God could have miraculously placed all this in Moses' mind just as he placed the full knowledge of how to speak into Adam and Eve's minds rather than give forty days of instruction. But God usually chooses to work with us in a more personal way. It takes time to build personal relationships, and God wanted a personal relationship with Moses.

But when the people saw that Moses had been gone for weeks and there was no word from him they became impatient. They went to Aaron and demanded that he make them gods, idols, to worship and to lead them on their journey, "For Moses, the man who lead us out of Egypt is gone and we don't know what has become of him."

Aaron told them to gather all of their gold earrings and all of those from their wives and sons and daughters. Aaron was weak and could not withstand the people as Moses could. Perhaps he thought the people would not be willing to part with all their gold earrings and so he would have an excuse not to make an idol. But the people did it and then he thought he had no choice.

So he made an idol, a golden calf, breaking the second commandment very soon after all the people had agreed to keep all of the commandments. If each earring weighed only one quarter of an ounce, and only half of the people gave up their earrings, that would be over two tons of gold; enough for quite a large idol.

When the golden calf was ready the people proclaimed, "This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!" Aaron also had an altar built before it. All of the gathering of earrings and the making of the calf and the altar must have taken quite some time. Aaron probably hoped that Moses would appear at any moment to bring this evil to a halt. But finally everything was ready and Aaron took it upon himself to proclaim, "Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord."

The next day the people rose up early to make offerings before the idol, to feast with drunkenness and immoral partying.

Of course God knew all along what was happening, but Moses didn't. God told him, "Get down the mountain, the people you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned away from my commandments. They have made a golden calf and worshipped it and sacrificed to it, saying, 'This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.'

"This is a stiff-necked people, Moses. Leave Me so that my anger can burn hot against them. I will destroy them and make a great nation of your descendants."

Perhaps if Moses had left God, He would have done just that. But God was testing Moses' love and compassion for the people just as he had Abraham's before He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. God want's His human leaders to have a godly love for His people, just as He does. Also He does not want them to take advantage of others' failings.

Moses passed the test, saying, "Why does Your anger burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of Egypt with Your great power? Why should the Egyptians say, 'He brought them out into the wilderness to destroy them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth.' Turn away from Your fierce wrath and don't harm Your people.

"Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, Your servants to whom you swore by your own self, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and give them the land I have promised to inherit for ever.'"

God relented, telling Moses He would not destroy the people and Moses hurried down the mountain with the two tablets of stone in his hand. Most of the drawings and paintings you see of Moses show the two tablets so large that Moses could never have carried one on his back, let alone two in his hand. The tablets were the work of God, probably about the size of a normal book, written on both sides by the finger of God.

Joshua had been waiting for Moses part way up the mountain. As they went down together and heard the noise of the people Joshua said to Moses, "There is the noise of war in the camp."

But Moses knew better. "It is not the shout of victory or the cry of defeat, but the voice of singing."