Nobody seems to understand the nature of the golden calf in scripture, so I present here my thoughts on the matter:
This part of scripture seems to be laughable, or is it? How could the calf of gold raise itself from the fire?
Moses had gone up the mountain to meet God. God would write the Ten Commandments all the while the Israelites below were formulating their own laws; as it were, “Do what thou wilt; that is the whole law.” [1] The Israelites were doing their own wills without regard to the divine Will of God, so they needed commandments.
As makers of their own law, the Israelites would make their own god. They chose a calf of gold as Moses soon discovered. Aaron revealed to Moses what had happened while he was away; they had said:
Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him, and I said unto them, “Whosoever has any gold, let them break it off. So, they gave it me, then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf. (Exod 32:23-24)
First off, Moses had been conversing with an invisible God, but the Israelites had made their own visible God of gold.
To the Hebrews, gold is symbolic of the divine glory, holiness, and the presence of God with its incorruptibility for it does not tarnish nor even corrode. The luster of the gold would surely represent the glory of God and the emanation of the Light of God. As such, the golden calf might surely represent the false “bringer of light” that is called “Lucifer.”
With that said, Lucifer would have been the countenance of the calf. The gold should portray the divine Light of God but also the Shining One not God.
Imagine now the calf at night, all bright and shining as it reflected the light from the fire. It would have been as much a spectacle as fireworks are in this age,
There would have been two things which they would have danced to: (1) the image of the Beast and (2) the false light of Lucifer. That false light would have surely represented the rebellious angel, Lucifer.
Now recall the first sin as the woman of Adam’s kind was deceived:
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. (Gen 3:6)
She was bewitched by the pleasant appearance of the “tree” (עֵץ; 'ets in the Hebrew). The first letter ayin represents the eye, or observation, and the letter final tsade (ץ) represents the fully realized, upright, and liberated righteous soul. The woman would have looked at the tree and saw the liberation of her soul if she partook of it. She would have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge for self-liberation rather than bowing to God as the standard bent letter tsade appears.
Obviously, there was much going on with the Israelites when the calf was made for the original sin was being repeated.
The golden calf was to liberate them, but Aaron surely had seen something else in their deception.
“Moses saw that the people were naked for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies” (Exod 32:25). Why would have Aaron done that? He would have seen them performing the original sin, so he made them go naked, hopefully to shame them as in the beginning: “The eyes of them both (male and female) were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons” (Gen 3:7). Why? Because they were ashamed.
However, the Israelites were not ashamed since they danced around the golden calf like the Moon receiving reflected light from the Sun. The calf of gold was illuminating light to them, or they surely thought.
Aaron was not making them naked for nakedness’ sake, but to shame them, rather than ashamed, they were proud. It could be that the Venus mons (the pubic mound) and the obelisk (the male appendage) was their high place rather than the mountain of God, and the male penis the tower to their newly made god.
Aaron revealed to Moses what had happened; they gave him their gold; “Then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.” Aaron accepted no responsibility for the calf had made itself.
That seems like a silly excuse to modern people, but it would have made sense to the “wisdom” of the Hebrew from the Tree of Knowledge.
This occasion was the first known case of alchemy; rather than lead being turned into gold, gold itself became life with no help from any of them! Creation had occurred without a god to design and power it.
Atheists, to this time, are deceived in the same manner; just as the calf made itself, so had the cosmos.
The Israelites were the visible gods because it was their gold that created, just as the Serpent warned in the beginning, “God does know that in the day you eat thereof (of the tree), then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5).
The Israelites had performed an experiment; they would sacrifice their gold to create a god that would just appear from the fire.
The “Bringer of Light” would not be God but Lucifer in this case. Perhaps something non-ordinary did happen! Perhaps they did throw gold into the fire, and the demonic power within the fire transfigured into a calf of gold.
More rationally, like in the beginning; they were deceived; perhaps Lucifer’s fire did create an image like a god might look to them. There might have been an intelligent being behind the façade.
Let’s now examine the calf (עֵגֶל ʻegel) of gold. Again, the first letter ayin represents observation of some image. The letter gimmel represented by a camel’s foot and footprint corresponds to an unknown thing that was there, but was either gone or not seen, as in the Schwarzenegger movie, Predator. It also represents lift-up as a camel does in serving mankind.
The last letter, lamed, represented by the shepherd’s staff, represents teaching, learning, and such, even that it might be raised up as a calf is intended to do. The word for “calf” (‘egel) does give the impression that it would grow itself, does it not. and since the calf was without a mother, it would seem to grow from nothing. It would have come from nothing that was raised up and observed without a mother in sight. The Israelites would have been deceived just like Adam’s woman in the beginning.
Just what would the “calf” come to be as it grew to full stature? A bullock, or ox. The ancient word egel (עגל) explicitly designates a male bull-calf. That is because in biblical Hebrew, gender markers are strictly applied to livestock: a male bull-calf would be egel (עֵגֶל). Therefore, the calf of gold would have begun as a bullock, or bull calf. That brings up, what is an ox?
Generally, oxen are not born oxen. They are yoked with a grown ox which leads them to behave properly as an ox. That idea is displayed with the letter lamed in egel. Like egel, the calf begins as an observable bovine animal. As it grows, it becomes a different creature symbolized by the letter gimmel. The ox in the calf is invisible; it is the power and learning of the calf obtained from the ox with which it is yoked.
That the calf was of gold implies that it was intrinsically linked with the “Bringer of Light” Lucifer. It is submitted that the Spirit of Lucifer was yoked with the gold image to create an ox from the bull calf.
Real oxen do just that; yoked to an adult ox, the bull calf becomes an ox seemingly on its own. If the other “ox” could be invisible, as it was with the golden calf, then it would appear that the calf had become an ox on its own.
Satan, or Lucifer, would have been the spirit in the fire, and the ox-power that created the ox from the calf. Just as an ox comes from a bull calf, the same applies to the golden calf. They had been deceived as if the calf had raised itself, albeit Lucifer had been the spiritual power (gimmel) which did the impossible.
The Israelites may have thought they were worshipping the work of their own hands and that it was blessed by God, but it was Lucifer that was working behind the scenes as it was in the beginning.
The woman may have seen a lower state of man like herself — a beast with the same outer image as herself — but all the while she was “engaging” Lucifer within the Beast.
All that is imperative because humans are so easily deceived that it is child’s play for the Devil, Lucifer. All things that appear to be good may be used for evil. That’s what happened with the gold in the golden calf; and that’s what happened with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Let me use an example; a husband and wife fostered children of a different race who had been abused; that is good. However, they seemed to enjoy showing them off.
In scripture, charity must go unnoticed. Was their “generosity” truly charity, or were the children more like “trophies” to show how kind parents they were? Only they know their thoughts, but one might mistake their benevolence for notoriety. The same applies to any charity that is given in public for all to see.
For myself, I want my writings to be well-known. I fight that inclination, but so many times, rather than to benefit the lost, I am promoting myself.
The apostle Paul seemed to have that same inclination and so do all Christians. That is why God’s gift is grace rather than rewards for good works.
The Israelites surely thought they we doing good making an image, or trophy, of their god, but unknown to them, it was their own works and independence that they were celebrating; they, not God, had done the good work and celebrated as they celebrated their own sacrifice, not themselves, but their gold. That same deception is still operant in the modern church wherein most of the leaders are the most affluent.
God always has mysterious ways of instruction, and the story of the golden calf is one of many!
[1] The central maxim of the religious and philosophical system of Thelema, established by the British occultist Aleister Crowley in 1904. (Wikipedia)
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