Exodus 32:17

17 And Joshua heareth the voice of the people in their shouting, and saith unto Moses, `A noise of battle 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 turneth, and goeth down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony [are] in his hand, tables written on both their sides, on this and on that [are] they written;

16 and the tables are the work of God, and the writing is the writing of God, graven on the tables.

17 And Joshua heareth the voice of the people in their shouting, and saith unto Moses, `A noise of battle in the camp!'

18 and he saith, `It is not the voice of the crying of might, nor is it the voice of the crying of weakness -- a voice of singing I am hearing.'

19 And it cometh to pass, when he hath drawn near unto the camp, that he seeth the calf, and the dancing, and the anger of Moses burneth, and he casteth out of his hands the tables, and breaketh them under the mount;