Exodus 32

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

The golden calf

¹ When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, "Up, make us gods who shall go before us. 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." ² Aaron said to them, "Tear off the gold earrings that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." ³ So all the people tore off the gold earrings that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. ⁴ He took the gold from their hand, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it into a cast calf. And they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" ⁵ When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh." ⁶ They rose early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

⁷ Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Go, get down! For your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. ⁸ They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made themselves a cast calf and have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" ⁹ And Yahweh said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and indeed, it is a stiff-necked people. ¹⁰ Now therefore let Me alone, that My anger may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and I will make of you a great nation." ¹¹ But Moses sought the favor of Yahweh his Elohim and said, "Yahweh, why does Your anger burn hot against Your people, whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? ¹² Why should the Egyptians say, 'With evil intent He brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the ground'? Turn from Your burning anger, and relent of this harm against Your people. ¹³ Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Yourself and said to them, 'I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.'" ¹⁴ So Yahweh relented of the harm that He had spoken of doing to His people.

The tablets broken

¹⁵ Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hand, tablets written on both sides; on the one side and on the other they were written. ¹⁶ The tablets were the work of Elohim, and the writing was the writing of Elohim, engraved on the tablets. ¹⁷ When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, "There is a sound of war in the camp." ¹⁸ But he said, "It is not the sound of the cry of victory, nor is it the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear."

¹⁹ As soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. ²⁰ He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder, scattered it on the face of the water, and made the children of Israel drink it.

²¹ And Moses said to Aaron, "What did this people do to you, that you have brought so great a sin upon them?" ²² Aaron said, "Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. ²³ For they said to me, 'Make us gods who shall go before us; 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.' ²⁴ So I said to them, 'Whoever has any gold, let them tear it off.' So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!"

²⁵ When Moses saw that the people had broken loose, for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of those who rose against them, ²⁶ then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, "Whoever is for Yahweh, come to me!" And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. ²⁷ He said to them, "Thus says Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel: 'Put every man his sword on his side, and go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother, his companion, and his neighbor.'" ²⁸ And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And about 3000 men of the people fell that day. ²⁹ Moses said, "Ordain yourselves today for Yahweh, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that He may bestow a blessing on you this day."

Blot me out of Your book

³⁰ On the next day Moses said to the people, "You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to Yahweh; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." ³¹ So Moses returned to Yahweh and said, "Oh, this people has sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold. ³² But now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of Your book that You have written." ³³ But Yahweh said to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against Me, him I will blot out of My book. ³⁴ Now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; see, My angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, on the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them." ³⁵ Then Yahweh struck the people with a plague, because they had made the calf, the one that Aaron made.

Notes

• 32:4 There is one calf, yet the people say "these are your gods," with elohim and a plural verb; Nehemiah 9:18, recalling this day, says "This is your god." Images of young bulls were common in Egypt and Canaan as symbols of strength and of the divine. Centuries later Jeroboam set up two golden calves at Bethel and Dan with these very words (1 Kings 12:28), and Stephen recalls that Israel "made a calf in those days… and rejoiced in the works of their own hands" (Acts 7:41).
• 32:5 Aaron does not announce a feast to some other god but "a feast (chag) to Yahweh": the people called the calf's festival by the name of the God who had brought them out of Egypt. Many understand their sin as not only turning away to other gods but also worshiping Yahweh in a way He had just forbidden, through an image of gold (20:4-5, 23).
• 32:6 "To play" is letsachek, from the root of laughter that gives Isaac his name; it can mean merrymaking, and sometimes it hints at sexual play (Genesis 26:8). Paul quotes this verse word for word as a warning to believers: "Do not become idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, 'The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play'" (1 Corinthians 10:7).
• 32:14 "Relented" is vayyinnachem, from nacham, a verb that also means "to be sorry" and "to comfort." It does not mean that God is fickle, for "El is not a man, that He should lie" (Numbers 23:19); rather, many see that He had left room for Moses to stand in the gap, and He answers intercession as He says He will (Jeremiah 18:7-10). The psalm says He would have destroyed them "had not Moses His chosen one stood in the breach before Him, to turn away His wrath" (Psalm 106:23).
• 32:29 "Ordain yourselves" is literally "fill your hand" (mil'u yedkhem), the idiom used for installing the priests (28:41). The tribe of Levi, which stood with Yahweh at the gate of the camp when even brothers and neighbors did not, was set apart for His service (Numbers 3:12; Deuteronomy 10:8); Moses' blessing recalls that Levi "did not acknowledge his brothers" but kept God's word and covenant (Deuteronomy 33:8-9).
• 32:32 Moses' sentence breaks off, and he offers himself in place of the people. "Forgive" is tissa, "lift up, carry away," the verb used when Yahweh proclaims Himself "forgiving iniquity" (34:7). "Your book" is the register of the living (Psalm 69:28; Daniel 12:1). Paul makes a similar wish for his own people (Romans 9:3), and the New Testament speaks of "the book of life," from which Yeshua promises not to blot out the name of the one who overcomes (Philippians 4:3; Revelation 3:5).

Exodus 31 · Exodus 33

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