Lessons from the Golden Calf Incident versus the Baal-Peor Incident

By divine design, Exodus 32 and Numbers 25 provide to us the two earliest recorded accounts of ungodly corporate worship by God's people.

Thoroughly comparing and contrasting all that Scripture reveals about the Golden Calf Incident (GCI; Ex. 32) versus the Baal-Peor Incident (BPI; Num. 25) is vital for our learning all the lessons that God intends for us to learn from them.

What lessons does God want us to learn from these two incidents?

 

The Bible strongly emphasizes that God treated and regarded all the people who came out of Egypt in the same sense in at least the following respects.

1 Cor. 10:1 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;

2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;

3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat;

4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.

5 But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

6 Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.

7 Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

8 Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.

 

No, my post was not for that purpose. I was pointing out how the Spirit has related how He wants us to regard all the people that came out of Egypt, etc.

I am not saying that they were all God's people in the fullest sense, but they were all His people in the ways that the Spirit talks about in 1 Cor. 10:1-4.

Furthermore, and in support of that understanding of 1 Cor. 10:1-4, the Bible is very plain and repeatedly explicit that God regarded all the children of Israel who were in bondage in Egypt and whom He brought out from Egypt as His people. At least 16 verses explicitly show that was the case:

1. Exod. 3:7 And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;
2. Exod. 3:10 Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.
3. Exod. 5:1 And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.
4. Exod. 7:4 But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.
5. Exod. 7:16 And thou shalt say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness: and, behold, hitherto thou wouldest not hear.
6. Exod. 8:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
7. Exod. 8:20 And the LORD said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh; lo, he cometh forth to the water; and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
8. Exod. 8:21 Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are.
9. Exod. 8:22 And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth.
10. Exod. 8:23 And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.
11. Exod. 9:1 Then the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
12. Exod. 9:13 And the LORD said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
13. Exod. 9:17 As yet exaltest thou thyself against my people, that thou wilt not let them go?
14. Exod. 10:3 And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? let my people go, that they may serve me.
15. Exod. 10:4 Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, to morrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast:
16. Acts 7:34 I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt.

 

I have shown from 16 explicit biblical statements that God Himself regarded all the fathers as His people. If you reject those inspired statements, your disagreement is not with me, but with God.

There is no basis to say that "my people" in all those statements only referred to the true believers in Yahweh who were among the children of Israel who were in Egypt and whom He brought out from Egypt.

 

A close examination of Exodus 32:7-14 in the GCI account in Exodus 32 proves that God regarded the people who engaged in the GCI as His people.

First, and interestingly, God speaks of the people who participated in the GCI as Moses' people whom he (Moses) brought out of Egypt:

Exod. 32:7 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:

8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

9 And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:

10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
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God said that He was going to consume the people that Moses brought out of Egypt and make of Moses a great nation.

Moses then responded to God by saying to God that the people against whom God's wrath had waxed hot because of the GCI were God's people that He [God] had brought of Egypt:

11 And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?

12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.

13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.​

Under inspiration of the Spirit, Moses then as the writer of the book of Exodus said that God repented of the evil that He had thought to do to His people because they had participated in the GCI:

14 And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.​

Exodus 32:14 is inspired divine revelation that speaks of the people whom God was ready to destroy but then relented as being His (God's) people.

It proves that the ones who engaged in the GCI were regarded by God as His people, just as Moses had spoken of them as being God's people in Exodus 32:11 and 32:12.