Execution - Exodus 32:25-35

32:25-35 – Moses has destroyed the golden calf and has convinced God to spare the people, and now sees “that the people were naked.” I had not idea what this meant, but the IM makes an interesting point saying, “’Naked’ can be understood in the same sense as when Adam was ashamed and hid himself from God because he was naked. The expression can also mean ‘exposed in guilt before God’s wrath.’” I thought that was an interesting explanation.

So Moses has God on one hand saying, “that’s it I’m killing everyone,” and the people not wanting to die, but also not being willing to be obedient and from that perspective it makes the next part make a little bit more sense. Moses “stood at the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me.” Next is mentioned that “all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him,” and I took that to mean that only Levite’s went to Moses and that might be true because Moses was a Levite, so TB suggests that it was Levites who rallied around him. With those who declared their loyalty to God, Moses tells them to go out into the camp of Israel “and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.”

This is worthy of further discussion because there are a few important points that need to be made here. First, even though the slay-ers are Levites, TB notes, “the wording makes it appear that thy must have killed not only non-Levites, but fellow Levites as well who had succumbed to idol worship.” This was a cross-tribal rebellion, it wasn’t just one tribe who went nuts, it was multiple parts of the whole of Israel that caused the problem and had to be dealt with.

Why did they have to be dealt with so violently and permanently? Why was the punishment death and not just like exile or a scolding or something like that? God’s reaction to the rebellion was to kill everyone, so by the logic of “minimizing loss,” Moses did the higher level math and decided that executing the rebel leaders would have been sufficient to keep the people righteous and also quelling God’s wrath.

Why were 3,000 killed? Again, this comes from my only previous knowledge being the movie the Ten Commandments where the golden calf scene is portrayed as being participated in by almost everyone and we know that there were a couple of million Israelites at this point, so the fact that only 3,000 were killed is like 0.001% of the people, so yes 3,000 is a lot but volume, not even close to being a significant portion of the people. Additionally, I doubt that the situation went down like where Moses says “Who’s on the Lord’s side?” then a bunch of people came running and then they went through the group and said “no you’re not” and killed them.

What I imagine happened was Moses called for those who are on the Lord’s side, everyone went to him except these 3,000 who probably refused to pledge loyalty to God again and were obstinate. They made their choice, publicly I’d imagine, and were defiant. Moses (and by extension God) gave them the chance to save their own lives, and they declined so what are you going to do at that point. These people who were in open rebellion of God, if left alive, would drive the people to spiritual destruction again and again and would eventually kindle God’s anger past the point of allowing Moses to advocate on their behalf. This is one of those situations where God decides that someone’s mortal life is a hinderance to their salvation and that of others and a journey to the next life is in everybody else’s best interest. These Levites are the ones who will become the future Levite priests here shortly and Moses tells them to “consecrate yourselves to day to the Lord.”

Moses then goes back up to the mountain and begs God to take his life as “an atonement” for the sins of the people. God declines and says “whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.” This incident is evidence of, as the IM says “Moses was told that he was ‘in the similitude’ of the Only Begotten Son… As the people faced destruction because of their wickedness, Moses became their mediator with God. He pleaded their cause and even offered his own life to appease the divine justice. After the constant murmuring and rebellion of the people, any usual leader would likely have said, ‘Yes, thy are a wicked people, Go ahead and destroy them.’ But Moses, like Christ whom he emulated, loved his people in spite of their hard-heartedness and wickedness. He interceded in their behalf and saved them, but only on the condition of their repentance.”