Exodus 32 Study Notes

32:1 When the people saw that Moses delayed in coming down presents the situation from the viewpoint of the people. The preceding verse about the Lord having finished speaking and having given Moses the tablets, plus 24:14,18, indicates that their notion was mistaken. Moses could not have returned sooner; he had been summoned by the sovereign Lord and could leave only when dismissed. Their way of speaking about this Moses, the man who brought us up from . . . Egypt, gives insight into their ungrateful attitude. What they said was insulting to Moses and also to the Lord, since it ignored his involvement. It matched their earlier complaints (14:11-12; 16:2-3,6-8; 17:3). The assumption seems to be that Moses (not to mention Joshua) had abandoned them.

32:2-6 While Moses was viewing patterns and receiving detailed instructions about building the tabernacle and its furnishings, and about consecrating Aaron as priest of the Lord, Aaron made a golden calf, set up an altar, and began making sacrifices on it. To worship a calf fit well with both Egyptian and Canaanite practices, in which the calf was a symbol of strength and fertility.

32:5 Perhaps Aaron’s declaration attempted to put a better face on the situation with a version of the theory that the end justified the means. But the festival could never be in honor of the Lord when the method it used defied him.

32:6 Mixing genuine worship with pagan elements degenerates into depravity. The Hebrew word translated party can mean joking (Gn 19:14), mocking (Gn 21:9), or amorous amusement (Gn 26:8).

32:7-8 The word translated acted corruptly indicates total ruin, as in 8:24 (cp. Gn 6:12-13; 19:13; Jr 12:10; 13:7). The word corrupt describes something irrevocably spoiled in such a way that it is no longer of any use.

32:9-14 During the plagues against Egypt, Moses frequently prayed on behalf of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Now Moses prayed for the Israelites (vv. 30-32; 33:12-16; 34:8-9). That the Lord told Moses about the situation and did not immediately destroy the Israelites left the door open for Moses to pray for them and for the Lord to relent (unlike Jr 15:1). As he would himself proclaim, compassion, grace, and the capacity to forgive are among God’s most prominent characteristics (Ex 34:6-7; cp. Jnh 3:9-10; 4:2). Earlier the Lord had needed to persuade Moses to accept his plans; now Moses uses the Lord’s own words to persuade him to have mercy on his people. This displayed the depth of the victory that the Lord had won in Moses’s heart.

32:11-12 The same terms describe the anger of both the Lord and Moses (vv. 10-11,19,22). Moses agreed with the Lord’s assessment that the Israelites were stubbornly rebellious (“stiff-necked,” v. 9; 33:3,5; 34:9) and called what they had done “grave sin” (v. 31). “To what end? For what purpose?” is the point of both questions (cp. Gn 25:32; 27:45-46; Dt 5:24; Jdg 15:10; Ru 1:11).

32:15-16 This lengthy description of the two tablets reinforces their importance and underscores the statement Moses made by smashing them.

32:17-18 No one had told Joshua what was happening in the Israelite camp. His concerned but erroneous explanation conveyed how bad things had gotten. Even war would be better than what was happening. It also provides a brief glimpse into Joshua’s character as an innocent man who cared about the people; he was unaware of the terrible events that had taken place.

32:19 According to Douglas Stuart, “Moses’s breaking of the tablets was an important symbolic act done carefully, deliberately, and openly for the benefit of the Israelites because of the way violation of a covenant is routinely described in the ancient Semitic world as a ‘breaking’ of that ‘covenant.’”

32:20 Drinking water containing the ground-up golden calf meant that whatever was left of the calf would become nothing but human waste. Similarities exist between this action by Moses and the trial of a woman accused of adultery (Nm 5:11-31).

32:21-22 This attempt to deflect blame shows that Aaron knew that making the calf was wrong.

32:23-24 Aaron’s account minimizes his participation by leaving out much of what he did (see v. 4) and by describing the calf as a surprise.

32:25-29 The phrasing of Moses’s order to kill was a forceful way to rule out sparing anyone based on a personal connection, no matter how close. The Levites must have killed known leaders of the rebellion but not all of the participants, since later events show that not all guilty parties died at this point. The Levites who were for the Lord were of the tribe of Aaron, the leader of the rebellion, and of Moses, the one who was putting an end to it.

32:30-33 Throughout Scripture, it is clear that consequences for sin in general come in stages and with varying degrees of severity, giving people an opportunity to repent (cp. 2Pt 2:9). Moses knew that although the Israelites as a nation had not been destroyed (Ex 32:9-14), the matter of consequences from their sin with the golden calf was not yet settled. Perhaps Moses intended to offer himself as a substitute for the people since sacrifices were normally offered when people sought atonement (Lv 16:6,11,17,24; Ezk 45:17). In any case, by requesting to die if the people died, Moses identified himself with them and refused to be the start of a “great nation” to replace them (Ex 32:10). Moses expressed willingness to be removed from the book God has written. This image of God’s record of those who are his is found in both the OT and the NT.

32:34 The angel was first mentioned in 3:2 and would be a topic of further discussion between the Lord and Moses (23:20,23; 32:34; 33:2).

32:35 The plague was only a taste of God’s wrath.