1253 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And all the people brake off the golden earrings, which were in their ears,.... The men took off their earrings, and persuaded their wives and children, or obliged them to part with theirs; though the Targum of Jonathan says the women refused to give their ornaments to their husbands, therefore all the people immediately broke off all the golden...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And when Aaron saw it,.... In what form it was, and what a figure it made, and how acceptable it was to the Israelites. The Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem paraphrase it, "and Aaron saw Hur slain before him;'' for reproving them for their idolatry, as the Midrash (e), quoted by Jarchi, says: and Aaron fearing they would take away his life if he...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And they rose up early in the morning,.... Being eager of, and intent upon their idol worship: and offered burnt offerings; upon the altar Aaron had made, where they were wholly consumed: and brought peace offerings: which were to make a feast to the Lord, and of which they partook: and the people sat down to eat and to drink; as at a feast: and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the Lord said unto Moses, go, get thee down,.... In Deuteronomy 9:12 it is added, "quickly", and so the Septuagint version here: this was said after the Lord had finished his discourse with him, and had given him the two tables of stone, and he was about to depart, but the above affair happening he hastens his departure; indeed the idolatry...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them,.... The Targum of Jonathan adds, by way of explanation, "on Sinai, saying, ye shall not make to yourselves an image, or figure, or any similitude.'' This was the command God had given to them; this the way he had directed them to walk in; from this they turned aside, by making...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people,.... He had observed their ways and works, their carriage and behaviour; he had seen them before this time; he knew from all eternity what they would be, that their neck would be as an iron sinew, and their brow brass; but now he saw that in fact which he before saw as future, and they proved...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Now, therefore, let me alone,.... And not solicit him with prayers and supplications in favour of these people, but leave him to take his own way with them, without troubling him with any suit on their behalf; and so the Targum of Jonathan, "and now leave off thy prayer, and do not cry for them before me;'' as the Prophet Jeremiah was often bid...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Moses besought the Lord his God,.... As the Lord was the God of Moses, his covenant God, and he had an interest in him, he made use of it in favour of the people of Israel: and said, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people? so as to think or speak of consuming them utterly; otherwise he knew there was reason for his being angry and wroth...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say,.... Those that remained, as the Targum of Jonathan, who were not drowned in the Red sea: a good man will be concerned for the honour and glory of God among the enemies of his people, that their mouths may not be opened to blaspheme the Lord and speak ill of his ways, see Joshua 7:9 and this is...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants,.... The covenant he made with them, the promise he had made unto them, with an oath annexed to it: to whom thou swarest by thine own self; which he did, because he could swear by no greater; and for the confirmation of his covenant and promise, see Genesis 22:16 and saidst unto them; for what was...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people. He did not do what he threatened to do, and seemed to have in his thoughts and designs, but did what Moses desired he would, Exodus 32:12 not that any of God's thoughts or the determinations of his mind are alterable; for the thoughts of his heart are to all generations; but...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Moses turned, and went down from the mount,.... He turned himself from God, with whom he had been conversing forty days; his back was to the ascent of the mount, and he turned himself in order to go down; or "he looked" (g), as a man considers what is to be done, as Aben Ezra observes, and he saw that he was obliged to go down in haste: and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the tables were the work of God,.... And not of angels or men; the stones were made and formed by God into the shape they were: and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables; the letters in which the law was written were of his framing, devising, and engraving; and this was to show that this law was his own, and contained his...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And when Joshua heard the noise of the people, as they shouted,.... Dancing about the calf: when Moses went up into the mount, Joshua went with him, and tarried in a lower part of the mount all the forty days until he returned, see Exodus 24:13 though not so low as the bottom of the mount where the people were, nor so near it as to know what they...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he said,.... Not Joshua, as Saadiah Gaon thinks, but Moses, in answer to what Joshua had said: [it is] not the voice of [them that] shout for mastery; that have got the better of it, and have obtained the victory, and shout on that account; or, "not the voice of a cry of strength", or "of a strong cry" (h); that is, of men who have got the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And it came to pass, as soon, as he came nigh unto the camp,.... To the bottom of the mountain, and pretty near where the people were encamped: that he saw the calf, and the dancing; the golden image of the calf, and the people dancing about it, in honour of it, and as glad they had got a symbol and representation of God to go before them; and so...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire,.... Melted it down into a mass of gold, whereby it lost its form, and had no more the appearance of a calf: and ground it to powder; but how this was done is not easy to say, whether by beating the mass of gold into thin plates, and then filing them small; for this art has...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Aaron said, let not the anger of my lord wax hot,.... He addresses him in a very respectful manner, though his younger brother, being in a superior office, the chief ruler of the people, king in Jeshurun; and he perceived a violent emotion rising in him, great indignation in his countenance, and an high resentment of what was done, and...