CALF, GOLDEN (עֵ֣גֶל מַסֵּכָ֑ה, molten calf) made by Aaron in Exodus 32 and referred to in Deuteronomy 9:16; Nehemiah 9:18; Psalm 106:19; Acts 7:41 (שְׁנֵ֖י עֶגְלֵ֣י זָהָ֑ב, two calves of gold) set up by Jeroboam I (1 Kings 12:28-33; 2 Kings 10:29; 17:16; 2 Chron 11:15; 13:8; Hos 8:5, 6; 13:2). These are the two major incidents in Israelite history in which the official religion is involved in the use of golden calves in worship. They are not unrelated.
1. Exodus 32. Aaron the brother of Moses and newly appointed high priest yielded to pressure from the people who thought Moses had forsaken them (Exod 24:18; 32:1) and fashioned a calf out of the people’s golden earrings. The picture is one of stark contrast between Moses on the mount receiving the Commandments and tabernacle details so that Israel could worship God aright, and the debâcle going on at the foot of the mountain.
A careful reading of the narrative makes it clear that Aaron was confused, for v. 5 seems to imply that he still meant to uphold the worship of the Lord in calling for a feast of the Lord and by building an altar of the Lord in front of the calf. In other words, in Aaron’s mind the calf was only the place where Yahweh dwelt. But the people did not understand it, for they cried, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (vv. 4, 8). Moses made very clear the enormity of this sin by showing to the people that this calf was indeed “a god of gold” (vv. 30, 31). Moses in his anger at this sorry sight destroyed the law tablets, for at this point the people were not ready to receive them (cf. ch. 34). He burnt the calf and ground it to powder, forcing the people to drink foul water polluted by this powder (cf. Num 5:17-27).
Despite Aaron’s naïvete he was greatly responsible. His excuse was weak to the point of being ludicrous when he said that he threw the gold into the fire and the calf came out (v. 24). But his responsibility is clear from v. 25 which says that Aaron had removed restraints from the people (tr. “made them naked” in ASV). If, as Aaron said, they were a people “set on evil” (v. 22), then as leader he should have used every moral restraint for their own good. The account is a great lesson on the responsibilities of leadership.
2. 1 Kings 12:26-33. Jeroboam I, upon breaking with the tribe of Judah and Jerusalem, built two sanctuaries of the Lord, one at Bethel and the other at Dan. His purpose was to obviate the necessity for his subjects to go to Jerusalem to worship (12:27). Jeroboam prob. took as precedent for his golden calves the two cherubim in Solomon’s Temple. Since the invisible Yahweh was represented as enthroned between these cherubim, so Jeroboam considered Yahweh still as an invisible deity standing or enthroned on a calf of gold. W. F. Albright seems to be correct in From the Stone Age to Christianity (Anchor Book [1957], p. 299) where he observes that it is a gross misconception, unparalleled in Biblical tradition, to view these golden calves as direct representations of Yahweh. While it was indeed a common Egyp. practice to represent deities in animal form, this was not the case among the peoples of Syro-Palestine whose iconography often pictured the deity as enthroned or standing on the back of animals. Could Jeroboam have won the confidence of the northern tribes had he called for blatant and outright idolatry? Like Aaron of old he may have rationalized to the point where he convinced himself that he was advancing the cause of Yahweh.
If this is true, Jeroboam like Aaron was involved in the worst kind of duplicity. On the one hand he set up a religious calendar similar to the one in Jerusalem, appointed priests and made the required sacrifices. All this, says the author of 1 Kings, “...he had devised of his own heart” (v. 33). He would not have gone to all this trouble had he been instituting a wholly new religion. On the other hand, the iconography he instituted was so closely associated with the worship of Baal and the vile fertility cult of the Canaanites that it was bound to move in that direction as indeed it did (Hos 13:1, 2). He may have been attempting a synthesis of Yahweism and certain tenets of popular polytheism. According to 1 Kings 12:28 he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
One may ask why the representations of cherubim (winged sphinxes) in the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple did not also lead to idolatry. The answer must be that these figures did not have the same insidious association with a long-established idolatrous and immediately present Canaanite cult. The Hebrews viewed them as representing heavenly creatures whose purpose it was to enhance the majesty of Yahweh. As kings of the day were often enthroned between such creatures, so the sovereignty of Yahweh was thus asserted. Not only in visual arts but also in poetry, the Hebrews did not hesitate so to represent their sole God as one who “rode on a cherub” (2 Sam 22:11) or is enthroned between them (2 Kings 19:15).
The Church has repeatedly faced the problem of idolatry versus iconoclasm. Post-Biblical Judaism sought to solve the problem by severely restricting artistic expression. The iconoclastic controversy raged in the Byzantine wing of the Church and the Puritans stripped their churches of every adornment. It appears that the Bible itself indulges in neither of these extremes but reckons with idolatry as that which comes out of the sinful heart of man when he wilfully chooses to glorify the creature more than the Creator (Rom 1:21-23). The psalmist expresses this succinctly in Psalm 106:19-21: “They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a molten image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt.”
Bibliography C. H. Gordon, Old Testament Times (1953), 180; W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity (1957), 299.