Exodus 32:17 And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. 18 And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear. 19 And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.
Based on my reading of several works written by proponents of either contemporary Christian music or contemporary worship music or both, the following question seems to be a key point of controversy and strong disagreement among God’s people: “What does Exodus 32:17-19 have to do with Christian music?”
From my more than 14 years of studying the Bible intensively concerning what it teaches about music, I offer the following considerations as some of the keys for properly answering this question.
*Exodus 32 is in the Bible. It is a lengthy account of an infamous occasion of unacceptable worship that I refer to as the Golden Calf Incident (GCI).
*The Spirit reveals information about the GCI in at least six books of the Bible. Four books of the Old Testament (Exodus, Deuteronomy, Nehemiah, Psalms) and two books of the New Testament (Acts, 1 Corinthians) explicitly point our attention to the GCI and underscore its importance.
*Paul explicitly cites Exodus 32:6 in 1 Corinthians 10:7 in issuing a prohibition to believers against idolatry. In that prohibition, Paul specifically cites only the idolatrous eating, drinking, and playing of that incident when he commands believers not to be idolaters:
Exodus 32:6 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.
1 Corinthians 10:7 Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
*A careful treatment of both Exodus 32:6 and 1 Corinthians 10:7 shows that the verb “to play” in both passages refers to the idolatrous shouting, singing, and dancing of the people in the GCI that the Spirit speaks of in Exodus 32:17-19.1 What the Spirit has revealed about the music of the GCI is therefore of direct relevance for NT believers.
*The composite sound emanating from the musical and all other activities of the GCI had a warlike sound when it was heard from a distance such that any words that were being sung could not be understood at all by either Joshua or Moses. When the composite sound of worship music has an indistinct warlike sound from a distance, that music is unacceptable to God for any use in corporate worship.
*We do not need to know exactly what that music sounded like in order for us to profit from what the passage reveals about it. We have certainty that this is true because the Spirit in His perfect wisdom has not chosen to provide us with any means of knowing exactly what that music sounded like; such knowledge, therefore, is not necessary for us to profit from the GCI accounts.
*The music of the GCI was the music of people who had fellowship with demons. Such people produced their music with earthly, sensual, and demonic wisdom. Any music made with such wisdom is demonic music that is categorically unacceptable to God for any use in corporate worship.2
Photo credit: The golden calf – Gospelimages
- See my posts, “What Does ‘Play’ Mean in Exodus 32:6?” and “What Does ‘Play’ Mean in 1 Corinthians 10:7?” ↩︎
- For much more information about the GCI, see the series of articles that I have written on the GCI under point 12 here ↩︎
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