← Back to the front page

Going Biblical: Fascinating Divine Punishments Recounted in the Old Testament

Khalid Elhassan May 9, 2025 19 min

Punishment - The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden — The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Encyclopedia Britannica

14. Talking God Out of Destroying Everybody

Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law, by Rembrandt, 1659. Google Art Project

The Old Testament recounts that God grew quite angry at the idolatry, and told Moses He would destroy the people and start over with him. Moses begged for mercy, and reminded the Lord of His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God heeded Moses’ pleas – partially. He agreed not to destroy everybody, but insisted that there would be consequences.

When Moses came down from the mountaintop and personally witnessed the idolatry, he smashed in anger the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments had been inscribed. He then burned the golden calf, ground it into powder, mixed it with water, and made the people drink it to demonstrate the utter worthlessness of their idol.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.