When the Israelites Abandoned God’s Authority

In the Bible, the children of Israel fall into disastrous behavior patterns whenever they abandon the majestic authority of God revealed to them through Moses at Mount Sinai. In fact, they commenced rebelling and kicking at the Lord almost immediately after the Sinai revelation was completed.

While still on their forty-year extended camping trip in the desert, the Jews vexed Him by whoring after the women of neighboring Midian, joining an outright revolution against Moses under the radical reformer Korach, sending spies to reconnoiter the Holy Land and then declaring that they would rather return to pagan Egypt to be slaves again, and, of course, by fashioning the idolatrous Golden Calf.