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    Exodus · 35 verses

    Exodus 32

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    The chapter

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    Aaron’s explanation of the calf is wonderfully economical: the gold went into the fire, and a calf came out. Moses, less impressed by this account, later burns the creature, grinds it to powder, scatters it over water, and makes Israel drink the result.

    A calf, a feast, and a very quick change of allegiancevv. 1–6

    With Moses delayed on the mountain, the people gather around Aaron and ask for gods to go before them. Aaron requests the gold earrings from their families, fashions the gold into a molten calf, and hears Israel credit it with bringing them out of Egypt. He builds an altar, announces a feast to the LORD, and the next day the offerings are followed by eating, drinking, and revelry—a remarkably crowded programme for an object only just out of the fire.

    The tablets descend; the calf is made to drinkvv. 7–24

    The LORD tells Moses to go down, having seen the people turn aside and bow to the calf, and offers to make Moses into a great nation. Moses instead pleads for the people by recalling Egypt, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and the LORD relents from the threatened calamity. Moses comes down carrying tablets made and written by God, while Joshua mistakes the camp’s shouting for war. Moses hears singing, sees the calf and dancing, and shatters the tablets at the mountain’s base. Then comes the chapter’s most physical rebuke: the calf is burned, ground to powder, scattered over water, and given to Israel to drink. Aaron’s account remains admirably brief: the people wanted gods, the gold was thrown into the fire, and—behold—the calf.

    The sword, the plea, and the plaguevv. 25–35

    Moses sees that the people have run wild and calls for whoever is for the LORD. The Levites gather around him and are commanded to move through the camp with swords; about three thousand fall dead. Immediately afterward, Moses declares them ordained for service and says the LORD has bestowed a blessing on them, an astonishingly swift passage from killing relatives and neighbours to religious honour. Moses then returns to the LORD, names the people’s sin, and offers his own place in the book if their sin cannot be forgiven. The answer is that whoever sinned will be blotted out; the people are to go on, with an angel before them, while punishment remains appointed. A plague follows because of the calf Aaron made.

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    Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.

    1. Exod 32:1Now when the people saw that Moses was delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!”

    2. Exod 32:2So Aaron told them, “Take off the gold earrings that are on your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me.”

    3. Exod 32:3Then all the people took off their gold earrings and brought them to Aaron.

    4. Exod 32:4He took the gold from their hands, and with an engraving tool he fashioned it into a molten calf. And they said, “These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

    5. Exod 32:5When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before the calf and proclaimed: “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.”

    6. Exod 32:6So the next day they arose, offered burnt offerings, and presented peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

    7. Exod 32:7Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.

    8. Exod 32:8How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it. They have sacrificed to it and said, ‘These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”

    9. Exod 32:9The LORD also said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people.

    10. Exod 32:10Now leave Me alone, so that My anger may burn against them and consume them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

    11. Exod 32:11But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God, saying, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?

    12. Exod 32:12Why should the Egyptians declare, ‘He brought them out with evil intent, to kill them in the mountains and wipe them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce anger and relent from doing harm to Your people.

    13. Exod 32:13Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom You swore by Your very self when You declared, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give your descendants all this land that I have promised, and it shall be their inheritance forever.’”

    14. Exod 32:14So the LORD relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.

    15. Exod 32:15Then Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back.

    16. Exod 32:16The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

    17. Exod 32:17When Joshua heard the sound of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “The sound of war is in the camp.”

    18. Exod 32:18But Moses replied: “It is neither the cry of victory nor the cry of defeat; I hear the sound of singing!”

    19. Exod 32:19As Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, he burned with anger and threw the tablets out of his hands, shattering them at the base of the mountain.

    20. Exod 32:20Then he took the calf they had made, burned it in the fire, ground it to powder, and scattered the powder over the face of the water. Then he forced the Israelites to drink it.

    21. Exod 32:21“What did this people do to you,” Moses asked Aaron, “that you have led them into so great a sin?”

    22. Exod 32:22“Do not be enraged, my lord,” Aaron replied. “You yourself know that the people are intent on evil.

    23. Exod 32:23They told me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!’

    24. Exod 32:24So I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, let him take it off,’ and they gave it to me. And when I threw it into the fire, out came this calf!”

    25. Exod 32:25Moses saw that the people were out of control, for Aaron had let them run wild and become a laughingstock to their enemies.

    26. Exod 32:26So Moses stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.” And all the Levites gathered around him.

    27. Exod 32:27He told them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each of you men is to fasten his sword to his side, go back and forth through the camp from gate to gate, and slay his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.’”

    28. Exod 32:28The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people fell dead.

    29. Exod 32:29Afterward, Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for service to the LORD, since each man went against his son and his brother; so the LORD has bestowed a blessing on you this day.”

    30. Exod 32:30The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. Now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”

    31. Exod 32:31So Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made gods of gold for themselves.

    32. Exod 32:32Yet now, if You would only forgive their sin.... But if not, please blot me out of the book that You have written.”

    33. Exod 32:33The LORD replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot out of My book.

    34. Exod 32:34Now go, lead the people to the place I described. Behold, My angel shall go before you. But on the day I settle accounts, I will punish them for their sin.”

    35. Exod 32:35And the LORD sent a plague on the people because of what they had done with the calf that Aaron had made.

    01 — Also here

    Who else the chapter reaches

    Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.

    Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.

    Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.

    02 — Read alongside

    Where this is echoed

    Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 393 passages were voted onto 35 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.

    • 32Psalms 69:28May they be blotted out of the Book of Life and not listed with the righteous.
    • 1Acts 7:40They said to Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us! As for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’
    • 32Romans 9:3For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my own flesh and blood,
    • 32Philippians 4:3Yes, and I ask you, my true yokefellow, to help these women who have contended at my side for the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life.
    • 32Revelation 21:27But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who practices an abomination or a lie, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
    • 10Deuteronomy 9:14Leave Me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. Then I will make you into a nation mightier and greater than they are.”
    • 14Jonah 3:10When God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them.
    • 32Daniel 12:1“At that time Michael, the great prince who stands watch over your people, will rise up. There will be a time of distress, the likes of which will not have occurred from the beginning of nations until that time. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.
    • 1Deuteronomy 9:9When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water.
    • 33Ezekiel 18:4Behold, every soul belongs to Me; both father and son are Mine. The soul who sins is the one who will die.
    • 33Deuteronomy 29:20The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven
    • 4Nehemiah 9:18Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and when they committed terrible blasphemies,
    • 61 Corinthians 10:7Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”
    • 9Acts 7:51You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.
    • 10Numbers 14:12I will strike them with a plague and destroy them—and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are.”
    • 12Numbers 14:13–16But Moses said to the LORD, “The Egyptians will hear of it, for by Your strength You brought this people from among them.

    Onward

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