Lapr,ened, can only be characterized as an act of shocking impiety. 'l'he worship· was doubtless accompanfod by profane and lewd revellings. 'l'his under the eye of their God and King. II. THE coNSEQUEKCEB OF TIIE SIN, 1. It involved the forfeiture of covenant privt'ltge, signified by the breaking of the tables of the Law (ver. 17). This was the first light in which the Israelites had to view it. It refuted their idea that they got the land in virtue of their righteousness. 'l'rue. the sin had been committed by the on. 1x. 1-29.] THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. 173