Exodus 32-33
New Catholic Bible
The Golden Calf and the Renewal of the Covenant
Chapter 32
The Golden Calf. 1 When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and told him, “Make a god to walk before us, because we do not know what has happened to Moses, the one who brought us out of the land of Egypt.”
2 Aaron answered them, “Take the gold earrings off your wives and sons and daughters and bring them to me.” 3 All the people took off their gold earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took the gold from their hands and fashioned it with a chisel and made a molten calf.[a] They said, “Behold your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” 5 Seeing this, Aaron built an altar before the calf and proclaimed, “Tomorrow shall be a feast in honor of the Lord.” 6 The following day they rose early, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings. The people sat down and ate and drank. They then rose to divert themselves.
7 The Lord said to Moses, “Leave, go down, because your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have become perverse. 8 They have quickly departed from the way that I have commanded them. They have made a molten calf for themselves, and have bowed down before it. They have offered sacrifices and said, ‘Behold your God, Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.’ ”
9 The Lord also said to Moses, “I have observed this people, and I have seen that it is a stubborn people. 10 Now let me be, so that my rage can blaze out against them and destroy them. I will then make you a great nation.”
11 The Prayer of Moses. But Moses entreated the Lord, his God, and said, “Why, O Lord, will you let your rage blaze out against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians be able to say about them, ‘He brought them out for evil purposes, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn back your wrath and change your mind about harming your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by yourself and said, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of the heavens. All this land, of which I have spoken, I will give to your descendants as their possession forever.’ ” 14 Then the Lord changed his mind and decided not to harm his people.
15 Moses Shatters the Tablets of the Law. Moses left and went down the mountain with the two tablets of Testimony in his hands, tablets written on both sides. They were written on one side and the other. 16 The tablets were made by God, and the writing on them was God’s writing.
17 Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, and he cried out to Moses, “There are battle sounds coming from the camp!” 18 But Moses answered, “It is not the shout of victory, nor the sound of defeat. It is the sound of singing that I hear.”
19 When they drew near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing. Moses became very angry. He flung down the tablets, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. 20 He then seized the calf that they had made and burned it with fire. He ground it down until it was a powder and scattered it on water that he made the children of Israel drink.
21 The Zeal of the Levites. Moses said to Aaron, “What has this people done to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” 22 But Aaron answered, “Let my lord not be angry, for you know this people and that they are set on evil. 23 They said to me, ‘Make a god to walk before us, because we do not know what has happened to Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt.’ 24 I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off.’ They gave it to me, and I threw it in the fire, and out came this calf.”
25 Moses saw that the people had lost control of themselves (for Aaron had let them run so wild that their enemies mocked them). 26 So he stood at the gate to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me!” All the sons of Levi gathered around him. 27 He cried out to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Each man strap a sword to his side. Then pass back and forth in the camp from one gate to another and slay your brother, your companion, and your neighbor.”
28 The sons of Levi did as Moses had commanded them. On that day three thousand men from among the people perished. 29 Moses then said, “Today you have consecrated yourself to the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son or his brother, that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.”
30 Moses Intercedes for His People. The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. Today I will climb up to the Lord. Perhaps I will obtain pardon for your sin.”
31 Moses returned to the Lord and said, “This people has committed a great sin. They made a god out of gold for themselves.[b] 32 But now, if you will, pardon their sin—if not, I pray, blot me out of the book that you have written.”[c]
33 The Lord said to Moses, “I will blot out of my book only him who has sinned against me. 34 Now go, lead the people to the place about which I told you. Behold, my angel will go before you. But on the day of reckoning, I will punish them for their sin.”
35 The Lord smote his people because they had made the calf that Aaron had fashioned.
Chapter 33
The Israelites Are Ordered To Depart. 1 The Lord said to Moses, “Get up and leave this place, you and the people whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, to go to the land that I have promised with an oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ 2 I will send an angel before you to drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 3 Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go up in your midst, lest I destroy you along the way, for you are an obstinate people.”
4 The people heard this sad news and they mourned. No one put on his ornaments.
5 The Lord said to Moses, “Say this to the children of Israel, ‘You are an obstinate people. If I were to go up with you for a single moment, I would surely destroy you. Now, take off your ornaments so that I may know what to do with you.’ ”
6 The children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.
A Provisional Tent for the Colloquy between God and Moses. 7 Moses took the tent and pitched it quite a distance outside of the camp, calling it the meeting tent. Anyone who sought the Lord would go to the meeting tent that was outside the camp.[d] 8 Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose up and each one stood in the door to his tent. They watched Moses pass by until he entered the tent. 9 When Moses entered the tent, a column of cloud descended and remained at the entrance to the tent, and the Lord spoke with Moses. 10 The whole people saw the column of cloud that stood at the entrance to the tent, and they all got up and worshiped at the doors to their tents. 11 Thus the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. He then returned to the camp while his servant Joshua, son of Nun, a young man, did not leave the tent.[e]
12 The Prayer of Moses. Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, you commanded me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you did not tell me whom you would send with me. You even said, ‘I know you by name,[f] and you have found favor with me.’ 13 Now, therefore, I beseech you, if I have found favor with you, show me your ways, so that I may know you and stay in your favor. Keep in mind that this people is your people.”
14 The Lord answered, “I will walk with you and give you rest.” 15 Moses replied, “If you will not go with us, then do not make us go up from here, 16 for how will it then be known if I have found favor with you, I and your people? Is it not in your journeying with us, with me and your people, that we are marked out as being distinct from all the other peoples who are upon the face of the earth?”
17 The Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this very thing that you have said, for you have found favor with me and I know you by name.”
18 So Moses said to him, “Show me your glory!”
19 He answered, “I will make all my splendor pass in front of you and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, before you. I will show favor to those to whom I show favor and I will have mercy on those on whom I have mercy.” 20 He continued, “But you cannot see my face, for no one can see my face and live.” 21 And the Lord continued, “There is a place near me. You will stand upon the rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will place you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I will have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand and you will see my back, but you cannot see my face.”
Footnotes
- Exodus 32:4 Molten calf: under Aaron’s direction the people fashioned an idolatrous image of a bull. He tried to turn them back to the Lord by building an altar before it. The Israelites were forbidden to use any graven images and would be punished for their idolatry.
- Exodus 32:31 Moses interceded with God for the wrongdoing of the Israelites and God forgave them. It is clear, however, that there are consequences that remain for both Moses and the people due to their sinfulness.
- Exodus 32:32 The book of life, in which are written the names of the elect, that is, the multitude of the predestined. See Isa 4:3; Rev 3:5.
- Exodus 33:7 Moses took a large tent and erected it outside the camp as a provisional place of meeting with the Lord and as a tribunal, while the definitive tent was being erected, that is, the tabernacle or tent of meeting (see Ex 40:2), which was to stand in the midst of the camp (Num 2:2).
- Exodus 33:11 Moses meets the Lord face to face: this account is from a different source than the one in verse 20, which says that it is impossible for even Moses to see the face of God. The sacred writer is not concerned to harmonize the two divergent traditions.
- Exodus 33:12 The phrase, know you by name, signifies special love and protection.
