Tammuz 16 – Come, make us gods that shall go before us

July 11, 2025

04 – Tammuz, Aaron, Egypt, Exodus, Israel, Judah, Moses

Tammuz 16, 5785; from sunset July 11, 2025, to sunset July 12, 2025

(The sixteenth day of the fourth month)

This is the name “Mosheh” (מֺשֶׁה – Moses) as seen in the Dead Sea Scrolls, written over two thousand years ago.

According to Jewish tradition, Tammuz 16 was the 40th day following the Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. The tradition continues by saying that the people of Israel expected Moses to return from the mountain today, but he did not show up. This caused the people to say to Aaron: “Make us a god that shall go before us.” So Aaron fashioned a calf from the gold supplied by the people.

Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

And Aaron said to them, “Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”

So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!”

So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.” – Exodus 32:1-5 (NKJ)

Aaron wrongly declared a “Feast to the Lord” on the 17^th of Tammuz. Not that day. Not that way. It sure could have been a feast day. Imagine, Moses was just about to come down the mountain with the two Tablets of Testimony, written by the hand of God! He had just been given instructions for how to build the Tabernacle where God would dwell among them! What would have happened had they only waited one more day? Ironically, Aaron’s feast day was turned into a fast day instead; and still is to this day. But the Lord will have the last word on this. Centuries later, in a word to Zechariah, the LORD said that this day will indeed become a day of “cheerful feasts for the house of Judah.”

“Thus says the LORD of hosts: `The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be joy and gladness and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah.’” – Zechariah 8:19a (NKJ)

We will finally get to celebrate the 17th day of the fourth month – in a way that Aaron never dreamed of.

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