Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Exodus 32:1
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The long stay that Moses made upon the mountain rendered the people so impatient, that they desired another leader, and asked Aaron, to whom Moses had directed the people to go in all their difficulties during his absence ( Exo 24:14), to make them a god to go before them. The protecting and helping presence of God had vanished with Moses, of whom they said, "We know not what has become of him," and whom they probably supposed to have perished on the mountain in the fire that was burning there. They came to Aaron, therefore, and asked him, not for a leader, but for a god to go before them; no doubt with the intention of trusting the man as their leader who was able to make them a god. They were unwilling to continue longer without a God to go before them; but the faith upon which their desire was founded was a very perverted one, not only as clinging to what was apparent to the eye, but as corrupted by the impatience and unbelief of a natural heart, which has not been pervaded by the power of the living God, and imagines itself forsaken by Him, whenever His help is not visibly and outwardly at hand. The delay (בּשׁשׁ, from בּושׁ to act bashfully, or with reserve, then to hesitate, or delay) of Moses' return was a test for Israel, in which it was to prove its faith and confidence in Jehovah and His servant Moses ( Exo 19:9), but in which it gave way to the temptation of flesh and blood. Exo 32:2-3 Aaron also succumbed to the temptation along with the people. Instead of courageously and decidedly opposing their proposal, and raising the despondency of the people into the strength of living faith, by pointing them to the great deeds through which Jehovah had proved Himself to be the faithful covenant God, he hoped to be able to divert them from their design by means of human craftiness. "Tear off the golden ornaments in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me:" this he said in the hope that, by a demand which pressed so heavily upon the vanity of the female sex and its love of display, he might arouse such opposition as would lead the people to desist from their desire. But his cleverness was put to shame. "All the people" tore off their golden ornaments and brought them to him ( Exo 32:3); for their object was not merely "to accomplish an act of pure self-will, in which case there is no sacrifice that the human heart is not ready to make," but to secure a pledge of the protection of God through a visible image of the Deity. The weak-minded Aaron had no other course left than to make (i.e., to cause to be made) an image of God for the people. Exo 32:4 He took (the golden ear-rings) from their hands, and formed it (the gold) with the graving-tool, or chisel, and made it a molten calf." Out of the many attempts that have been made at interpreting the words בּחרט אתו ויּצר, there are only two that deserve any notice, viz., the one adopted by Bochart and Schroeder, "he bound it up in a bag," and the one given by the earlier translators, "he fashioned (יצר, as in Kg1 7:15) the gold with the chisel." No doubt ויּצר (from צוּר = צרר) does occur in the sense of binding in Kg2 5:23, and חרט may certainly be used for חריט a bag; but why should Aaron first tie up the golden ear-rings in a bag? And if he did so, why this superfluous and incongruous allusion to the fact? We give in our adhesion to the second, which is adopted by the lxx, Onkelos, the Syriac, and even Jonathan, though the other rendering is also in…
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