We may be frustrated by or scornful at the Israelites for their faithlessness, but we always should be warned by their example, especially when our first tendency is to be frustrated or scornful. For we are disposed by fallen human nature to be like them. If we’re not like them then we need to thank God for His mercy toward us and praise Him for His transforming power in us.
The golden calf they made was not because they wanted to worship cows; more likely they were trying to put a form to this mysterious Lord who had brought them out of Egypt, and cows were a form of god that they knew from Egypt’s religious system. Again, let’s be warned by their example. As they did, we often want to reduce God to something we know and understand, when He is much higher than we are and beyond our understanding. We believe that God thinks like we do instead of seeking to think like He does. He wasn’t honored by their attempt to put Him in a box; is He any more honored by our attempts?
The Israelites’ sin seems to us to come on the heels of their making their promise to God to do everything He said to do, but it was a reaction to Moses being gone for forty days. That is a long time, and no one could blame them for giving up on him after that length of time. Think about how frightening that must have been to them to be faced with the prospect of moving into the Promised Land with no leader, and they didn’t know how to apprehend God. So they took matters into their own hands, thinking they had been deserted. Yet another warning for us. If only they had waited another day longer!
Seeing the Israelites as a mirror of our own human tendencies apart from the transforming power of Jesus, we understand why Jesus taught us to pray, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”