He took the calf which they had made, and burned it with fire, ground it to powder, and scattered it on the water, and made the children of Israel drink it.
Parallel Translations
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He took the calf which they had made, and burned it with fire, ground it to powder, and scattered it on the water, and made the children of Israel drink it.
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And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
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And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to Exodus 32:20 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Deuteronomy 9:21 I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. I threw its dust into the brook that descended out of the mountain.
- Deuteronomy 7:5 But you shall deal with them like this: you shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their engraved images with fire.
- Deuteronomy 7:25 You shall burn the engraved images of their gods with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself, lest you be snared in it; for it is an abomination to Yahweh your God.
- 2 Kings 23:6 He brought out the Asherah from Yahweh’s house, outside of Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and beat it to dust, and cast its dust on the graves of the common people.
- 2 Kings 23:15 Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, even that altar and the high place he broke down; and he burned the high place and beat it to dust, and burned the Asherah.
- Proverbs 1:31 Therefore they will eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own schemes.
- Proverbs 14:14 The unfaithful will be repaid for his own ways; likewise a good man will be rewarded for his ways.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (14 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Partly to despite them of their idolatry, and partly…
Partly to despite them of their idolatry, and partly that they should have none occasion to remember it afterward.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Exo 32:20 And he took the calf which they…
Exo 32:20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt [it] in the fire, and ground [it] to powder, and strawed [it] upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink [of it].
Ver. 20. And he took the calf.] We may all wish still as Ferus did, that we had some Moses to take away the evils of our times: Nam non unum tantum vitulum, sed multos habemus, We have not one, but many such calves.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Ground it to powder; melted it either into one…
Ground it to powder; melted it either into one great mass, or rather into divers little fragments, which afterwards by a the or other instruments he, by the help of many others, might soon grind to powder, or dust of gold.
Strawed it upon the water; upon the brook which came out of the rock Horeb, Exo 17:6.
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The children of Israel; not all, which would require a long time, but some in the name of the rest; and most probably either the chief promoters of this idolatrous design, or the chief rulers of the people, who should by their power and authority have restrained the people from this wickedness.
To drink of it; of the water into which that dust was cast; partly to make them ashamed of their madness in worshipping a god which now must be drunk, and cast out into the draught; and partly to fill them with terror and dreadful expectation of some ill effect or curse of God to come upon them, either by this draught, or by other means.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And Moses said unto Aaron,.... Having destroyed the calf,…
And Moses said unto Aaron,.... Having destroyed the calf, and thereby expressed his abhorrence of their idolatry, he examines the principal persons concerned, and inquires into the cause and reason of it, how it came about; and begins with Aaron, though his own brother, with whom along with Hur he had committed the government of the people during his absence; and therefore was justly accountable for such a transaction, which could not have been without his knowledge and consent: no mention is made of Hur, whether he was dead or no is not certain; the Jewish writers say he was, and that he was killed for reproving the Israelites for their wickedness; and it looks as if he was dead, since he was not in the examination, and we hear of him no more afterwards:
what did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them? as idolatry is, than which no sin can be greater, it being not only a breach of the first table of the law, but directly against God, against the very being of God, and his honour and glory; it is a denial of him, and setting up an idol in his room, and giving to that the glory that is only due to his name; and Aaron being the chief magistrate, whose business it was to see that the laws of God were observed, and to restrain the people from sin, and to have been a terror to evil doers; yet falling in with them, and conniving at them, he is charged with bringing sin upon them, or them into that; and is asked what the people had done to him, that he should do this to them, what offence they had given him, what injury they had done him, that he bore them a grudge for it, and took this method to be revenged? for it is suggested, had they used him ever so ill, he could not have requited it in a stronger manner than by leading them into such a sin, the consequence of which must be ruin and destruction, see Gen 20:9 or else Moses inquires of Aaron what methods the people had made use of to prevail upon him to suffer them to do such a piece of wickedness; whether it was by persuasion and artful insinuations, or by threatening to take away his life if he did not comply, or in what manner they had wrought upon his weak side, to induce him to take such a step.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain He burnt the calf - Melted it down, and…
He burnt the calf - Melted it down, and then filed it to dust; and that the powder to which it was reduced might he taken notice of throughout the camp, he strawed it upon the water which they all drank of. That it might appear that an idol is nothing in the world, he reduced this to atoms, that it might be as near nothing as could be.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 20. He took the calf-and burnt - and…
Verse 20. He took the calf-and burnt - and ground it to powder, &c.] How truly contemptible must the object of their idolatry appear when they were obliged to drink their god, reduced to powder and strewed on the water! "But," says an objector, "how could gold, the most ductile of all metals, and the most ponderous, be stamped into dust and strewed on water?" In De 9:21, this matter is fully explained. I took, says Moses, your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, that is, melted it down, probably into ingots, or gross plates, and stamped it, that is, beat into thin laminae, something like our gold leaf, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust, which might be very easily done by the action of the hands, when beat into thin plates or leaves, as the original words אכת eccoth and דק dak imply. And I cast the dust thereof into the brook, and being thus lighter than the water, it would readily float, so that they could easily see, in this reduced and useless state, the idol to which they had been lately offering Divine honours, and from which they were vainly expecting protection and defense. No mode of argumentation could have served so forcibly to demonstrate the folly of their conduct, as this method pursued by Moses.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Exo 32:20. He took the calf which they had…
Exo 32:20. He took the calf which they had made — The people were evidently overawed by the presence of Moses, and therefore attempted no resistance while he took away their idol to destroy it. Here we see how much Moses excelled Aaron in courage and zeal for the glory of God, as also in authority among the people. He burned the calf — Melted it down, and then filed it to dust. This speedy reduction of the calf to powder, as well as the materials whereof it was made, inclines one to believe that it was not of any considerable size. He strewed it upon the water — Upon the brook which flowed for them from the rock in Horeb; and he made the children of Israel drink of it — Not that he constrained them to it; but, having no other water to drink, they could not avoid, when thirsty, to drink of that with this mixture. Thus it would be taken notice of throughout the camp, and would appear to all who had the least discernment that an idol is nothing, this being reduced to atoms, and made as mere a nothing as could be.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Calf. Having manifested his disapprobation of the people’s conduct,…
Calf. Having manifested his disapprobation of the people’s conduct, in the most signal manner, by breaking the two tables; Moses proceeds to convince them of their stupidity, in adoring what he, in a few minutes, reduces to powder. (Haydock) --- He breaks the calf in pieces, after burning it, and then grinds it to dust in a mill, with files; as the Hebrew, Chaldean, and Septuagint intimate. He throws it, with contempt, into the torrent, which supplied the camp with water, and thus caused the idolaters to swallow their god. (Tirinus) -- Sa assures us, that he saw an alchymist pulverize gold, which Abenezra says is done by means of some herbs, which turn the gold quite black, when it is melted. (Calmet) --- Some use aquafortis for this purpose. (Tirinus) --- But from the account of Moses, (Deuteronomy ix. 21,) it seems fire, and the mille, or file, reduced the gold into the smallest particles, so as to be even potable. Josephus ([Antiquities?] viii. 2,) mentions the gold dust used by the courtiers of Solomon. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain he took the calf which they had made, and…
he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, &c.--It has been supposed that the gold was dissolved by natron or some chemical substance. But there is no mention of solubility here, or in Deu 9:21; it was "burned in the fire," to cast it into ingots of suitable size for the operations which follow--"grounded to powder"; the powder of malleable metals can be ground so fine as to resemble dust from the wings of a moth or butterfly; and these dust particles will float in water for hours, and in a running stream for days. These operations of grinding were intended to show contempt for such worthless gods, and the Israelites would be made to remember the humiliating lesson by the state of the water they had drunk for a time [NAPIER]. Others think that as the idolatrous festivals were usually ended with great use of sweet wine, the nauseous draught of the gold dust would be a severe punishment (compare Kg2 23:6, Kg2 23:15; Ch2 15:16; Ch2 34:7).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 20. Took… burnt… ground… strewed — “We need not…
20. Took… burnt… ground… strewed — “We need not suppose that each incident is here placed in strict order of time. What is related in this verse must have occupied some time, and may have followed the rebuke of Aaron. Moses appears to have thrown the calf into the fire to destroy its form, and then to have pounded or filed the metal to powder, which he cast into the brook. Deu_9:21. He then made the Israelites drink of the water of the brook. The act was, of course, a symbolical one. The idol was brought to nothing, and the people were made to swallow their own sin.” Comp. Mic_7:13-14. — Speaker’s Commentary. In Deu_9:21, Moses says: “I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust.” Compare the symbolical act of making the people drink of it with the drinking the water of jealousy prescribed for a woman suspected of adultery. Num_5:11-31.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 20. The people are made to drink their own…
20. The people are made to drink their own sin.
burnt it with fire] i.e. either (cf. on v. 4) burnt the wooden core, and ground the gold plating to powder by rolling large stones to and fro over it; or, if it were wholly of gold, reduced it by fire to shapeless lumps of metal, which were then ground to powder similarly.
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strewed it upon the water] Deu_9:21 says ‘and I cast the dust thereof into the wâdy that descended out of the mount’—apparently to carry it away, without any mention of the Israelites being made to drink it.
to drink of it] Cf. the curses to be drunk by the suspected wife, Num_5:24.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (20) He took the calf.—To suppress the idolatry, the…
(20) He took the calf.—To suppress the idolatry, the first step was to destroy the idol. Moses, who must have rallied to his side at once a certain number of the people, laid hold of the calf, and ordered its immediate destruction. He had it submitted to the action of fire, whereby its form was destroyed, and the material, as it would seem, calcined. This calcined material he reduced to a fine powder by rubbing or pounding, and then had the powder sprinkled on the surface of the stream which supplied the camp with water, that so the people might seem, at any rate, to swallow their own sin. Compare the action of Josiah (2Ki_23:6; 2Ki_23:12). No doubt, the process of destruction took some time. It is not meant that it was completed, but only that it was commenced, before Moses turned to other matters.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain MOSES DESTROYS THE GOLDEN CALF. The first vengeance which…
MOSES DESTROYS THE GOLDEN CALF. The first vengeance which Moses took was upon the idol. It was probably hollow, and possibly of no great size. He might easily break it to pieces and subject the pieces to the action of fire, whereby they would be calcined, and might then be easily reduced to powder. This powder he caused to be mixed with the stream of the brook that flowed from Sinai, so that the Israelites were obliged to swallow with their drink particles of their own idol. Compare the action of Josiah with respect to the "grove" set up in the temple precincts by Manasseh, (2Ki_23:6) which was not identical, but still was similar. It has been suggested that this portion of the narrative is out of proper chronological order; and this may be so far true that the calcining and mixing with the water were at this point commanded rather than executed; but the destruction of the idol would naturally be the first thing which Moses would take in hand, and provide for, before proceeding to anything else. Only when the "abomination" was removed and. its destruction commenced, would he turn his attention to other points.
Burnt it and ground it to powder. Silver and gold subjected for a short time to a white heat, which may be easily produced by bellows, readily calcine, and are then easily crushed to a fine powder. Silver becomes detonating. I am not aware whether the case is the same with gold also. Strawed iti.e. , "sprinkled it." We need not suppose Moses to have done the whole or even any part himself. It was enough that he directed it to be done. The water . The article shows some particular water to be meant. We learn from Deuteronomy that it was the water of "the brook that descended out of the mount." Made the children of Israel drink of it. The brook being the only water readily accessible, the Israelites, if they drank at all, were compelled to risk swallowing particles of their "god.
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Ver. 20. Idolatry condemned by the idol"s weakness and nothingness.
An idol is "nothing in the world" (1Co_8:4) has no power cannot even save itself. Nothing convinces men of the vanity of idolatryso much as to see their idol destroyed We read in Bede that Northmnbria was converted chiefly through the priest Coifi running a tilt at the great idol of the day, and throwing it to the ground (Eccles. Hist. 2:13). Hence the command given "utterly to abolish idols". (Isa_2:18) And what is true of idols proper, is true also, in its measure, of all those substitutes for God which the bulk of men idolise. Riches readily make themselves wings, and vanish, leaving their worshipper a beggar. Wife, mistress, favourite child, lover, erected into an idol, is laid low by death, decays, and crumbles in the grave. Reputation, glory, sought and striven for throughout long years as the one sole good, fades suddenly away before the breath of slander or the caprice of fortune. And when they are gone when the bubble is burst men feel how foolish was their adoration. Their idolatry stands self-condemned by their idol"s weakness and nothingness.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 32:20 Passing the gold powder of the image through…
32:20 Passing the gold powder of the image through the bodies of the people effectively rendered it unclean.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.