Exodus 32:17

32:15-20 What a change it is, to come down from the mount of communion with God, to converse with a wicked world. In God we see nothing but what is pure and pleasing; in the world nothing but what is sinful and provoking. That it might appear an idol is nothing in the world, Moses ground the calf to dust. Mixing this powder with their drink, signified that the backslider in heart should be filled with his own ways.

And when Joshua heard the noise of the people, as they shouted,.... Dancing about the calf: when Moses went up into the mount, Joshua went with him, and tarried in a lower part of the mount all the forty days until he returned, see Exodus 24:13 though not so low as the bottom of the mount where the people were, nor so near it as to know what they did there, for of their affairs he seems to be entirely ignorant; nor so high as where Moses was, or, however, not in the cloud where he conversed with God, for of what passed between them he had no knowledge, until declared by Moses: he said unto Moses, there is a noise of war in the camp; such a noise as soldiers make in an onset for battle; he supposed that some enemy was come upon and had attacked the people, and that this noise was the noise of the enemy, or of the Israelites, or both, just beginning the battle; or on the finishing of it on the account of victory on one side or the other; and as he was the general of the army, it must give him a concern that he should be absent at such a time.

(17) When Joshua heard. —Joshua’s presence with Moses in the mount has not been indicated since Exodus 24:13 . But it would seem that when Moses was summoned up into the cloud ( Exodus 24:16 ) his faithful “minister” remained where he was, waiting for his master. He may have found shelter in some “cleft of the rock;” and the manna may have fallen about him, and sufficed for his sustenance during the forty days and nights of his master’s absence. The noise of the people as they shouted.—“Shouting” was a feature of idolatrous rites (1Kings 18:28; Acts 19:34; Herod. ii. 60, &c.), and was in part a cause, in part a result, of the physical excitement which prevailed during such orgies. Joshua, unsuspicious of the real nature of the shouting, supposed, naturally enough, that the camp was attacked by an enemy, and that the noise was “a noise of war.” But Moses, forewarned of the actual state of affairs (Exodus 32:7-8), had probably a shrewd suspicion of the real nature of the sounds. He contented himself, however, with negativing his minister’s conjecture.

Verse 17. - When Joshua heard . This abrupt introduction of Joshua, who has not been mentioned for seven entire chapters, is curious. Probably he had considered himself bound, as Moses' minister ( Exodus 24:13 ), to await his return, and had remained in the middle portion of the mount, where he may have fed upon manna, until Moses came down from the top. The noise of the people. It is noted by travellers, that in all the latter part of the descent from Sinai, the plain at its base is shut out from sight; and that sounds would be heard from it a long time before the plain itself would open on the view (Stanley, Sinai and Palestine , p. 44). Sounds, however, which come circuitously, are always indistinct; and it is not surprising that Joshua, knowing nothing of the proceedings in the camp, should have fancied he heard a sound of war . Exodus 32:17

15-18. Moses turned, and went down from the mount—The plain, Er-Raheh, is not visible from the top of Jebel Musa, nor can the mount be descended on the side towards that valley; hence Moses and his companion, who on duty had patiently waited his return in the hollow of the mountain's brow, heard the shouting some time before they actually saw the camp.

When Moses departed from God with the two tables of the law in his hand (see at Exodus 31:18 ), and came to Joshua on the mountain (see at ch. Joshua 24:13 ), the latter heard the shouting of the people (lit., the voice of the people in its noise, רעה for רעו, from רע noise, tumult), and took it to be the noise of war; but Moses said ( Exodus 32:18 ), "It is not the sound of the answering of power, nor the sound of the answering of weakness," i.e., they are not such sounds as you hear in the heat of battle from the strong (the conquerors) and the weak (the conquered); "the sound of antiphonal songs I hear." (ענּת is to be understood, both here and in Psalm 88:1 , in the same sense as in Exodus 15:21 .)

[Bible] 32:9. And again the Lord said to Moses: I see that this people is stiffnecked: 32:10. Let me alone, that my wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may destroy them, and I will make of thee a great nation. 32:11. But Moses besought the Lord his God, saying: Why, O Lord, is thy indignation enkindled against thy people, whom thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, with great power, and with a mighty hand? 32:12. Let not the Egyptians say, I beseech thee: He craftily brought them out, that he might kill them in the mountains, and destroy them from the earth: let thy anger cease, and be appeased upon the wickedness of thy people. 32:13. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou sworest by thy own self, saying: I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven: and this whole land that I have spoken of, I will give to your seed, and you shall possess it for ever: 32:14. And the Lord was appeased from doing the evil which he had spoken against his people. 32:15. And Moses returned from the mount, carrying the two tables of the testimony in his hand, written on both sides, 32:16. And made by the work of God; the writing also of God was graven in the tables. 32:17. And Josue hearing the noise of the people shouting, said to Moses: The noise of battle is heard in the camp. 32:18. But he answered: It is not the cry of men encouraging to fight, nor the shout of men compelling to flee: but I hear the voice of singers. 32:19. And when he came nigh to the camp, he saw the calf, and the dances: and being very angry, he threw the tables out of his hand, and broke them at the foot of the mount: 32:20. And laying hold of the calf which they had made, he burnt it, and beat it to powder, which he strewed into water, and gave thereof to the children of Israel to drink. 32:21. And he said to Aaron: What has this people done to thee, that thou shouldst bring upon them a most heinous sin?