Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the Lord, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them (Exodus 30:11-12).

Here is a little one-paragraph detail that we might quickly read over without a second thought; however, the failure to appreciate this little text would later result in the slaughter of 70,000 in Israel. 

1 Chronicles 21:1 records that Satan incited David to number Israel. 2 Samuel 24:1 indicates that ultimately God was behind the counting because God was angry with Israel. Nevertheless, David acknowledged his sin. Who was responsible? David? Satan? God? And what precisely was the sin here? What is more, when David later asks God why He doesn't simply punish David rather than all of Israel, God does not answer him. Like Job before him, God shows that His sovereign actions are not subject to man's desire or demand to know. But we may guess a little with respect to the nature of the sin. Elmer Towns, a professor at my alma mater, Liberty University, makes this perceptive observation, which arises from our text today:

As to why God was angry at David, in those times, a man only had the right to count or number what belonged to him. Israel did not belong to David; Israel belonged to God. In Exodus 30:12 God told Moses, “When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the LORD a ransom for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them.” It was up to God to command a census, and if David counted he should only do it at God's command, receiving a ransom to "atone" for the counting. This is why God was angry again with Israel and is also why David was “conscience-stricken” after he counted Israel. David knew it was wrong and begged God to take away the guilt of his sin (2 Samuel 24:10) (Towns in Bible Answers for Almost All Your Questions by Elmer L. Towns).

You shall not offer any strange incense on this altar [i.e. the altar of incense], or burnt offering or meal offering; and you shall not pour out a drink offering on it (Exodus 30:9).

God commanded Aaron to be careful not to offer any "strange incense" on the altar of incense.

He shall take a firepan full of coals of fire from upon the altar [i.e. brazen altar, the altar for burnt offering] before the Lord and two handfuls of finely ground sweet incense, and bring it inside the veil. He shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the ark of the testimony, otherwise he will die (Leviticus 16:12-13).

God commanded Aaron to take fire from the brazen altar, which would be combined with incense from the altar of incense and then presented before the Lord in the Holy of Holies. 

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord (Leviticus 10:1-2).

Nadab and Abihu put fire in their firepans that likely did not come from the brazen altar, as the Lord prescribed. This violation led to their deaths. At this inauguration of the duties of the priests, the deaths of Nadab and Abihu demonstrated God's holiness to the people of God.

There may be a parallel to this in the account of Ananias and Sapphira, who was found to have lied to the Holy Spirit by keeping back a part of their property while saying that they gave all of it. They died as a result of this. This was at the inauguration of the church, and as with Nadab and Abihu, the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira demonstrated God's holiness to the people of God:

And great fear came over the whole church, and over all who heard of these things (Acts 5:11).

Friends, God does not appear be striking people down in the same manner as He did in the times of Moses and the apostles; however, this does not mean that we should treat God's holiness with any less gravity. We must still carefully study and correctly apply the Word of God to our lives.

Some in the charismatic circles and all of those caught up in the neo-apostolic and prophetic ministries out of Kansas City are treading the dangerous ground of offering strange fire and even misrepresenting the Holy Spirit, attributing things to Him that have no biblical warrant. As I have done before, I admonish my faithful brothers and sisters to be mindful of those that would lead them astray into these realms. John MacArthur addresses many of these dangers in his Strange Fire conference, which is available for free on this site: https://www.gty.org/ (search "strange fire").

Sin, that corruptible part in us all, should be known by us all. It is a weakness that that better we acknowledge the better off we are. The ones who are most familiar with it seem to be most merciful, most loving, most in tune with what God has done. Consider the magnitude of Colossians 3:12,13:

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

As I read the forehead slapping events of the bible, it helps me to not have an observer’s view, but remember they are people that didn’t ‘just read about God’s might.’ For example, in the Exodus, even if one event happened once a year (40 years of wandering, 40 chapters) that still leaves lots of time for rebellion to build up.

Aaron is one I quickly react to say, “Come on!” but then quickly get flashes of all the times God would say that to me.

Exodus 24
12 The Lord said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction." 13 So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. 14 And he said to the elders, "Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them."
18 Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Aaron is no longer Moses’ assistant, it is now Joshua. Aaron is now the priest! And in the absence of Moses, is the judge. From Exodus 24 to Exodus 31 we have 40 days of silence from God’s Word, no Moses, no prophet.

Exodus 31:
18 And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.

Meanwhile failure ensues, and the golden calf was made.
Exodus 32: 1-4
The people gathered themselves to Aaron and said him, "Up, make us gods.” So Aaron said to them, "Take off the rings of gold.” And he received the gold from their hand and [he] fashioned it.

Then in typical Adam and Eve sin blames point to someone else, even God:

Exodus 32 ²¹ And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” ²² And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. ²³ For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ ²⁴ So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

(“I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf” – just like that!)

It is so critical to look into the mirror of scripture and see our face; see who you truly are.

James 1:25

“But the one who looks into the perfect law (the mirror), the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”
You cannot live a blessed life through willpower, for how can you overpower yourself.

You cannot live a blessed life through cleverness, for how can you outsmart yourself.

Because you are evil, you must die to live well. Because you are evil, you can’t trust yourself so it’s best to live how God suggests you live.

Luke 9:23“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord." (Exodus 32:5).

Notice here that Aaron proclaims "a feast to the LORD (Yahweh)". He uses the the covenantal Name of God. Yet, this was to be a feast to the golden calf, which he recently fashioned for Israel to worship in response to their impatient clamoring, "Come, make us a god who will go before us, as for this Moses... we do not know what has become of him" (Exodus 32:1). What can we surmise from this?

Israel's sin was not so much a rejection of God per se, but a rejection of Moses, God's designated leader.  Since Moses took so long in coming back to them, they imagined the worst and declared Aaron as their new leader. They demanded that he fashion "a god" that they could worship and follow. The "molten calf" appears to be Aaron's idea, although he rationalized to Moses later that the calf simply popped out from the fire (Exodus 32:24). Since Aaron declared a feast "to the LORD," it appears that he was associating the LORD ("Yahweh") with the golden calf. So, the people would still be worshipping the LORD, but they would do so through the vehicle of the golden calf.

But this was directly in violation to God's command, which the people both knew and committed themselves to obey:

When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said.... Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey” (Exodus 24:3-4,7).

One of the very first commands of God was the regulation against making any image of Him:

You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God (Exodus 20:4-5).

Therefore, Israel's sin was not so much a rejection of God but a violation of God's command.

Now that we are clear as to the basis on which God judged Israel, what application might we find for our day. In America, almost anything and everything is justified under the banner of "Christianity". More and more the lines are being blurred between such groups as Catholics, Mormons, and Evangelical Christians. After all, they say, "We all worship Jesus." For the sake of political, moral and ethical solidarity, there is a call for all religions to unite. The Bible is no longer the only resource for God's truth. Now, people speak of personal prophecies, dreams, and visions. The Bible is no longer objective truth but is treated like some works of art, meaningful only so much as people can discover their own meaning from it. That is why groups like IHOP are so dangerous. They don the cloak of Christianity but interpret the Bible as loosely as necessary to fit their own brand of experiencing God. Aren't these all just golden calves?

So while Moses is on the mountain, for 40 days and nights (do you think the Lord may be testing the Israelites here?) Aaron bows to the demands of the people. Aaron had seen all the miracles God had done through Moses to the Egyptian people and out in the desert.  He had been a participant in some of them! And yet when the people doubted Moses was coming back, Aaron led them into idolatry. They wanted a god they could SEE rather than a God they couldn't. The Israelites had actually been in the presence of God, as a pillar of fire and cloud, since they left Egypt! And they couldn't trust Him because He kept Moses, his human representative, away for too long. Isnt this representative of what people do? Time and time again, God has shown us his Character. And time and time again, we keep a "backup plan" just in case it isn't something we like.

Aaron's excuses are "Well, the people were looking to sin anyway because they thought you were gone" and "when I threw the jewelry in, this calf is what jumped out at me..." I don't think that cut it with Moses and God. Aaron is lucky he wasn't slain as Moses had the Levites killing about 3,000 people in response. This was literally the atonement offering

And then Moses burns the calf and makes the Israelites drink it. What a bitter drink that would have been. What a spiritual valley after the mountain they had just been on.

We should drown in the awesomeness of God.  Consider your little body sitting in a room, of a building, in a city, in a landmass, on a planet, in a solar system, in a galaxy of 120 thousand light years across, among a network of galaxies in universe conceivably around 46 billion light years across. And the lord spake: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)

We are so worthless. Easily duplicate-able, by such a God, easily forgotten and replaceable by a God who has no need, yet we fully need and desire him. Yet he loves us… all of us.

Pslam 144:3 O LORD, what is man that you regard him

We have value because God values us. Without that, we are merely dust! Compared to God there is nothing special about you, you are dust! Genesis 3:19, from dust you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

In Exodus 30:12-13, the people are told to ransom for their lives during the census, each to pay a half a shekel.  That is our valuation, a half a shekel. 5.5 grams, in today’s (2/6/12) gold that is $330, one month groceries, a car payment, a utility bill – IF the shekel was in today’s gold value. 5.5 grams of silver is $6.50.  I don’t know what they are shekel-ing here, but 5 grams is our redeemable worth!? This is so small that there is no provision for the poor!

Exodus 30:15, the rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less

With God’s wrath he wipes away the dust on the earth as he did in the flood. As he did in Exodus 32: 26-28, Moses cried out “Who is with the Lord, Come!” the Levi’s all came and were charged to slay their brother’s and their companions and neighbors –“and the sons of Levi did according to the Word of Moses.”

We are dust! We are valuated so low that no provision is made for the poor to pay. Dust on the earth, dust of the cosmos…

But he values you… all of you. He loves all those in Jesus Christ as greater than anything else created.

John 3:16; 1Timothy 2:3-4, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believe in him shall not perish, for God desires all men to be saved and have eternal life!

Those that accept his son receive the valuation of his son, the valuation beyond valuation.  He values you as his child, as that which is higher than the heavens, above the universe, that which makes our valuation like dust!

What Glory he is! What Grace! What a Loving God!

[I just read your entry, Yujin. Amen!]

Then the LORD said, “I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation" (Exodus 32:9-10).

God started the chosen race with Adam. God restarted with Noah. God restarted again with Abraham. And here God was about to restart yet again with Moses. Do you find something of a pattern here? People of every generation continually fail to meet the standard God requires. As Romans 3:23 teaches, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

It is easy to quickly read over these verses. But if you pause for a moment, you may sense the awesome gravity of the situation. Even after everything God did to grow this people from a band of 72 people to  perhaps over 2.5 million over hundreds of years, God was ready to destroy them all and start over, just as He did in Genesis 6 with Noah. Do you still think that God values human life so much?!

As I have commented before, we have a too high view of ourselves. Furthermore, we tend to think that we are like Noah, not the millions that were wicked and destroyed in the flood. We think that we are like Moses, not like the millions of others that God was intent to destroy for their idolatry. We identify with Joshua and Caleb and not the hundreds of thousands that were destroyed in the wilderness. What gives with this inherent pride? Is it not intimately tied into our very nature as children of Adam? We are obsessed with "being like God" in a way that God never intended (Genesis 3:5). 

But today, let us reflect on our mortality and God's sovereignty. Let us recalibrate our perspective with respect to our worth, which is not inherent in us but given to us. Apart from God's breath we are clay, apart from His redemption we are but coals for the fire of His wrath. 

As I read this section, I find the actions of Aaron quite disturbing. Since Moses is up on the mountain, Aaron is the leader of the people, the man who is to be their high priest, however, I see him giving in too quickly to the demands of the people for an idol. What I find interesting is that after he makes the golden calf, he says "These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”  He doesn't say they are the same gods as the Egyptians or the Canaanites; he tries to associate the golden image to the "LORD" himself. So in effect, he compromises the true worship of God with a man-made version, a version that is pleasing to the people.  As I see this happening, I can't help to think about the many Christian leaders out there that are compromising the true faith with a watered down version, a perverted version or versions that please people, instead of staying true to a faith that pleases GOD!! I can't help to think of the popularity of the "prosperity gospel" where God is essentially a magic genie that gives you what you want. WHAT happened to the "fire and brimstone" sermons that stressed the importance of REPENTENCE?! These are, of course, NOT very popular. 

When I think about what we are to believe about God, who He is, how He works, what He does, when He will fulfill his promises, I come from a standpoint that we should believe what GOD has said, what he has revealed to us in the Bible…whether it makes sense or not, whether it is popular or not, whether it is fair or not, whether it is convenient or not…Our tendency to water down our faith has made America a “laughingstock” to the rest of the world. "Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies." We in America are known to the rest of the world as a Christian nation, but isn’t it sad what foreigners think about America. What is America associated with? Immortality, materialism, selfishness disguised as “individuality,” indifference disguised as “tolerance.”

As Moses intercedes for Aaron, God does relent in his anger and Aaron does go on to became the 1st high priest of Isreal. When I see how quickly Aaron sinned in this section, I question how effective he would be as the high priest who intercedes for the sin's of his people...But how marvelous that we have a faithful, sinless high priest that intercedes for us!

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.  Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. --Hebrews 4:14

Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. --Romans 8:34

One of our members asked a couple of questions regarding this text. One is whether God could be persuaded to change his mind, as He seems to have done with Moses with respect to punishing Israel after Moses interceded for them (cf. Exodus 32:9-14). The second is what is the nature of the Book mentioned in Exodus 32:32-33.

On the first question, I don't think it is a matter of God changing his mind, but there is an implicit possibility of another outcome in view of Moses' intercession, even to delay God's judgment on this first generation of Israelites coming out of Egypt. In other words, God certainly knew both that Moses would intercede and that He would relent from immediately judging the Israelites, so that what seems like a change to us is really no change at all. There are many instances in the Scriptures like this one. So, can we change the mind of God? In one sense, yes, and in another sense, no. There can be a real change affected by prayer; however, we must not by this fail to acknowledge that God foreknew the very change that our prayers would bring about, so that whether we pray or not, God's good and perfect will moves on without a hitch. This is difficult to wrap our small minds around. Even David, after contemplating this omniscience of God, declared in Psalm 139:6, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain." And Paul, after his great exposition of God's sovereignty in election, declared in Romans 11:33, "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom andknowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! "

On the second question, there are several references to a particular Book of Life both in the OT (e.g. Exodus 32:32-33; Psalm 69:38; 139:16) and in the NT (e.g. Philippians 4:3; Revelation 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12; 20:15; 21:27). It is unclear whether all of these refer to a registry of physical life or eternal life. With respect to the former, only Psalm 139:16 seems clearly to reference physical life, because there David speaks of God ordaining the number of physical days that he would live. Moses too may have had in mind the registry of the physical living. In the immediate context, God says that He would punish certain ones for their sin, and He does so with a plague in Exodus 32:35. In Numbers 11:15 Moses asks God to kill him because of the burden of the people. This is clearly a reference to physical death rather than eternal death. In Exodus 32, as in Numbers 11, Moses ties his fate to the people of Israel. If these are parallel sentiments, then Moses is speaking of physical life and death when referring to God's Book so that this Book is a registry of the living vs. the dead.