IT DIDN’T take long for Israel to rebel against God’s commands. They broke the first two commandments—no other gods and no idols—before Moses even came down from Mount Sinai.
We discuss the Israelites’ desire for an idol to give locality to their “god,” and whether the golden calf was supposed to represent Yahweh, the storm-god Baal, the moon-god Sîn (they were at Sinai, after all), or the creator-god of the Amorites, El, whose main epithet was “Bull El.”
And Sharon makes the astute observation that God’s promise to send His angel to push out the nations before Israel is a picture of what will happen when Christ returns.
There is a bit of archaeology this week, too, as we point out that some of the people occupying Canaan whose names have been lost to history, like the Hivites, Perizzites, and Jebusites, have actually been identified by scholars in recent years (Mycenaean Greeks, Philistines, and Hurrians respectively).
JOIN US IN ISRAEL! Our next tour of Israel is October 19–30, 2025 with an optional three-day extension to Jordan. For more information and to reserve your place, log on to GilbertHouse.org/travel.
Note: Due to schedule conflicts, Doug Van Dorn, Dr. Judd Burton, and Timothy Alberino will join our tour in the spring of 2026.
Click here for the complete archive of our New Testament Bible studies to date, click here for the Old Testament studies to date, and click here for our studies of the Book of 1 Enoch to date. Or go to www.spreaker.com/show/gilbert-house-fellowship for all of the audio.
In Exodus 24:10, the NET Bible suggests they saw the divine glory indirectly as they looked up from below, through what appeared to be a transparent blue sapphire pavement.
Exodus 32:20 seems to cast aspersion on their unfaithfulness; making them drink the water was a type of the bitter water test that tested the wife suspected of unfaithfulness.