Oh no. Some faced a rather unpleasant form of divine justice, involving… drinking water.
Yep, you heard that right. Drinking water! But not just any water. This water, according to some traditions, was a form of capital punishment inflicted upon the sinners. Imagine the scene: the aftermath of the Golden Calf, the air thick with remorse and fear. Moses, standing tall, issues a call to action: "Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me!" (Exodus 32:26).
And who answers the call? The sons of Levi. They, who had remained steadfast and not participated in the idolatrous worship. Moses, in turn, appoints these Levites as judges. Their immediate duty? To carry out the lawful punishment of decapitation upon those who, with witnesses present, were seduced into idolatry after having been explicitly warned. Harsh, right?
But here's where it gets even more interesting. According to Legends of the Jews, as retold by Ginzberg, Moses gave this command as if he had been directly commissioned by God. But here's the twist: he wasn't! Why do this? To expedite justice. Because under normal Jewish jurisprudence, punishing all the guilty in a single day would have been nearly impossible.
Those who were witnessed committing idolatry but couldn't be proven to have received a prior warning didn't escape judgment entirely. They met their fate through this special water that Moses forced them to drink. Apparently, this water had the same effect on them as the curse-bringing water administered to an adulterous woman, the sotah, described in Numbers 5.
But what about those sinners against whom no witnesses came forward? Did they get off scot-free? Not quite. The legend says that God sent a plague to carry them off. So, no one truly escaped the consequences of their actions.
It paints a stark picture, doesn’t it? A society grappling with immense guilt, seeking to restore its relationship with the Divine. The story highlights the severity with which idolatry was viewed and the lengths to which the community went to cleanse itself after such a profound transgression. It makes you wonder about the nature of justice, divine intervention, and the human capacity for both immense faith and terrible mistakes. How do we balance justice and mercy? And what does it truly mean to be "on the Lord's side"?