I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 30-32.

    The passage continues with further design instructions for the furnishings of the Tabernacle (including the recipe for the incense to be used and the anointing oil). Among those instructions is a tax to be levied whenever a census is taken of the men of Israel. I have heard some people state that failure to collect this tax was the sin which King David committed when he held his census. This tax was to be used for the care of the Tabernacle. It is my understanding that this passage was the basis for the Temple Tax mentioned in Matthew 17. What I find interesting about this passage is the combined facts that this tax was to pay for the upkeep of the Tabernacle, but no frequency was given for taking a census.

    There are a lot of elements to the story about the golden calf which Aaron had made which are worth some thought, but I want to take notice of the fact that Aaron chose a calf as the image of God. It was not a bull, nor was it a cow, it was a calf. It is worth noting that many years later when Jeroboam led the Northern Tribes in rebellion against Rehoboam, he set up two calf idols so that the people would not go to Jerusalem to worship. The Egyptians did not worship a god for which the representation was an idol in the form of a calf, nor did the peoples among whom the Israelites would later come to live. Many commentators I have read conflate the calf in this passage, and Jeroboam’s later ones, with the bulls representing gods worshiped by other peoples in the area. I think this is a mistake and that we can learn something about the early Israelite understanding of God from the fact that they represented Him with a calf from time to time (despite His explicit instructions to not represent Him with any physical object).