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.
As soon as he came nigh unto the camp ... he saw the calf, and the dancing. An abrupt turn from the lower platform, where Moses had rejoined Joshua, revealed in a moment, what had taken place (Drew's 'Scripture Lands,' p. 67).
Moses' anger waxed hot. The arrival of the leader, like the appearance of a spectre, arrested the revellers in the midst of their carnival, and his act of righteous indignation, when he dashed on the ground the tables of the law, in token that, as they had so soon departed from their covenant relation, God would withdraw the special privileges that He had promised them-that act, together with the rigorous measures that followed, forms one of the most striking scenes recorded in sacred history.
There is a traditional belief prevalent among the Arabs that the fragments of the broken tables will one day be found; and many a spot around the mountain-precipice has been dug, in the earnest hope that 'the tables which were the work of God, and the writing which was the writing of God,' might be recovered.
Verse 20. He took the calf ... It has been supposed that the gold was dissolved by natron (soda), which is very plentiful in the East, or some chemical substance. But there is no mention of solubility here (or in Deuteronomy 9:21) - it was 'burned in the fire,' to cast it into ingots of suitable size for the operations which follow. 'Stamped' (Deuteronomy 9:21) - i:e., beat into thin laminae, 'grounded to powder.' The powder of malleable metals can be ground so fine as to resemble dust from the wings of a moth or butterfly; and these dust particles will float in water for hours, and in a running stream for days.
These operations of grinding were intended to show contempt for such worthless gods; and the Israelites would be made to remember the humiliating lesson by the state of the water they had drank for a time (Napier, 'Ancient Workers and Artificers in Metal,' pp. 50-52). Others think that as the idolatrous festivals were usually ended with great use of sweet wine, the nauseous draught of the gold dust would be a severe punishment (cf. 2 Kings 23:6; 2 Kings 23:15; 2 Chronicles 15:16; 2 Chronicles 34:7).
Strawed it upon the water - i:e., the brook miraculously produced in Horeb (see the note at Exodus 17:6). 'The idol image was thus quite destroyed as to its form and nature, and the people are required to drink the water with which the powder has been mingled, which, according to the notions of that religion of nature to which they had done homage on this occasion, must have proved the abolition of that very religion, being the greatest offence against it.
The casting of the powder into the water refers, however, likewise most probably to an Egyptian custom (namely, the ceremony of casting the idol into the Nile, Herodotus, b. 2:, ch. 41:), which (if it be true) would confirm in no small degree the importance of the symbolical acts, which thus appropriately completed the process of annihilation directed against the religion of nature' (Havernick, 'Introduction to the Pentateuch,' p. 293: see also Grotius and Ainsworth on Exodus 32:20).
Verse 22. Let not the anger of my lord wax hot. Aaron cuts a poor figure, making a shuffling excuse, and betraying more dread of the anger of Moses than of the Lord (cf. Deuteronomy 9:20). Since the preceding context is in many parts obscure, and the part taken by Aaron in this unhappy affair ill understood, it may be a seasonable and useful service to group the various isolated details, so as to make a harmonious narrative.
Aaron received the earrings of the people; but there is reason to doubt whether the image of the calf was formed by his hands or under his personal direction. The probability rather is, that he handed over the contributions to some skillful and expert artisan, who was entrusted with the manufacture of the contemplated bull; for in Exodus 32:35 the execution is expressly ascribed to workmen, or the people; so that the expression (Exodus 32:24), 'he cast it into the fire,' is equivalent to 'he caused it to be cast into the fire;' and Aaron built an altar on its being shown to him in a completed state-the language evidently conveying an impression that he had not seen it until then, as he must have done, had himself been the artist; and also that it was finished in a much shorter time than he had anticipated, as the words, "there came out this calf," may bear.
On the whole, it appears that Aaron was dragged by the resistless impetuosity of the people into this transaction, which he had vainly endeavoured to prevent or to delay; and that, on finding it impossible to control, the fierce democracy, he had reluctantly yielded, declaring, by the tenor of his proclamation at the last, though constrained to sanction an impure and forbidden mode of worship, it was still Yahweh, and not an idol, to whom homage was paid. This was his error, arising apparently from want of a stedfast and enlightened faith, but not amounting to such an apostasy as involved a violation of the national covenant, being done only by a portion of the people, or such as disqualified him from being made afterward high priest.