Exodus 32:23

23 dixerunt mihi fac nobis deos qui praecedant nos huic enim Mosi qui nos eduxit de terra Aegypti nescimus quid acciderit

Exodus 32:23 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 32:23

For they said unto me, make us gods, which shall go before
us
Which was true, ( Exodus 32:1 ) but then he should have told them, that gods were not to be made; that what were made with hands were no gods, and could not go before them; that the making of any image, similitude, or representation of God, was forbidden by him, as they had lately heard from his own mouth; he should have dissuaded from such idolatry, by showing them the evil nature of the sin, and the ruin they exposed themselves to by it:

for [as for] this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land
of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him;
their words he truly recites, and perhaps might choose the rather to mention them, because they carried in them some reflection on Moses for staying so long in the mount; and as if that contributed much to this affair, and which put the people on forming such a scheme, they concluding he must be dead through famine; or, as the Targum of Jonathan, be burnt with flaming fire from the Lord.

Exodus 32:23 In-Context

21 dixitque ad Aaron quid tibi fecit hic populus ut induceres super eum peccatum maximum

22 cui ille respondit ne indignetur dominus meus tu enim nosti populum istum quod pronus sit ad malum

23 dixerunt mihi fac nobis deos qui praecedant nos huic enim Mosi qui nos eduxit de terra Aegypti nescimus quid acciderit

24 quibus ego dixi quis vestrum habet aurum tulerunt et dederunt mihi et proieci illud in ignem egressusque est hic vitulus

25 videns ergo Moses populum quod esset nudatus spoliaverat enim eum Aaron propter ignominiam sordis et inter hostes nudum constituerat