Exodus 32:18-19

32:18 Moses ¹  said, “It is not the sound of those who shout for victory, ²  nor is it the sound of those who cry because they are overcome, ³  but the sound of singing ⁴  I hear.” ⁵ 

32:19 When he approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses became extremely angry. ⁶  He threw the tablets from his hands and broke them to pieces at the bottom of the mountain. ⁷ 

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¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “the sound of the answering of might,” meaning it is not the sound of shouting in victory (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 418).

³ tn Heb “the sound of the answering of weakness,” meaning the cry of the defeated (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 415).

⁴ tn Heb “answering in song” (a play on the twofold meaning of the word).

⁵ sn See A. Newman, “Compositional Analysis and Functional Ambiguity Equivalence: Translating Exodus 32, 17-18,” Babel 21 (1975): 29-35.

⁶ tn Heb “and the anger of Moses burned hot.”

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