The making and worshiping of the golden calf by the Israelites forms a basis for a most interesting study of the form of heathen worship which has drawn the greatest number of the human race from the worship of the true God. There was a peculiar significance in the making of the calf at that special time, which will appear as we proceed with the study.
The calf was a representation of the sacred bull called Apis, which the Egyptians worshiped, and with which the Jews had necessarily become very familiar in their long sojourn in Egypt. Concerning this god Apis, and what it signified, we find the following:
Apis, the bull worshiped by the ancient Egyptians, who regarded it as a symbol of Osiris, the god of the Nile, the husband of Isis, and the great divinity of Egypt.--Chamber's Encyclopedia.
"According to the Greek writers Apis was the image of Osiris, and worshiped because Osiris was supposed to have passed into a bull, and to have been soon after manifested by a succession of these animals. The hieroglyphic inscriptions identify the Apis with Osiris, adorned with horns or the head of a bull, and unite the two names as Hapi-Osor, or Apis Osiris. According to this view the Apis was the incarnation of Osiris manifested in the shape of a bull."--The Encyclopedia Britannica (art. "Apis")
Since Apis was considered as the visible manifestation of Osiris, we must learn what Osiris stood for, in order to understand the calf-worship of the Israelites. Again we quote from the Encyclopedia Britannica, art. "Egypt":
Abydos was the great seat of the worship of Osiris, which spread all over Egypt, establishing itself in a remarkable manner at Memphis. All the mysteries of the Egyptians, and their whole doctrine of the future state, attach themselves to this worship. Osiris was identified with the sun. ... Sun-worship was the primitive form of Egyptian religion, perhaps even pre-Egyptian.
"Ra was the Egyptian sun-god, and was especially worshiped at Heliopolis. Obelisks, according to some, represented his rays, and were always, or usually, erected in his honor. ... The kings for the most part considered Ra their special patron and protector; nay, they went so far as to identify themselves with him, to use his titles as their own, and to adopt his name as the ordinary prefix to their own names and titles. This is believed by many to have been the origin of the word Pharaoh, which was, it is thought, the Hebrew rendering of Ph' Ra--'the sun-god,'...Osiris was properly a form of Ra. He was the light of the lower world, the sun from the time that he sinks below the horizon in the west to the hour when he reappears above the eastern horizon in the morning. This physical idea was, however, at a later date modified, and Osiris was generally recognized as the perpetually presiding lord of the lower world, the king and the judge of Hades or Amenti. His worship was universal throughout Egypt, but his chief temples were at Abydos and Philae."--Rawlinson, American History.
"It was to Osiris that the prayers and offerings for the dead were made, and all sepulchral inscriptions, except those of the oldest period, are directly addressed to him. As Isis is a form of the female principle, Osiris, the sun and the Nile, was considered in one phase to be the made principle."--The Encyclopedia Britannica.
The three most famous of those more sacred animals which were worshiped as individuals, not as a class, were the bulls Apis and Mnevis, and the Mendesian goat. Of these, Apis and the Mendesian goat were connected with the worship of Osiris. ... It is very characteristic of the Egyptian religion that the reverence for Osiris should have taken this grossly material form.
The bull Apis, who bears in Egyptian the same name as the Nile, Hapi, was worshiped at Memphis. ... Apis was considered to be the living emblem of Osiris, and was thus connected with the sun and the Nile, and the chronological aspect of both explains his being also connected with the moon.
From these extracts it appears that the worship which the Israelites paid to the golden calf was really the Egyptian form of sun-worship--that form of idolatry which has always stood foremost as the antagonist of the true worship of God. It is indeed significant that just at the time when God manifested himself to the Israelites in a peculiar manner, and made known to them His Sabbath, they should have fallen back into the old sun-worship, whose chief festival day--the first day of the week--has always contended for supremacy with the day specially distinctive of the worship of the true God.
Note also that the sun-god Ra, Osiris, or Apis, was the patron god of the Egyptian kings, and stood for Egypt and its customs. So the worship of the calf signified that the Israelites, forgetful of the covenant that they had made with God, were sinking back to the level of Egyptian life. It was the very worst manifestation of the spirit which led them so often to long for the flesh-pots of Egypt. It is significant of the sensuality to which people naturally sink when they turn aside from the worship of the true God, who can be worshiped only in the beauty of holiness.
But we have not yet learned the full extent of the sin of the Israelites in the worship of the calf. The worship of Apis was accompanied with the grossest licentiousness, as is indicated by the ceremonies attendant upon the inauguration of a new Apis. There were certain definite marks which must always be present in an animal that was to occupy that position. As soon as a suitable animal was found, ... he was led in triumphal procession to Nilopolis, at the time of the new moon, where he remained forty days, waited upon by nude women.
"When he had grown up he was conducted, at the time of the new moon, to a ship by the sacred scribes and prophets, and conducted to the Apeum at Memphis, where there were courts, places for him to walk in, and a drinking fountain. According to Diodorus, he was first led to Nilopolis, and kept there forty days, then shipped in a boat with a gilded cabin to Memphis, and he was there allowed to be seen for forty days only by women, who exposed themselves to him."--The Encyclopedia Britannica.
As to the significance of this, see the prohibitions recorded in Exodus 22:19; Leviticus 18:23; 20:16. The Scripture record indicates that the calf worship by the Israelites on this occasion was accompanied with all the license usual in heathen worship. "And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play." (Exodus 32:6)
The Hebrew word rendered "to play," signifies playing with leaping, singing, and dancing. This dancing, especially among the Egyptians, was sensual and indecent. The word rendered "corrupted," in the next verse, where it is said: "Your people, which you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves," (Deuteronomy 9:12) is the same that is used in Genesis 6, where we read that the earth was corrupt, "for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." (Genesis 6:12)
This explains the terrible anger of the Lord, and why He desired to consume the people at once.
We have occupied all our space in simply intimating the signification of the worship of the golden calf. It is a line of study that may be followed to a great length, and to great profit. In closing, we merely note that the grinding of the calf to powder was a fitting emblem of the weakness of all that are called gods, when brought before the God of Heaven and Earth.--Signs of the Times, June 29, 1888--Notes on the International Lesson, July 8--Exodus 32:15-30
E.J. Waggoner