Cow Tippin'
1. Tip the Calf of Impatience
15 Then Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.
16 The glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud.
17 And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the mountain top.
18 Moses entered the midst of the cloud as he went up to the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
2. Tip the Calf of Arrogance
The number forty played a significant role throughout the OT: Isaac and Esau were forty when they married (25:20; 26:34), Moses was on Mount Sinai forty days and nights receiving the law from God (Ex 24:18; 34:28; Dt 9:11, 18, 25), Israel spent forty years in the wilderness following their disobedience (Nm 32:13), the Philistines oppressed Israel for forty years (Jdg 13:1), and several judges and kings ruled over Israel for forty years (Othniel, Jdg 3:11; Deborah, Jdg 5:31; Gideon, Jdg 8:28; Eli, 1Sm 4:8; David, 2Sm 5:4; Solomon, 1Kg 11:42; Joash, 2Kg 12:1; Saul, Ac 13:21).
forty days and forty nights The number 40 appears frequently in the OT and is symbolic as a period of separation for the sake of spiritual purification and growth (see 34:28; Deut 9:9–18; 10:10; compare Matt 4). It is often used in scenes relevant to the cleansing of sin or spiritual impurity (Gen 7:4, 12, 17; 8:6; 50:3; Num 13:25; 14:33; Josh 5:6; 1 Kgs 19:8; Ezek 4:6; 29:11–13; Psa 95:10).
2. Tip the Calf of Ungrateful Attitudes.
3. Tip the Calf of Cultural Pressure.
but mostly a matter of something that continues to plague even Christian people today: an inability to see that the spiritual world is primary to and in control of the physical and visible world. In order to help his people understand the truth, Yahweh insisted on being believed in rather than being seen. It was so much easier to believe in something that could actually be seen.
4. Tip the Calf of Idolatry.
Hebrew kōl is often used to connote “all sorts of” as well as “every last one of,” and there may have been many people, especially Levites (see below) who resisted the folly that Aaron and others had gotten into.
In either case, there is little doubt that Israelites of all times believed that it was Yahweh, and no other god, who had delivered them from Egypt. In other words, Yahweh was now being represented by an idol, the very sort of thing forbidden clearly by the second word/commandment.
