Deuteronomy 9:16-21

9:16 When I looked, you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God and had cast for yourselves a metal calf; ¹  you had quickly turned aside from the way he ²  had commanded you! 9:17 I grabbed the two tablets, threw them down, ³  and shattered them before your very eyes. 9:18 Then I again fell down before the Lord for forty days and nights; I ate and drank nothing because of all the sin you had committed, doing such evil before the Lord as to enrage him. 9:19 For I was terrified at the Lord’s intense anger ⁴  that threatened to destroy you. But he ⁵  listened to me this time as well. 9:20 The Lord was also angry enough at Aaron to kill him, but at that time I prayed for him ⁶  too. 9:21 As for your sinful thing ⁷  that you had made, the calf, I took it, melted it down, ⁸  ground it up until it was as fine as dust, and tossed the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain.

¹ tn On the phrase “metal calf,” see note on the term “metal image” in v. 12.

² tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 9:3.

³ tn The Hebrew text includes “from upon my two hands,” but as this seems somewhat obvious and redundant, it has been left untranslated for stylistic reasons.

⁵ tn Heb “the anger and the wrath.” Although many English versions translate as two terms, this construction is a hendiadys which serves to intensify the emotion (cf. NAB, TEV “fierce anger”).

⁶ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 9:3.

⁷ tn Heb “Aaron.” The pronoun is used in the translation to avoid redundancy.

⁹ tn Heb “your sin.” This is a metonymy in which the effect (sin) stands for the cause (the metal calf).

¹⁰ tn Heb “burned it with fire.”