The Bull Exchange

They exchanged their glorious God
for an image of a bull, which eats grass.
Psalm 106:20

Well when you put it that way. I mean, it would've been one thing if David had written that "They exchanged their glorious God for an image of a bull..." and left it at that, but when you tag it with "which eats grass" it makes them look so much more stupid. Um, nah, I'm trying too hard. No matter how you cut it, it sounds pretty pretty dumb to a modern reader.

Mabye it would have been different if they'd exchanged their glorious God for power, fortune or fame and not the image of a cud-chewing bovine. Still not right, but much more tragic. That would've been the stuff of a great movie or novel.

But wait. Let's not be too hasty in our judgement. I teach high school English and whenever I teach a historical text, I like to introduce my students to the concept of cultural determinism. Ie. "...the belief that the culture in which we are raised determines who we are at emotional and behavioral levels" (wikipedia).

So the question isn't How stupid were the Israelites for exchanging a glorious God for the image of a cow? The question is How stupid are we and what are we exchanging for a glorious God?

Because, the thing is, whatever we're exchanging for God might seem reasonable today or it might not even seem like an exchange (cultural determinism) but it will likely seem very foolish in the future. All you have to do is look at books and VHS tapes sold at garage sales to know what forms of pseudo-psychology and self-help trends have come and gone. These are the kinds of things -- if we're at all honest -- that we've all bought into at one time or another (so much so that maybe we even exchanged this "new" trajectory for a glorious God).

It's not just an exchange for pseudo-psychology and self-help. The questions we have to ask ourselves are:

What's our main source for joy or pleasure?
What's our main font of peace?
What are our hopes and dreams for the future?
Where do we look for love and acceptance? Are these mostly rooted in God?
What's our bull exchange?

A side note (which in no way excuses worshipping the image of a cow) to further drive home the point of cultural determinism. Remember two things:

1) the Israelites were in captivity in Egypt for over 400 years during which time a) it would've been difficult to worship as their forefathers had taught and b) they would have been thoroughly exposed to the worship of Egyptian gods. and

2) during Moses's absence the Israelites were afraid that he'd never come back. So wanting God's favour (and given point #1 above) they created what they thought would be a physical representation of the God of Moses that they could worship.