CHAPTER VII. 421 obeyed them or no ? A. No; theyoften broke the laws of God, and sinned against him, and were often punished ; Is. lxiii. 10, Ps. lxxviii. 32-34. 2. Q. What were their most remarkable sins against God in the wilderness ? A. Besides their murmurings at some diffi- culties in the beginning of their journey, their first remarkable ,and notorious crime was their making a golden calf, and wor- shipping it at the foot of mount Sinai ; Ex. xxxii. 4, 8. 3. Q. What temptation, or what pretence could they have for such a crime? A. Moses was gone up into mount Sinai, and tarried there so many days longer than they expected, that they wanted some visible token of Gods presence among them ; and so they constrained Aaron to Make this golden image to be a re- presentation of thepresence of God, but without God's appoint- ment ; Ex. xxxii. 1. Note, It is scarcely to be supposed that this was the mere image of a common calf, or that the Jews could fall down and worship such an image : or that they could suppose an ox or calf, which was the idol of their enemies the Egyptians, was a proper emblem of the God of-Israel,. their deliverer from Egypt. Probably therefore it was the image of a cherub, partly in the form of a winged ox : And since God was represented immedi- ately afterward by Moses as dwelling among the cherubims on the mercy-seat, this might be a common opinion ornotion before- hand among the people, even of that age*: And it might be made as a visible representation of the presence of God, for they proclaimed a feast to Jehovah ; verse 5. in the same manner as Jeroboam, long afterward, made perhaps thesame Sort of images for the same purpose, which arecalled calves. But both this and that being done without God's appointment, it was all idolatry, and in a way of utmost contempt, it was called worshipping a calf; and was accordingly punished as highly criminal. See , Chapter V. Question 37. 4. Q. Ilow did God punish them for the golden calf? A. The children ofLevi were commanded to slay their brethren, and they slew three thousand of the children of Israel ; Ex. xxxii. 27, 28. 5. Q. What was ait,other of their remarkable sins ? A. In the next stage, after Sinai, they loathed the manna which God sent them, and murmured for want of flesh ; Num. xi. 4. * There were some things relating to the worship of God which that people had some general notion of before Moses went up into the mount to learn all the particulars from God ; as for instance, they had altars and sacrifices, and sprink- ling of blood ; Ex. xxiv. 4, 6, 6. They had priests ; Ex. xix. 22, 24, and a taber- nacle or moveable chapel; Ex. xxxiii. 6, 7. And they might knqw that God dwelt among angels or some glorious winged beings as his attendants ; and these cherubs might be sometimes figured as flying men with calves' feet, or as flying oxen, as part of the equipage or attendants of God.
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