After reading chapter 9:
*Moses tells the Israelites that the people and cities in the land they will take are bigger and stronger than they are. Nevertheless, God will go before them and subdue those people so the Israelites can annhilate them. After that, the Israelites better not claim it was because of their righteousness, it was because of the other people's wickedness...still the best religious excuse for destroying other people.
*Then Moses reminds the Israelites of the time he was on the mountain waiting to receive the tablets of stone, for forty days and forty nights, without bread and water. A person can only live up to a week without water and three weeks without food. That's a little short of 40 days. But maybe Moses had meat and wine.
*After he got the stone tablets, he went down off the mountain and saw that the Israelites had made an idol for themselves. God was angry. Moses was angry. Moses broke the tablets. Then Moses had no bread and water for another 40 days! Incredible!
*After that incident, Moses pleaded to Yahweh on behalf of Aaron and the Israelies, and God listened to Moses. Then Moses took the golden calf, ground it to a powder and threw the gold dust into a stream that flowed down the mountain. It doesn't sound nearly as horrific as the story in Exodus 32:20 where Moses put the gold dust in the Israelites water and made them drink it. Gold thrown into a stream would just be washed down stream or sink to the bottom. Besides, people can consume gold without harm, though it seems a waste of gold to me.
*Starting at verse 22, Moses tells the Israelites about all the times they made God angry, and how the only reason they are still alive is because Moses interceded on their behalf, laying prostrate before the lord for another forty days and nights. Moses persuaded God to keep the Israelites as his people so Yahweh's reputation would not be tarnished in the eyes of the Israelite enemies.
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