Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Exodus · About this commentary
Who Is on Yahweh's Side?
Exodus 32:15-35
15 Moses turned, and went down from the mountain, with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand; tablets that were written on both their sides. They were written on one side and on the other. · WEB
The tablets are broken at the foot of the mountain, the priest blames the fire, and Moses offers his own name in exchange for the nation's.
Moses turned, and went down from the mountain, with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand... The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God Exodus 32:15–16.
The narrative pauses to establish exactly what is being carried before it describes what happens to it. He threw the tablets out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mountain Exodus 32:19.
The act is not a loss of temper merely. A covenant document was destroyed in the presence of the party that had broken it, at the foot of the mountain where they had agreed to it, and the gesture states the legal situation more plainly than any speech could: the agreement is void, and not because Moses ended it.
He had known what was happening before he saw it and came down carrying the tablets anyway. Joshua, who has been waiting partway up, hears the sound and guesses at a battle; Moses corrects him and identifies singing Exodus 32:17–18. The man who argued for this nation an hour earlier is the one whose anger burns when he actually sees them.
The calf is burned, ground to powder, scattered on water, and the people are made to drink it Exodus 32:20. Their god is destroyed by an ordinary fire and passes through them, which is the shortest possible refutation of it.
Aaron said, "Don't let the anger of my lord grow hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil" Exodus 32:22.
The defense is a masterpiece of evasion and worth reading closely. He blames the people, quotes their demand accurately, minimizes his own part — I said to them, "Whoever has any gold, let them take it off" — and finishes with a sentence that has become the byword for the excuses of leaders: I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf Exodus 32:24. The narrator had already recorded that he fashioned it with an engraving tool Exodus 32:4. The reader has the facts before the account is given.
Whoever is on Yahweh's side, come to me! Exodus 32:26.
The call goes out at the gate, and the Levites answer it. What follows is the hardest paragraph in the book: three thousand fall, killed by their own tribesmen Exodus 32:28. The camp was out of control Exodus 32:25, the covenant carried capital sanctions the nation had accepted with its own voice, and the killing is confined to those who would not come when called. The account states it and does not soften it.
Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out of your book which you have written Exodus 32:32.
The sentence breaks off mid-offer, as though the alternative could not be finished. Moses proposes his own erasure in place of theirs, and the offer is refused: whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book Exodus 32:33. Guilt is not transferable between creatures, and one sinner cannot cover another. The offer was the right instinct, made by a man who did not have what the transaction required — and Paul makes the same one for Israel centuries later, in the same conditional form Romans 9:3.
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