The Bible

The Bible › Exodus

Exodus 32

1When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Get up! Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.” 2Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold earrings in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3All the people took off the gold earrings in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4He took the gold from their hands, shaped it with an engraving tool, and made it into a cast calf. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” 5When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. Aaron proclaimed, “Tomorrow is a festival for Yahweh.” 6They rose early the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

7Yahweh spoke to Moses: “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have acted corruptly. 8They have quickly turned aside from the way I commanded them. They have made themselves a cast calf, bowed down to it, and sacrificed to it. They have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’” 9Yahweh said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and look, they are a stiff-necked people. 10Now leave me alone, so that my anger may burn against them and I may consume them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

11But Moses sought the favor of Yahweh his God and said, “Yahweh, why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a strong hand? 12Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and consume them from the face of the ground’? Turn from your burning anger and relent concerning the disaster against your people. 13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by yourself and said, ‘I will multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your seed, and they will inherit it forever.’” 14Yahweh relented concerning the disaster he had said he would bring on his people.

15Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets written on both sides; on one side and the other they were written. 16The tablets were God's work, and the writing was God's writing, engraved on the tablets. 17When Joshua heard the sound of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is a sound of war in the camp.” 18He said, “It is not the sound of a cry of victory, and it is not the sound of a cry of defeat; it is the sound of singing that I hear.”

19As he drew near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned. He threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain. 20He took the calf they had made, burned it in the fire, ground it to fine powder, scattered it over the surface of the water, and made the sons of Israel drink it. 21Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you, that you brought such a great sin upon them?” 22Aaron said, “Do not let my lord's anger burn. You know the people, that they are bent on evil. 23They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’ 24I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off.’ They gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

25Moses saw that the people were unrestrained, for Aaron had let them loose, to their disgrace among their adversaries. 26Moses stood at the gate of the camp and said, “Whoever is for Yahweh, to me!” All the sons of Levi gathered to him. 27He said to them, “This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each of you put his sword on his thigh. Go back and forth from gate to gate through the camp, and each of you kill his brother, his companion, and his close associate.’” 28The sons of Levi did as Moses said, and about three thousand men of the people fell that day. 29Moses said, “Dedicate yourselves today to Yahweh, each at the cost of his son and his brother, so that a blessing may be bestowed on you today.”

30The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. Now I will go up to Yahweh; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” 31Moses returned to Yahweh and said, “Oh, this people has sinned a great sin! They have made themselves gods of gold. 32Now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please erase me from your book that you have written.” 33Yahweh said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will erase him from my book. 34Now go, lead the people to the place I told you about. Look, my messenger will go before you. But on the day of my reckoning, I will reckon with them for their sin.” 35Yahweh struck the people because they had made the calf that Aaron made.

Translation notes 10

32:1, 4, 8 — Gods and a calf. The verbs and the word “these” are plural, so the draft retains “gods,” although the narrative describes one calf. “Your god” is an interpretive alternative. Aaron announces a festival for Yahweh in verse 5; the text does not resolve the relationship by describing several images.

32:4 — Making the image. “Engraving tool” is a defensible meaning of the difficult manufacturing term. “Cast calf” does not establish whether the image was solid gold or gold over another material. Aaron's account in verse 24 contrasts with the deliberate manufacture narrated here.

32:6 — Play. The verb can describe amusement or revelry and has sexual associations in some contexts. The draft preserves “play” without specifying a sexual rite that the verse does not describe.

32:9–14 — Anger and relenting. “Stiff-necked” preserves the image of stubborn resistance. The Greek editions compared have no counterpart to verse 9's stiff-necked declaration; this draft retains the Masoretic Hebrew sentence. “Relented” can also be expressed as “changed his mind.” The disaster is the threatened destruction; the wording does not say that God confessed moral wrongdoing, nor does it explain away the narrative's response to Moses' appeal.

32:13 — Seed. The descendants are pictured collectively as seed. “Servants” describes the ancestors' relationship to God here rather than specifying a legal status of enslavement.

32:19–20 — Hands; sons of Israel. “Hands” follows the received reading, while the written consonantal form has singular “hand.” “Sons of Israel” is the ancestral designation of the people as a whole, including women and children.

32:25 — Unrestrained. The same Hebrew root describes the people's lack of restraint and Aaron's letting them loose. “Naked” is a traditional rendering, but the context does not require a statement about their clothing.

32:27–29 — Killing and dedication. The command includes even close relationships; the text supplies no exception limiting the victims to named leaders. “Dedicate yourselves” follows the received imperative and interprets the conventional expression “fill your hand.” Another analysis of the same consonants, with different vocalization, understands the dedication as completed: “You have been dedicated today.” The ancient Greek also presents completed action. The verse does not explicitly add “as priests,” and the precise construction linking the blessing to the dedication is difficult.

32:30–33 — Perhaps; the book. Moses' hope of making atonement remains uncertain. His appeal in verse 32 breaks off after “if you will forgive their sin.” “Erase me” retains the picture of removing an entry from God's written record. The text does not call this “the Lamb's book of life” or explain its precise relationship to later biblical book imagery.

32:34–35 — Reckoning and striking. “Reckoning” repeats the same Hebrew verb in noun and verb form; it concerns calling the sin to account. The striking verb is often used for divine or plague-striking, but this verse does not name an illness or means. The final verse attributes the calf both to the people and to Aaron rather than removing either responsibility.