All the people took off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.
Parallel Translations
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All the people took off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.
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And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
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And all the people broke off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
Cross-references (4)
Passages linked to Exodus 32:3 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Judges 17:3-4 He restored the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother, then his mother said, “I most certainly dedicate the silver to Yahweh from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a molten image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.” When he restored the money to his mother, his mother took two hundred pieces of silver, and gave them to a silversmith, who made a carved image and a molten image out of it. It was in the house of Micah.
- Isaiah 40:19-20 A workman has cast an image, and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts silver chains for it. He who is too impoverished for such an offering chooses a tree that will not rot. He seeks a skillful workman to set up a carved image for him that will not be moved.
- Isaiah 46:6 Some pour out gold from the bag, and weigh silver in the balance. They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god. They fall down— yes, they worship.
- Jeremiah 10:9 There is silver beaten into plates, which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the engraver and of the hands of the goldsmith. Their clothing is blue and purple. They are all the work of skillful men.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (12 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Such is the rage of idolaters, that they spare…
Such is the rage of idolaters, that they spare no cost to satisfy their wicked desires.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Exo 32:3 And all the people brake off the…
Exo 32:3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which [were] in their ears, and brought [them] unto Aaron.
Ver. 3. Brake off the golden ear-rings.] Which they had got of the Egyptians. {Exo 12:35} To make use of heathen authors for ostentation, is to make a calf of the treasure gotten out of Egypt.
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 Whereby they show both their madness upon their idols,…
Whereby they show both their madness upon their idols, and their base ingratitude to their God, who had transferred these jewels from the Egyptians to them, Exo 12:35,36, which therefore God upbraids them with, Eze 16:11, &c.
In their ears, i.e. the men’s ears, for the affix is of the masculine gender; whereby it seems the men were more set upon idolatry than the women, parting with their earrings for it, which the women would not do.
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 he received them at their hand,.... For the…
And he received them at their hand,.... For the use they delivered them to him:
and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf; that is, after he had melted the gold, and cast it into a mould, which gave it the figure of a calf, and with his tool wrought it into a more agreeable form, he took off the roughness of it, and polished it; or if it was in imitation of the Egyptian Apis or Osiris, he might with his graving tool engrave such marks and figures as were upon that; to cause the greater resemblance, so Selden (y) thinks; see Gill on Jer 46:20 or else the sense may be, that he drew the figure of a calf with his tool, or made it in "a mould" (z), into which he poured in the melted gold:
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and made it a molten calf; the Targum of Jonathan gives another sense of the former clause, "he bound it up in a napkin"; in a linen cloth or bag, i.e. the gold of the ear rings, and then put it into the melting pot, and so cast it into a mould, and made a calf of it. Jarchi takes notice of this sense, and it is espoused by Bochart (a), who produces two passages of Scripture for the confirmation of it, Jdg 8:24 and illustrates it by Isa 46:6. What inclined Aaron to make it in the form of a calf, is not easy to say; whether in imitation of the cherubim, one of the faces of which was that of an ox, as Moncaeus thought; or whether in imitation of the Osiris of the Egyptians, who was worshipped in a living ox, and sometimes in the image of one, even a golden one. Plutarch is express for it, and says (b), that the ox was an image of Osiris, and that it was a golden one; and so says Philo the Jew (c), the Israelites, emulous of Egyptian figments, made a golden ox; or whether he did this to make them ashamed of their idolatry, thinking they would never be guilty of worshipping the form of an ox eating grass, or because an ox was an emblem of power and majesty:
and they said, these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt; they own they were, brought up out of that land by the divine Being; and they could not be so stupid as to believe, that this calf, which was only a mass of gold, figured and decorated, was inanimate, had no life nor breath, and was just made, after their coming out of Egypt, was what brought them from hence; but that this was a representation of God, who had done this for them; yet some Jewish writers are so foolish as to suppose, that through art it had the breath of life in it, and came out of the mould a living calf, Satan, or Samael, entering into it, and lowed in it (d).
(y) De Diis Syris Syntagm. 1. c. 4. p. 138. (z) "formavit illud modulo", Piscator; so some in Ben Melech, and in Vatablus; and so the Vulgate Latin, "formant opere fusorio"; see Fagius in loc. (a) Hierozoic. p. 1. l. 2. c. 39. col. 334, 335. (b) De Isid. & Osir. (c) De Vita Mosis, l. 3. p. 677. (d) Pirke Eliezer, c. 45.
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 And all the people brake off their ear-rings -…
And all the people brake off their ear-rings - Which Aaron melted down, and, having a mold prepared, poured the melted gold into it, and then produced it in the shape of an ox or calf, giving it some finishing strokes with a graving tool.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 3. And all the people brake off the…
Verse 3. And all the people brake off the golden ear-rings] The human being is naturally fond of dress, though this has been improperly attributed to the female sex alone, and those are most fond of it who have the shallowest capacities; but on this occasion the bent of the people to idolatry was greater than even their love of dress, so that they readily stripped themselves of their ornaments in order to get a molten god. They made some compensation for this afterwards; see Ex 35:22, and See Clarke on Ex 38:9.
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 32:3. The people brake off their ear-rings —…
Exo 32:3. The people brake off their ear-rings — Whereby they showed both their madness upon their idols, and their base ingratitude to God, who had transferred these jewels from the Egyptians to them.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain all the people brake off the golden earrings--The Egyptian…
all the people brake off the golden earrings--The Egyptian rings, as seen on the monuments, were round massy plates of metal; and as they were rings of this sort the Israelites wore, their size and number must, in the general collection, have produced a large store of the precious metal.
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 3. All the people brake off — Kurtz observes…
3. All the people brake off — Kurtz observes that Aaron had “counted upon the vanity of the women and youth, and their love for golden ornaments, and he hoped that in this way he would excite such opposition in the community itself as would suffice to save him from having to offer a resistance which appeared to be dangerous. But he had entirely miscalculated. He knew but the surface of the human heart; the depths of its natural disposition were beyond his reach. All the people cheerfully broke off the golden ornaments from their ears, for they were about to accomplish an act of pure self-will; and in that case there is no sacrifice which the human heart is not ready to make.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (3) All the people brake off the golden earrings.—Aaron…
(3) All the people brake off the golden earrings.—Aaron had miscalculated the strength of the people’s fanaticism. Not the slightest resistance was offered to his requirement, not the slightest objection made. “All the people,” with one accord, surrendered their earrings. Some measure is hereby afforded of the intensity of the feeling which was moving the people and urging them to substitute an idolatrous worship for the abstract and purely spiritual religion which had reigned supreme since their departure from Egypt.
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 All the people broke off the golden ear-rings. Thus,…
All the people broke off the golden ear-rings. Thus, as is supposed, disappointing Aaron, who had counted on the refusal of the women to part with their finery, and the reluctance of the men to compel them. Had ear-rings been still regarded as amulets it is not likely that they would have been so readily given up.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 All the people
All the people
This refers to all the people who rejected Moses as their leader and Moses' God as their God.
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fashioned it in a mold, and made it into a molded calf
Aaron melted the gold and poured it into a mold that had the shape of a calf. When the gold became hard, he removed the mold, and the hardened gold had the shape of a calf.
translationWords
people group
gold
Aaron
receive
mold
cow
Israel
false god
Egypt
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.