Discovery BoxExodus 32:6 
Context32:6 So they got up early on the next day and offered up burnt offerings and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink, 1 and they rose up to play. 2
Exodus 32:17-19
Context32:17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, 3 he said to Moses, “It is the sound of war in the camp!” 32:18 Moses 4 said, “It is not the sound of those who shout for victory, 5 nor is it the sound of those who cry because they are overcome, 6 but the sound of singing 7 I hear.” 8
32:19 When he approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses became extremely angry. 9 He threw the tablets from his hands and broke them to pieces at the bottom of the mountain. 10
Exodus 32:27-28
Context32:27 and he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Each man fasten 11 his sword on his side, and go back and forth 12 from entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and each one kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.’” 13
32:28 The Levites did what Moses ordered, 14 and that day about three thousand men of the people died. 15
1 tn The second infinitive is an infinitive absolute. The first is an infinitive construct with a lamed (ל) preposition, expressing the purpose of their sitting down. The infinitive absolute that follows cannot take the preposition, but with the conjunction follows the force of the form before it (see GKC 340 §113.e).
2 tn The form is לְצַחֵק (lÿtsakheq), a Piel infinitive construct, giving the purpose of their rising up after the festal meal. On the surface it would seem that with the festival there would be singing and dancing, so that the people were celebrating even though they did not know the reason. W. C. Kaiser says the word means “drunken immoral orgies and sexual play” (“Exodus,” EBC 2:478). That is quite an assumption for this word, but is reflected in some recent English versions (e.g., NCV “got up and sinned sexually”; TEV “an orgy of drinking and sex”). The word means “to play, trifle.” It can have other meanings, depending on its contexts. It is used of Lot when he warned his sons-in-law and appeared as one who “mocked” them; it is also used of Ishmael “playing” with Isaac, which Paul interprets as mocking; it is used of Isaac “playing” with his wife in a manner that revealed to Abimelech that they were not brother and sister, and it is used by Potiphar’s wife to say that her husband brought this slave Joseph in to “mock” them. The most that can be gathered from these is that it is playful teasing, serious mocking, or playful caresses. It might fit with wild orgies, but there is no indication of that in this passage, and the word does not mean it. The fact that they were festive and playing before an idol was sufficient.
3 sn See F. C. Fensham, “New Light from Ugaritica V on Ex, 32:17 (br’h),” JNSL 2 (1972): 86-7.
4 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “the sound of the answering of might,” meaning it is not the sound of shouting in victory (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 418).
6 tn Heb “the sound of the answering of weakness,” meaning the cry of the defeated (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 415).
7 tn Heb “answering in song” (a play on the twofold meaning of the word).
8 sn See A. Newman, “Compositional Analysis and Functional Ambiguity Equivalence: Translating Exodus 32, 17-18,” Babel 21 (1975): 29-35.
9 tn Heb “and the anger of Moses burned hot.”
10 sn See N. M. Waldham, “The Breaking of the Tablets,” Judaism 27 (1978): 442-47.
11 tn Heb “put.”
12 tn The two imperatives form a verbal hendiadys: “pass over and return,” meaning, “go back and forth” throughout the camp.
13 tn The phrases have “and kill a man his brother, and a man his companion, and a man his neighbor.” The instructions were probably intended to mean that they should kill leaders they knew to be guilty because they had been seen or because they failed the water test – whoever they were.
14 tn Heb “did according to the word of Moses.”
15 tn Heb “fell.”
