Exodus 32:15 - Frederick Brotherton Meyer's Commentary

Reader Related Verse
Bible Comments

Moses Breaks the Tables and Burns the Calf

Exodus 32:15-24

There was no weak compromise on the part of Moses. He cast the tables from his hands as though he felt that the covenant between God and the Hebrew race was hopelessly broken. He remonstrated with Aaron, destroyed the calf, and appointed the tribe of Levi as the executors of divine justice. How striking the act that forced the people to drink the dust of the golden calf! Men always have to drink the dust of their idolatries. You cannot make an idol without growing into the likeness of your idol and becoming, some day, nauseated with it.

As Israel turned from the splendors that shone on the summit of Sinai to fashion the calf, and found that the end of those things was misery, so those who turn from the Savior, who is the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of His Person, pierce themselves through with many sorrows and perish. See Hebrews 12:25.

Related Commentaries of Exodus 32:15

Exodus 32:15-24

15 And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.

16 And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.

17 And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.

18 And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear.

19 And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.

20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.

21 And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?

22 And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief.

23 For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

24 And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.