Every incident reported in the Bible serves as a parable of the human condition and reveals something of the human heart and spirit in its weakness and fearfulness. Let us, then, reflect on the story of the golden calf to see what teaching we can derive from it for our own lives and so gain more spiritual benefit.

To understand the story fully, we must read from the beginning of Chapter 32 and set it against the whole background of the Exodus. Moses was the great leader, the one who communicated God's words to the people and made all the decisions. Now he was "a long time before coming down from the mountain" and so the people said, "we do not know what has become of him". Is it any wonder that they are frustrated, fearful, in a panic?

When we are suddenly faced with a situation where we can see no meaning or no escape, we often lose hope and panic. We may say that Israel's sin was not making the golden calf. The sin was rather in what this represented: a failure of hope, a failure to trust that God was with them always.