Julio

OK, but are you not seeing too much into the story?
Moses was terribly temperamental, since the day he killed the first man and ran away.
He was cross and disgusted, and it seemed to him the best solution would be to again go on with the ultimate punishment: killing THREE THOUSAND fellowmen, for a misdemeanour of minor importance, where he was the one at fault [for delaying his "holidays" on top of Sinai].
Jehovah was the main culprit in the affair, playing the hypocrite when he heard the noise of a "battle", and so on!
He could have sent Moses back to the camp a day or two earlier and nobody would have to be murdered!
Those are the biblical stories: always BLOOD and more blood to appease Jehovah.

Sheshbazzar

Wonder why it took all-powerful YHWH 40 days to write so little? (maybe his keyboard crapped out?)

Julio

You're right!
[The idol] Jehovah was and is a LIAR, for he had promised all those slaves the Promised Land flowing with milk & honey, and soon, some three months into the journey, THOUSANDS of those miserable men were slaughtered to uphold Jehovah's nice character!! Moses was the first ter-----------t of the Middle East [Sorry, but I was once severely reprimanded for completing that defining word; better leave it out this time].

semiopen

Exodus 32:17
Keen judgement from the general of the Hebrew army.

Personally, I think the story has to be read with

Kings 12:28...
The Exodus calf story is pretty clearly written after this.

Iskander

Why did Moses break the Tablets?

Because the Israelites were unworthy to be entrusted with the law .The breaking of the tablets means that the covenant exists no more.

The Covenant of Sinai was conditional. It promises blessings only if the conditions are observed. The Israelites almost immediately broke the covenant by worshiping the golden calf.

God will re-establish the covenant but this time he will entrust the law to worthy people. The new covenant is the New Testament and the custodian of the law is no longer Israel but the Catholic Church.

The “New Covenant” is with the “New People of God,” or the “New Israel”—terms that Vatican II uses as designations of the Church of Christ.

Joan of Bark

If a covenant is just like a contract, don't both sides have to agree to the terms before it is made law? Is there anywhere in this story in which the Israelites -- or even Moses -- actually agree to the covenant?

No? Then they couldn't possibly have broken it.

GakuseiDon

Yes, there is. It is located in Ex 24:

Exd 24:5 Then he sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD.
Exd 24:6 And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar.
Exd 24:7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people. And they said, "All that the LORD has said we will do, and be obedient."
Exd 24:8 And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, "This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you according to all these words."

Interestingly, the text appears to have Moses writing all 600 commandments into a "Book of the Covenant". I'm not sure what is supposed to have happened to the Book.

Sheshbazzar

Interesting, in the 19th and 20th chapters of Exodus YHWH gives Moses the Ten Commandments and various sundry laws and commandments, yet it isn't until
Ex 24:12-18 that Moses gets called up to the Mountain for his 'forty day stay', where he first receives the Two Tablets (and a whole bunch of additional laws) and finally breaks The Tablets in 32:19 before delivering them to the people. (And then has to go get these laws all over yet again, for yet the third time! Ex 34:1)

How could the people have agreed to keep and do the Laws and Commandments of a 'Covenant' that Moses had not even yet brought down from the Mountain?
The tale as written, is contradictory and wacky.

Sheshbazzar

What is more fascinating, is the information that Moses after giving all of those laws regarding circumcision, prevented the practice from being performed upon a single Israelite child for the next forty years, (an absolute requirement for participation in the 'contract') effectively excluding them from being partakers in that Covenant agreement.
Moses himself, seems to have had an aversion to the practice, and to have avoided it at all peril. (Ex 4:24-26) so much that his wife finally took it upon herself to do the deed which he shirked.

GakuseiDon

That's not quite what the Bible says. There is no contradiction there AFAICS.

In Ex 20, God starts speaking. He starts out with a number of commandments, which we know today as the 10 Commandments, but they are not identified as such. God continues giving commandments, with Moses writing them all down in his Book of the Covenant. Finally Moses declares the covenant is a go, and sprinkles blood around everywhere.

It is AFTER that that God calls Moses to go up the mountain:

Exd 24:12 Then the LORD said to Moiteses, "Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them."

Moses then goes up the mountain, gets the tablets and breaks them. God recalls him, and in Ex 34 God writes on a new set of tablets, and (I argue) Moses rewrites the Book of the Covenant.

Good drama really, and neither contradictory nor wacky (though individual tastes may vary).