Discovery BoxExodus 32:18-19 
Context32:18 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
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.
