Komentarz do Wyjścia 32:18

אין קול ענות גבורה IT IS NOT THE VOICE OF THE CRY OF MASTERY —This sound does not seem to be the sound of the utterance of victors who cry, “Victory!” nor is it the sound of the defeated who cry, “Alas — let me flee!”.

THE NOISE OF THEM THAT SING DO I HEAR.³⁵⁵In the Tur it is correctly marked as a new paragraph. In all Hebrew editions of Ramban, however, it is connected with the above. As the subject is clearly independent of the preceding matter, I have followed here the order of the Tur for the sake of clarity. The meaning of this is not that Moses knew the matter to be so, for in that case he would have said, “It is the noise of them that sing” [instead of saying, “do I hear”]. Rather, its meaning is that since Moses was the father of wisdom,³⁵⁶Sifre Devarim 1. See also in Vol. I, pp. 9-10. and recognized the musical character of all sounds, he said that it was a noise of singing which was being heard by him. The Rabbis have likewise said in an Agadah³⁵⁷Koheleth Rabbah 9:11. that Moses told Joshua, “Is it possible that one who is destined to be the leader of Israel cannot distinguish between the different kinds of sounds?” Now Moses in his great humility did not tell Joshua the cause of the noise, as he did not want to speak of the disgrace of Israel, and so instead he told him that it was a noise of merriment.

חלושה, victory; we find this word in the battle against Amalek in Exodus 17,13 ויחלוש יהושוע, “Joshua defeated, etc.”

קול ענות אנכי שומע, “I can only hear a sound of distress.” Nachmanides writes that what Moses said was not based on factual evidence, -after all he had not yet seen what was going on with his eyes, and we do not judge on the basis of what our ears hear.- In fact, technically speaking, Moses was out of order in telling Joshua his conclusions which incriminated his people on the basis of not even having seen the evidence. We must therefore interpret what Moses is quoted as saying to mean that he voiced the opinion that what he heard sounded like revelry. In the Midrash Moses’ words are understood as a rebuke to Joshua, his mentor saying to him that someone who will one day become the ruler of this people cannot afford to make judgments based only on what he thought he had heard. (Midrash Rabbah Kohelet 9)

קול ענות means, the sound of blasphemy and cursing (Shemot Rabbah 41:1) which distress (עַנֵּה to vex, to grieve) the soul of him who hears them — even when they are only related to him.