Commentary for Exodus 32:20

ויזר AND STREWED IT — The verb זרה denotes scattering about, similar to, (Job 18:15) “Brimstone shall be scattered (יזרה) upon his habitation”; (Proverbs 1:17) “Surely in vain the net is strewn (מזורה) [in the sight of any bird]” where this expression is used because people usually bestrew it (the net) with grain and pulse.

AND HE STREWED IT UPON THE WATER, AND MADE THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL DRINK IT. After grinding the golden calf to a fine powder, he scattered it on the surface of the stream which came down from the mountain, and made the people drink of those waters. It is possible that gold burnt in fire does not melt, but instead when placed therein is charred and can be ground to powder, as Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra mentioned.³⁵⁸“There is a certain substance which, if put with gold into the fire, will cause the gold to become charred to dust and never return to its former properties” (Ibn Ezra). This powder was light upon the face of the waters,³⁵⁹Job 24:18. and therefore it floated, and he made them drink of it. Or it may be that he scattered it upon the stream in small quantities, and then drew the water and made them drink it before the gold powder sank in the stream. Or perhaps it was a miraculous event. Thus he wanted to disgrace their deeds by grinding their god to powder and bringing it into their bellies to issue as excrement, something like it is said, Thou shalt put them [i.e., the graven images] far away as one unclean; thou shalt say unto it: ‘get thee hence.’³⁶⁰Isaiah 30:22. In the opinion of our Rabbis³⁶¹Abodah Zarah 44a. he also intended to put them to the test in the same way that faithless wives were tried,³⁶²Numbers 5:16-22. [so that those guilty of having worshipped the golden calf] would have their bellies swell and their thighs fall away.³⁶³Ibid., Verse 27. This is the truth.

ויקח את העגל אשר עשו, He took the calf which they had made, etc. The words "which they had made" appear quite superfluous; perhaps the Torah had to mention this according to the view that the golden calf looked like a calf from the front and like a donkey when viewed from the rear as we find in the Zohar volume 2 page 192. If the Torah had written only "he took the calf," I could have understood this as a reference only to the front section of the calf and that Moses burned only that section of the image. By adding the words: "which they had made," the Torah makes it clear that Moses burned the entire inert creature.

ויזר, same as ויפזר, “he scattered.” The construction from the root פזר is parallel to vayiken, from the root kanah, (compare Genesis 33,19) Compare also the root זרה which would be vayizer as here. We find the word in this sense in Numbers 17,2 ואת האש זרה הלאה, “and throw the fire (flame) away.”

וישרוף באש, “he burned it by fire.” Gold is normally worked only when it has been made red hot, when it is cast in a mould. Therefore, just as the calf came into existence by means of fire, it had to be destroyed by means of fire. Ibn Ezra writes that there are elements (or additives) which when mixed with gold, not only have the same effect as melting it, but make it incapable of being reconstituted. Moses used such a solution.

He intended to test them as are women suspected of adultery. . . The reason being that he who strays after idolatry is like a married woman who strays from her husband by having relations with an adulterer, as is stated in the Midrash on Shir Hashirim 4:5 that Rashi cites. That is why Moshe tested them in the same manner as women who are suspected of adultery are tested.

V. 20. Seine erste Handlung war, den Gott des Wahns in seiner vollendeten Nichtigkeit dem Volke zum leibhaften Bewusstsein zu bringen. Er zerstörte das Götterkalb nicht nur, sondern es musste jeder im Volke mit seiner eigenen leiblichen Persönlichkeit die gänzliche spurlose Vernichtung seines Gottes vollenden helfen. Das Volk musste seinen Gott austrinken. Das, worin sie die Sicherung ihrer leiblichen Zukunft gesetzt hatten, musste in ihrer Leiblichkeit das rasche Ende seines kurzen Daseins finden. Das, worin ihre leiblich sinnliche Reinheit bereits ihr Grab zu finden begann, musste in ihrer sinnlichen Leiblichkeit sein Grab finden. Mit solcher Prägnanz lehrt und erzieht ein Mosche. Dass aber keine Hand sich regte, ihren Gott aus den Händen des Mannes Mosche zu retten, und kein Mund sich weigerte, den Staub seines Gottes zu trinken, das war ein erstes Zeichen der Umkehr und das war zugleich ein Beweis, wie es einem energievolleren Auftreten vielleicht gelungen wäre, von vornherein das Volk in seiner Verirrung aufzuhalten.

וישק את בני ישראל, “he made the Children of Israel drink;” on this verse Rashi observes that basically we are subject to death for certain sins by one of three types of death, a) as in the case where a woman has been suspected of infidelity by her husband, when there are no eyewitnesses to the supposed infidelity. In such cases death is brought about by Divine interference, the woman who had lied by protesting her innocence having to drink the “bitter” water, as a result of which she will die a painful death. [Compare Numbers 5,27) b) a capital offence was committed by a person who had been duly warned of the consequence of his deed by two legally qualified witnesses. The death penalty will be carried out by the guilty party being killed by the sword. Compare Deuteronomy 13,17, as explained by the Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, folio 111. c) there are witnesses to the sin having been committed, but the sinner had not been warned immediately prior to committing the sin by qualified witnesses. In that case he will die by a plague at the instigation of G–d. If Rashi were correct in comparing the death of the people worshipping the golden calf were executed by the sword as the people in Deuteronomy 13,17, why was their property not destroyed as is the case there? We would have to answer that they were punished as if they had been gentiles, where destruction of the sinner’s property is not decreed. (Compare Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin folio 56)

וישרוף באש, “he burned it by fire.” There are materials, which when added to gold, immediately, also burn the gold, i.e. blacken it. Such gold never regains its original colour.

וישק את בני ישראל AND HE GAVE THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL TO DRINK OF IT — He intended to put them to the test as faithless wives were tried (cf. Numbers 5:12—31) (Avodah Zarah 44a). Three different death-penalties were inflicted there: It there were witnesses to the act of idolatry and a legal warning had preceded the deed the offender was put to death by the sword (cf. vv. 27, 28) as was the regulation regarding the inhabitants of an apostate city (Deuteronomy 13:13—18) when there were many (as was the case here; a single idolator, however, was subject to the death by stoning; cf. Deuteronomy 17:2—5). If there were witnesses but there had been no caution, they were destroyed by the plague, as it is said, (v. 35) “And the Lord plagued the people”. In cases where there were neither witnesses nor warning they were punished by dropsy — for the water which Moses gave them to drink put them to the test and if they were guilty their bellies swelled (cf. Yoma 66b).

וישק את בני ישראל, he examined their truthfulness by making them drink this mixture, just as a Sotah suspected of infidelity has to drink water [mixed with ground dust].

As an idolatrous city when there are many involved. . . I.e., the death of the city dwellers is by the sword, as opposed to an individual idolater whose death is by stoning.

Perhaps the lesson in these words is similar to the message of the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah, 2,19: "your wickedness itself has become your affliction;" i.e. the sin itself becomes the bane of the person who perpetrated it. By embracing evil, the sin itself destroys those who love it and who hate sanctity. When the Torah speaks of אשר עשו, it refers to the consequences of the act of making the calf. וישק את בני ישראל, he made the Israelites drink of it. This was designed to open the eyes of the blind and to teach them to hate evil and to love sanctity which implies a love for the good for goodness' own sake.

על פני המים, Dewarim 9, 21: אל הנחל הירד מן ההר, also auf einen vom Berg herabströmenden Bach.

וישק את בני ישראל, “he made the Children of Israel drink (from this mixture)”. According to the plain meaning of the text, Moses did not intend to make the people drink, but to scatter the gold so that it would cease to exist. When the people drank from the water that the gold had been scattered into, an onlooker would gain the impression that he had seen someone drinking gold. Proof that this is the correct interpretation is found in Deuteronomy 9,21: ואכות אותו טחון, “I broke it to bits and ground it until it was fine as dust;” at that point Moses does not mention a word about making the Israelites drink it.

Furthermore, the Torah may have wanted to inform us about the nature of the evil the two sorcerers had perpetrated. The first evil was that they formed the golden calf, the second that the calf invited the people to worship it when it said: "these are your gods O Israel, etc." The Torah tells us that Moses "took" i.e. seized both these aspects of wickedness the sorcerers had created. The expression לקח as a description of sanctity gaining control over spiritually negative forces, קליפה, is used by the Talmud in Yuma 69 where the members of the Great Assembly are described as seizing the spirit which seduces men into worshiping idols and other sins, and their trying to eliminate it. Moses did something similar here when he "seized" the spirit of impurity within the golden calf, and burned it. The words וישרוף באש, "he burned it in fire," are far more appropriate when applied to the spirit within the calf than to the calf itself seeing that one cannot "burn" gold. Perhaps this is the mystical dimension of Isaiah 11,4 where the prophet describes the Messiah as "killing the wicked with the breath of his lips."