The Old Testament begins with accounts that expressly mention or imply only one God. There is the Spirit that moves over the waters in Creation, not the spirits. One God creates Adam and Eve. This same God is the God whom they disobey and who expels them from the Garden of Eden. One God punishes Cain for murdering his brother Abel. One God deals with Noah and is responsible for the flood described in Genesis Chapters 6 through 9. One God deals with those building the Tower of Babel described in Genesis Chapter 11. In other words, the Old Testament from the time of the Creation assumes that there is only one God. But it is not until Abraham, or Abram as he is first introduced to us in Genesis Chapter 12, that God’s relationship with humanity, and humanity’s understanding of God, begins to change radically.
We are told that God called Abram to leave his hometown and family and go to a place that God would show him. What is somewhat remarkable is that Abram’s family was polytheistic and remained so long after Abram left his ancestral home at (the one) God’s command. That they were polytheistic is shown in Genesis Chapter 31 in which we are informed that Rachel stole the household gods from Laban, her father, when she departed with her husband Jacob. “Now it may be that you had a longing for your father’s House,” says Laban, “but why did you steal my gods?” Rachel probably stole the gods because she wanted their help and protection. The road to monotheism is not one without many potholes and detours.
One should also note that just as the polytheists thought of their gods as being personal gods, the descendants of Abraham also had this attitude. God was not the universal God of heaven and earth, but a God whom one could adopt or reject depending on whether or not God showed himself able to take care of those who made him “their God.”
Consider Jacob on his way to Abraham’s ancestral homeland to seek a wife(Genesis Chapter 28). Jacob makes this vow, “If God goes with me and keeps me safe on this journey I am making, and if he gives me bread to eat and cloths to wear, and if I return home safely to my father, then Yahweh will be my God. This stone I have set up as a monument shall be a house of God, and I will surely pay you a tenth part of all you give me.”(Jerusalem Bible translation) Thus, Jacob bargains, if this God shows he can take care of him, then he will make this God his God. Presumably, if God had not taken good care of Jacob, Jacob would then has sought another god who was better up to the task.
God himself, when he calls to Moses from the burning bush(Exodus Chapter 3) does not identify himself as the God of all Creation, but, rather, as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Moreover, God refers to the Israelites as “my people.” There is a close, possessive relationship between God and those whose God he is. God ordered a reluctant Moses to go to Egypt to free God’s people from slavery.
Moses wanted God to describe himself. “What should I say when they ask me who sent me,” Moses asked God. God would not give Moses a description because no description God could give would be adequate. “ I am who I am,” God answered. God basically said, God is God and that’s all you can say about me. No doubt this did not please Moses who was not enthusiastic about this mandate from God to begin with, but Moses went anyway. Gods were common in those days, and they were associated with nations and even individuals. So when Moses informed Pharaoh that his, that is, Moses’, God had sent him, Pharaoh understood what Moses was saying even though God was left undefined. Pharaoh, however, thought his gods were stronger than Moses’ God, and had to be convinced by a series of disasters that his gods could not protect him against Moses’ God. Then he let the Jews go to follow Moses into the desert.
While Moses on Mount Sinai talking to God, the Hebrews were looking up at the wild thunder clouds which Moses had entered, and they were frightened. Moses had led them from a land they knew into a wilderness they did not know. Miracles were needed to keep them fed and to provide an adequate supply of water. At one point, after Moses had been missing for a long time, the people felt they had had enough of this God they could not see, and who was literally unapproachable under pain of death. They wanted a visible god to whom they could pray, an approachable god, a god in whom they could place their confidence, a more familiar god like the ones they knew in Egypt. So Aaron, Moses’ right hand man, made the people a golden calf, proclaiming that this was the god that brought them out of Egypt.
This return to idolatry even in the very presence of God on Mount Sinai teaches us several things: First, the Israelites Moses led out of Egypt were more familiar with idolatry and polytheism than with monotheism. They would not have asked for an idol if they were not already familiar with idols and had worshiped them in Egypt. Second, in times of stress humans are more comforted by a god they can see and “understand” than by an abstract and mysterious God. The Israelites were not evil to want the golden calf. They were frightened and needed something they understand that might furnish them with at least a sense that they were being cared for and protected. So they turned to that with which they were already familiar rather than to the strange, inaccessible God who talked only with Moses.
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