Jan Assmann,
an Egyptologist wrote the following about Exo 32 and how notwithstanding
Moses being able to get Yahweh to change his mind and forgive sins, still
resulted in “temporal punishments,” if you will:
The
forgiveness Moses had secured from YHWH does not entail freedom from
punishment; it only—but also crucially—ensures the continuation of the
covenant. Under the terms off the covenant, sin must still be punished. Moses shoulders this
responsibility with help from the Levites, who thereby prove themselves to be
paragons of covenant fidelity. In the event of an emergency—this fidelity
encompasses zealotry, a fanatical, murderous militancy on God’s behalf. The
verses Exodus 32:27-29 form the primal scene of such divine zeal, an inherent
part of the monotheism of loyalty that no apologetics can fully gloss over. The
scene’s affinity to Deuteronomy 13 has often been remarked on. There it is
pronounced a sacred duty to denounce anyone, even your own brother or son, who
follows other gods and incites you to renege on the covenant. The origin of
this rule in Esarhaddon’s loyalty oaths on behalf of Ashurbanipal has also been
established. It is event that Assyrian state loyalism stands behind the
requirement of a loyalty to YHWH overriding all natural bonds and obligations.
Yet it is hardly by accident that the text found its way from Assyrian state
ideology into the canon. It also belongs there, since the idea of an
unconditional, self-abnegating commitment to YHWH, a militant engagement for
God and the covenant that transcends all claims made by kith and kin, is bound
up with the concept of loyalty that lies at the heart of this monotheism. Here we
are not dealing with dogmas and questions of truth but with the honor of an
offended god, and in this matter there can be—even today—no tolerance.
Anyone who worships images breaks the
covenant that God made with Israel through the law. Moses makes that
symbolically clear by breaking the tables of the law when he descends from
Sinai and sees the people dancing around the Golden Calf. This story defines
how the friend-enemy distinction, on which the first and second commandments in
the Decalogue are based, is to be applied. It does not separate “us” and “them”;
rather, it splits one’s own group down the middle, pitting brother against
brother, friend against friend, neighbor against neighbor.
When YHWH draws Moses’s attention to the
people breach of covenant, he announces his intention to destroy the people and
make a fresh start with him, Moses. Moses is able to make him change his mind:
that is the first test he has to pass in the crisis. The next morning, after
his terrible verdict, Moses reascends the mountain and pleads with YHWH for a
second time to forgive the people their sinful ways. “If not, blot me, I pray
thee, out of thy book which thou hast written” (Ex 32:32)—the book of life
containing the names of the pious. No offer could be more dreadful, since it means
taking on the sins of the people and suffering the most terrible fate that can
be imagined in the context of biblical semantics: not just to die but to be
wiped forever from God’s memory. Moses appears here as God’s suffering servant,
of whom it is said in Isaiah 53:5: “But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him;
and with his stripes we are healed.” God refuses the bargain and rejects
outright the possibility of substitutionary atonement: “Whosoever has sinned
against me, him will I blot out of my book” (Ex. 32:33). This scene echoes in
Judaism in the prayer recited during the ten “High Holy Days” between Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur: “Remember us for Lie, King who delights in Life,
inscribe us in the book of Life, for you, God of Life!” Moses’s willingness to
make a sacrifice that far surpasses any conceivable martyrdom retains its power
to impress.
God grants forgiveness
but with the proviso that, “when my time comes, I will visit their sins upon
them”—foreshadowing the fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile. “And YHWH
plagued the people,” the passage concludes, “because of what they did with the
calf which Aaron had made” (Ex 32:35). (Jan Assmann, The Invention of Religion: Faith and covenant in the Book of Exodus [Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2018], 311-13, emphasis added)
For more on
the topic of having to suffer punishments even after one’s sins are forgiven,
see:
On Moses’
intercession and how it is problematic to most theologies, including Calvinism,
see the discussion of Exo 32-33 at:
An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology
