Exodus 32:17

17 And Joshua having heard the voice of the people crying, says to Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.

Exodus 32:17 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 32:17

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 did there, for of their affairs he seems to be entirely ignorant; nor so high as where Moses was, or, however, not in the cloud where he conversed with God, for of what passed between them he had no knowledge, until declared by Moses:

he said unto Moses, [there is a] noise of war in the camp;
such a noise as soldiers make in an onset for battle; he supposed that some enemy was come upon and had attacked the people, and that this noise was the noise of the enemy, or of the Israelites, or both, just beginning the battle; or on the finishing of it on the account of victory on one side or the other; and as he was the general of the army, it must give him a concern that he should be absent at such a time.

Exodus 32:17 In-Context

15 And Moses turned and went down from the mountain, and the two tables of testimony were in his hands, tables of stone written on both their sides: they were written within and without.

16 And the tables were the work of God, and the writing the writing of God written on the tables.

17 And Joshua having heard the voice of the people crying, says to Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.

18 And says, It is not the voice of them that begin the battle, nor the voice of them that begin of defeat, but the voice of them that begin of wine do I hear.

19 And when he drew nigh to the camp, he sees the calf and the dances; and Moses being very angry cast the two tables out of his hands, and broke them to pieces under the mountain.