Exodus 22:24

22:24 and my anger will burn and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives will be widows and your children will be fatherless. ¹ 

Exodus 32:10

32:10 So now, leave me alone ²  so that my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them, and I will make from you a great nation.”

Exodus 32:22

32:22 Aaron said, “Do not let your anger burn hot, my lord; ³  you know these people, that they tend to evil. ⁴ 

Exodus 4:14

4:14 Then the Lord became angry with ⁵  Moses, and he said, “What about ⁶  your brother Aaron the Levite? ⁷  I know that he can speak very well. ⁸  Moreover, he is coming ⁹  to meet you, and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart. ¹⁰ 

Exodus 32:11

32:11 But Moses sought the favor ¹¹  of the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your anger burn against your people, whom you have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

Exodus 32:19

32:19 When he approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses became extremely angry. ¹²  He threw the tablets from his hands and broke them to pieces at the bottom of the mountain. ¹³ 

[22:24]  ¹ sn The punishment will follow the form of talionic justice, an eye for an eye, in which the punishment matches the crime. God will use invading armies (“sword” is a metonymy of adjunct here) to destroy them, making their wives widows and their children orphans.

[32:10]  ² tn The imperative, from the word “to rest” (נוּחַ, nuakh), has the sense of “leave me alone, let me be.” It is a directive for Moses not to intercede for the people. B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 567) reflects the Jewish interpretation that there is a profound paradox in God’s words. He vows the severest punishment but then suddenly conditions it on Moses’ agreement. “Let me alone that I may consume them” is the statement, but the effect is that he has left the door open for intercession. He allows himself to be persuaded – that is what a mediator is for. God could have slammed the door (as when Moses wanted to go into the promised land). Moreover, by alluding to the promise to Abraham God gave Moses the strongest reason to intercede.

[32:22]  ³ sn “My lord” refers to Moses.

[32:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “that on evil it is.”

[4:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “and the anger of Yahweh burned against.”

[4:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “Is not” or perhaps “Is [there] not.”

[4:14]  ⁶ sn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 29) suggests that the term “Levite” may refer to a profession rather than ancestry here, because both Moses and Aaron were from the tribe of Levi and there would be little point in noting that ancestry for Aaron. In thinking through the difficult problem of the identity of Levites, he cites McNeile as saying “the Levite” referred to one who had had official training as a priest (cf. Judg 17:7, where a member of the tribe of Judah was a Levite). If it was the duty of the priest to give “torah” – to teach – then some training in the power of language would have been in order.

[4:14]  ⁷ tn The construction uses the Piel infinitive absolute and the Piel imperfect to express the idea that he spoke very well: דַבֵּר יְדַבֵּר (dabber yÿdabber).

[4:14]  ⁸ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) with the participle points to the imminent future; it means “he is about to come” or “here he is coming.”

[4:14]  ⁹ sn It is unlikely that this simply means that as a brother he will be pleased to see Moses, for the narrative has no time for that kind of comment. It is interested in more significant things. The implication is that Aaron will rejoice because of the revelation of God to Moses and the plan to deliver Israel from bondage (see B. Jacob, Exodus, 93).

[32:11]  ⁵ tn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 351) draws on Arabic to show that the meaning of this verb (חָלָה, khalah) was properly “make sweet the face” or “stroke the face”; so here “to entreat, seek to conciliate.” In this prayer, Driver adds, Moses urges four motives for mercy: 1) Israel is Yahweh’s people, 2) Israel’s deliverance has demanded great power, 3) the Egyptians would mock if the people now perished, and 4) the oath God made to the fathers.

[32:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “and the anger of Moses burned hot.”

[32:19]  ⁷ sn See N. M. Waldham, “The Breaking of the Tablets,” Judaism 27 (1978): 442-47.