Exodus 32:6-8

32:6 So they got up early on the next day and offered up burnt offerings and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink, ¹  and they rose up to play. ² 

32:7 The Lord spoke to Moses: “Go quickly, descend, ³  because your ⁴  people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have acted corruptly. 32:8 They have quickly turned aside ⁵  from the way that I commanded them – they have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt.’”

Exodus 32:17

32:17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, ⁶  he said to Moses, “It is the sound of war in the camp!”

Exodus 32:19

32:19 When he approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses became extremely angry. ⁷  He threw the tablets from his hands and broke them to pieces at the bottom of the mountain. ⁸ 

[32:6]  ¹ tn The second infinitive is an infinitive absolute. The first is an infinitive construct with a lamed (ל) preposition, expressing the purpose of their sitting down. The infinitive absolute that follows cannot take the preposition, but with the conjunction follows the force of the form before it (see GKC 340 §113.e).

[32:6]  ² tn The form is לְצַחֵק (lÿtsakheq), a Piel infinitive construct, giving the purpose of their rising up after the festal meal. On the surface it would seem that with the festival there would be singing and dancing, so that the people were celebrating even though they did not know the reason. W. C. Kaiser says the word means “drunken immoral orgies and sexual play” (“Exodus,” EBC 2:478). That is quite an assumption for this word, but is reflected in some recent English versions (e.g., NCV “got up and sinned sexually”; TEV “an orgy of drinking and sex”). The word means “to play, trifle.” It can have other meanings, depending on its contexts. It is used of Lot when he warned his sons-in-law and appeared as one who “mocked” them; it is also used of Ishmael “playing” with Isaac, which Paul interprets as mocking; it is used of Isaac “playing” with his wife in a manner that revealed to Abimelech that they were not brother and sister, and it is used by Potiphar’s wife to say that her husband brought this slave Joseph in to “mock” them. The most that can be gathered from these is that it is playful teasing, serious mocking, or playful caresses. It might fit with wild orgies, but there is no indication of that in this passage, and the word does not mean it. The fact that they were festive and playing before an idol was sufficient.

[32:7]  ³ tn The two imperatives could also express one idea: “get down there.” In other words, “Make haste to get down.”

[32:7]  ⁴ sn By giving the people to Moses in this way, God is saying that they have no longer any right to claim him as their God, since they have shared his honor with another. This is God’s talionic response to their “These are your gods who brought you up.” The use of these pronoun changes also would form an appeal to Moses to respond, since Moses knew that God had brought them up from Egypt.

[32:8]  ⁵ tn The verb is a perfect tense, reflecting the present perfect nuance: “they have turned aside” and are still disobedient. But the verb is modified with the adverb “quickly” (actually a Piel infinitive absolute). It has been only a matter of weeks since they heard the voice of God prohibiting this.

[32:17]  ⁶ sn See F. C. Fensham, “New Light from Ugaritica V on Ex, 32:17 (br’h),” JNSL 2 (1972): 86-7.

[32:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the anger of Moses burned hot.”

[32:19]  ⁸ sn See N. M. Waldham, “The Breaking of the Tablets,” Judaism 27 (1978): 442-47.