While Moses was on the mountain the people were impatient and built a golden calf to worship. When Moses returned from the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony, he questioned his brother about this, Aaron replied with the lamest excuse on record. “…they gave me this gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” HA!

We wonder why the people would so quickly dismiss all the miracles God had already done for them. We sometimes forget that the people were accustomed to seeing and hearing about the multiple gods of the Egyptians.

When Aaron proclaimed a "feast to the Lord" in honor of the golden calf, he was compromising and justifying the worship of a golden calf, by calling it a "feast to the Lord". He was trying to worship God on an altar of paganism.

Moses makes an almost unbelievable plea on behalf of the people.
“…please forgive their sin - but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.”
What book? (See Phil 4:3, Ps 69:28, Rev 3:5)

There are some "apparent contradictions" in today's reading. God tells Moses that no one can see His face and live and yet earlier it says the Lord would speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks with a friend. What gives???

Exod 34:33-35
When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered the LORD's presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD.

2 Cor 3:18
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Are our faces radiant after we have spoken with the Lord?