Exodus 32 · a question people ask
Why did three thousand people die?
The chapter gives the command as the LORD's: Moses said, "The LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘Every man put his sword on his thigh’" (32:27). It gives no other reason, and it doesn't point back to an earlier law. Earlier, among the ordinances the people had promised to keep (24:3), was "He who sacrifices to any god, except to the LORD only, shall be utterly destroyed" (22:20), and the LORD said of the calf, "have sacrificed to it" (32:8). Before anyone was killed, Moses stood in the gate and called, "Whoever is on the LORD’s side, come to me!" (32:26). The chapter doesn't say how those who died were chosen or who they were; it says only that "About three thousand men fell of the people that day" (32:28). It doesn't end there. The next day Moses told the people, "Now I will go up to the LORD. Perhaps I shall make atonement for your sin" (32:30). Paul, writing about Israel in the wilderness, says "these things were our examples" (1 Corinthians 10:6) and "they were written for our admonition" (1 Corinthians 10:11).
The verses
“Moses came and told the people all the LORD’s words, and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words which the LORD has spoken will we do.””
““He who sacrifices to any god, except to the LORD only, shall be utterly destroyed.”
“They have turned away quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’””
“Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.”