Breach of Trust

While still on the mountain, Moses was informed by the Almighty of the ultimate breach; the sin of the golden calf.

The Lord spoke to Moses; Hurry down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted basely. They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I enjoined upon them. They have made themselves a molten calf and bowed low to it and sacrificed to it saying: This is your god O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. (Exodus 32:7)

Moses could simply have left the tablets on high and descended to deal with the iniquitous people. Instead he chose to bring down the tablets and smash them before their very eyes, impressing upon them enormity of their loss.

This dramatic act might have been the final chapter in the love affair between the children of Israel and their ancestral God. How fitting a finale for the sinners of Israel to be left with nothing more than shattered tablets; a painful reminder of the covenant which they had broken. But the story does not end there. Astonishingly, God commanded Moses to prepare a second set of tablets like the first and deliver them to the people.

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