Tag Archives: Aaron

Golden Calf

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Medieval manuscript depiction of Moses seeing the Hebrews worshipping the golden calf.



Aaron made a golden calf for the Hebrews to worship when Moses disappeared for six weeks high atop Mt. Sinai. What was he thinking?!

Aaron probably did not think of the golden calf as an “idol,” per se. Often, the image of a calf or bull was thought to be the throne of a god; the god was seated in the empty space between the horns of the animal. When God gave directions for making the ark of the covenant, he promised that his glory would dwell atop the ark, between the two cherubim at each end of the ark’s lid; this was a very similar idea to what Aaron probably thought he was doing. He was making a throne for God, whom his brother Moses had gone up the mountain to meet.

Why a calf rather than a bull? A calf—a young cow—might have reminded Aaron of Hathor, the goddess of Egypt who was a maternal figure, nurturing and sustaining the people. She fed the people, much as God fed the Hebrews with quail and manna. She helped people cross from life to death, not so unlike the Lord delivering the Hebrews through the Red Sea. (Hathor was the great Mother before Isis was.) She was also associated with the land of Canaan—exactly the place the Hebrews hoped to journey to through the wilderness. Maybe Aaron thought that Hathor’s cow horns would be an appropriate throne for the God of Israel.

This might explain what Aaron did but does it excuse what he did? Although he made the calf, he was not subjected to the consequences and punishment for worshiping the calf—he was not forced to drink the gold dust water and he was not killed by the Levites when Moses came back to the Hebrew camp. So Moses might have understood Aaron’s motivation although disagreeing with his brother’s behavior.

How do we make a golden calf for ourselves? How do our motives seem reasonable though our actions are not? How do we accidentally make idols for ourselves or others? Anytime we let something—even a good thing, such as providing for our families—become the most important thing in our lives, we have constructed an idol. We make a throne for God in our hearts but then the throne itself is mistaken for the One who is enthroned.

Read more about the golden calf here and here.

Violence, Altars, and Modest Priests?

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Aaron, brother of Moses, offers sacrifice as High Priest.
This stained glass window can be found in
Cathedral of Our Lady and St Philip Howard, Arundel


And the LORD said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offering, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and. If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it. And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it. (Exodus 20:22-26)

Moses has just received the Ten Commandments and then God repeats what seems to be what he considers to be the most important commandment: “Do not worship any idols.” This is the summary of the Ten because authentic worship of the living God—not the futile worship of an idol, which stands for what does not exist or is untrue—covers and includes all the other commandments, just as Jesus summarizes the Law: “Love God …. Love your neighbor.”

Idol worship is not devil worship; an idol is not a devil, according to St. Paul. An idol is “no thing,” something that doesn’t exist. But we can insert ourselves into that empty space. Nature abhors a vacuum and we are made to worship. We will worship ourselves if we are not worshipping the true God.

Then God tells Moses, “Don’t use tools of violence to make an altar.” An altar is a place of peacemaking: making peace between God and humanity, God and specific persons, God and the whole created order. The place of such peacemaking should not be fashioned with iron tools (weapons). The sacrifice itself is violent enough.

Sacrifices were bloody affairs. Priests would cut the throat of the offered animal and blood would gush everywhere. He would catch the blood in a bowl. He would sprinkle the blood on the altar and the people. He would butcher the animal, cutting out the organs and cut the body into pieces; these organs and body parts—cuts of meat—would be roasted on the altar.

This was all very bloody, messy business. Priests wore very little as they did this, unlike the stained glass window of Aaron above. The vestments most priests wore during the actual sacrifice were loin clothes. (High priests would wear special vestments in certain occasions but these were constantly in need of being replaced because it was so hard to get the bloodstains out of the vestments.)

Because the vestments were so skimpy, it would be easy to see underneath the priestly loin cloth if the priest went up a few steps to the altar. So the altar was not meant to be more than a single step higher than the people on whose behalf the priest was making the sacrifice so that no one could see his nakedness.

Just like people are always wondering what a man is wearing under a kilt, people would peak to see what the priest had on under his loincloth vestment.