And Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, and said to Moses, There is a shout of war in the camp.
Moses comes down Mount Sinai with the two stone tables in his hands. The first thing that reaches him and Joshua is a sound from the camp below. Joshua calls it war. Moses hears something else, and the gap between those two readings is what this verse turns on.
Joshua and Moses hear the same noise and reach opposite conclusions. One writer explains why:
When Joshua heard the uproar as they came near, he said to Moses, "There is a noise of war in the camp." But Moses had a more trained ear and heart, taught by the Holy One. He could better tell the difference between the shout of victory, the cry of defeat, and the sound of those who sing.
Joshua was not careless. He had two kinds of training behind him:
He not only learned how to fight the enemies of God's people, but he also learned the realities of God's glory... In secret he was in communion with God's glory. Outwardly he was a warrior from his youth. God was forming him in both of these for later service... When Moses turned and went down from the mountain, the sound of Israel's turning away reached their ears. Joshua's comment on it was, "There is a noise of war in the camp." His mind, clearly full of scenes of battle, read the shouts of idolatry according to the impression that ruled him.
Moses knew that style of religious music by ear. He knew Egypt's worship songs, and he could hear what was really happening below:
From some parts of the top of the mountain the valley cannot be seen, but there are gaps in the cliffs where voices from the valley carry clearly up to the heights. Probably, as they came down, they reached one of these gaps, and the sound from the camp struck their ears. Moses had told his attendant nothing of the bad news. Joshua heard the people as they shouted, and exclaimed, "There is a noise of war in the camp." But Moses knew the dark reality. He was all too familiar with the chants of Egyptian worship. He knew the sound was neither the shout of the winner nor the cry of the beaten. It was religious singing, sung back and forth between groups.
A noise of war would have meant Israel was under attack. Singing meant something worse: Israel was celebrating. And they did not believe they had abandoned Jehovah, the God who brought them out of Egypt:
We should not suppose that either Aaron or Israel meant to abandon Jehovah. The calf stood in their minds for Him who is invisible, and Aaron applied that image to Jehovah in so many words. Yet none the less they had really returned in spirit to paganism... Calling the festival by Jehovah's name did not change what it really was. The demon's foot shows through, however bright the clothes he wears. They kept it in true pagan style; the camp rang with loud songs sung back and forth, and was wild with sensual dancing. In this way Israel grafted idolatry onto the worship of Jehovah. By doing so they brought the wrath of God down on their camp.
Another writer names the commandment Israel was breaking as Moses listened:
He heard the sound of singing. He knew all too well what it meant. Israel was breaking the first and most important commandment, "You shall have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3). The singing went along with the idolatrous dancing around the golden calf. The words of the chorus were blasphemous: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt" (Ex. 32:4).
Moses is carrying the covenant in his hands as he listens. He never delivers it:
All was divine — divine in its origin and divine in its making. But these divine tables of the law never reached the camp. It was impossible. The people had made a complete break between themselves and God. So there could be no further question of obedience on the ground of pure law. They might be objects of mercy in response to intercession. But as open transgressors they had broken the covenant they had so readily accepted, and had now become idolaters.
- One noise. Joshua and Moses hear the same sound from the camp, and only one of them reads it right.
- Trained ears. Joshua the soldier hears battle, because battle fills his mind. Moses hears the truth, because he has come straight from God's presence.
- Not war — worship. The sound was not victory or defeat. It was singing — festival music in Egyptian style, sung around a calf.
- God's name on an idol. Israel put God's name on the festival. The name changed nothing about what it was.
- The tables stop short. Moses carries God's own writing down the mountain, and it never arrives. Israel had broken the covenant before it ever reached them.
And he said, It is not the sound of a shout of victory, neither is it the sound of a shout of defeat it is the noise of alternate singing I hear.
Moses and Joshua come down the mountain together, and a roar rises to meet them from the camp below. Two men hear the same sound and read it in opposite ways. What Moses heard, and how he knew, is the point of the verse.
The verse turns on Moses ruling out two sounds before naming the third. One writer sets the scene:
Moses had taken Joshua with him into the mountain (Ex. 24:13). Now they come down together, Moses carrying the two stone tables, with the law written on both sides. As they came near the camp, Joshua the warrior heard the noise of the people. He thought this was the noise of war. But Moses corrected him. The noise was neither conquest nor defeat, but singing (v. 18).
Joshua was not careless, and he was no stranger to God — he had been on the mountain too. His mistake came from the habits of his own life:
He not only learned how to war against the enemies of God's people, but he also learned the realities of God's glory... In secret he was in communion with God's glory, as the Lord Jesus was, more perfectly still. On the outside he was a warrior from his youth. God was forming him through both for later service... Moses turned and went down from the mountain. The sound of Israel's turning away from God reached their ears. Joshua's comment on it is, "There is a noise of war in the camp." His mind was filled with scenes of battle, so he reads the shouting of idolatry by that leading impression.
Moses could tell three sounds apart. One writer credits this to God's own teaching:
Now when Joshua heard the uproar as they came near, he said to Moses, "There is a noise of war in the camp". But the ear and heart of Moses were more practised, taught by the Holy One. He could better tell apart the shout of victory, the voice of crying, and the noise of those who sing.
Two places, two conditions. One writer puts the contrast in a sentence:
Above, all is light and blessing; below, all is darkness and evil.
The sound was not a riot. It was organised religious music, and Moses had heard its like before:
Moses had been no bearer of bad news to his attendant. Joshua heard the people as they shouted, and exclaimed, "There is a noise of war in the camp." But Moses knew the dark reality. He was too well acquainted with the chants of Egyptian worship. He knew the sound was neither the shout of the victor nor the cry of the defeated. It was religious singing, one group answering another.
That is why the singing was worse news than a battle would have been. Another writer names the commandment it was breaking:
Remember when the law was first given. Moses was coming back from Mount Sinai with the two stone tables of the ten commandments in his hands. He heard the sound of singing. He knew too well what it meant. Israel was breaking the first and foremost commandment, "You shall have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3). The singing went with the idolatrous dancing round the golden calf, to the blasphemous words, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt" (Ex. 32:4).
Moses' words also test religious noise in any age. One writer applies them to Israel's shouting when the ark came into the camp:
There were great shoutings in the camp when the ark arrived. The same thing happened later. Israel was again in conflict with the Philistines, and when David came in, "They shouted for the battle" (1 Sam. 17:20). But in neither case was it "the voice of those who shout for victory," nor "the shout of a king" in their midst. It was the expression of a vain and fatal confidence. In both cases there was more shouting than real or effective fighting. It was much easier to shout than to fight. It is the same today. It is easier to get excited under big meetings and stirring talks with thrilling music than to live for God with your whole heart, apart from the world.
- Sound. One noise reached two men on the same path. Joshua heard war; Moses heard singing — and singing was the worse report of the two.
- Source. Joshua misread it because a soldier's mind hears every uproar as battle.
- School. Moses read it right because the Holy One had trained his ear and heart.
- Substance. He heard worship, not chaos — Egyptian-style chants round the golden calf. It was the first commandment broken to music.
- Standard. Volume proves nothing. Shouting is easier than fighting, and stirring music is easier than devoted living. Test the sound by what it praises.
And it came to pass, when he came near the camp, and saw the calf and the dancing, that Moses' anger burned, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and shattered them beneath the mountain.
Moses comes down the mountain with two stone tablets, and within sight of the camp he shatters them. Why would the lawgiver destroy what God had just given him?
Moses broke the tablets outside the camp, before Israel ever held them:
The first time the law was given on tablets of stone, it never reached them at all. Moses broke them. You could not put the law beside the golden calf. Moses did not know what to do with the tablets. He had not asked God about it, at least I have always thought so; it was his righteous indignation. God could not break His law, of course, but man could not have it.
If the tablets had reached the camp, judgment would have reached it too. One writer sees Moses leaving room for God to act another way:
I can well understand how deeply Moses was affected when he broke the tablets of stone. What must God have done if he had carried them down? He must have brought in immediate judgment on the lawbreakers. Moses met the difficulty in this way, so to speak. He said: if I do not carry them down, God will have an opportunity to bring out His resource — if there is any resource. God is holy, they are guilty, and if the law is bound on them He must judge them. So he broke the tablets of stone, and God did not rebuke him for doing it.
The stones carried the terms of a covenant. Breaking them said openly what had already happened:
Here was the covenant in the hands of the mediator; everything was plain and clear... This action was full of meaning. The people had broken the covenant, the mediator of the covenant bore witness to it, and judgment follows.
Commentators read the anger differently. Some see a man so shaped by God's presence that he did the right thing at once:
He took the tablets of the law which God had given him, and broke them at the foot of the mountain. Why does he act like this? Through entering into God's mind, from being with God. He does exactly the right thing at the right moment. It was the instinct of divine communion. Beautiful action of Moses! The glory of Jehovah was cared for, and the safety of the people too. The breaking of the tablets met both needs. If the law had come into the camp, it could only have destroyed them. And where then would the witness to what He is in His own nature have been?
Others notice a change in Moses. On the mountain he pleaded for Israel; at the sight of the calf he pleads no more:
But now Moses leaves the immediate atmosphere of God's grace. He becomes a spectator of Israel's condition himself, and his feeling is indignation, not intercession... "God, the judge of all," who must always judge according to His own holiness, can at the same time act according to His own grace. He cannot excuse sin.
The same man who broke the stones went back up the mountain for the people who caused it:
His "anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain." He destroyed the golden calf, and made the children of Israel drink the powder. But right afterwards he can say to them, "I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." And for the sake of these very people, he prayed that God would blot him out of His book.
The story does not end with broken pieces on the ground. On the second occasion the terms were different:
On the second occasion what a difference! The lawgiver was called into the presence of God, who then was pleased to give a mingling of mercy along with law... It was not law alone, and not grace alone, but rather the mingling of grace along with law. Without this mingling of grace and mercy with law, God could not have carried on His dealings with Israel at all, or even brought them into the land. So on this occasion the law was still committed to man. But it was shut up in the ark, not displayed with all its terrors before people's eyes.
- Broken already. Israel broke the covenant before Moses ever reached the camp. The smashed stones only announced what was already true.
- Broken outside. The tablets never entered the camp. Israel never held pure law at all.
- Broken to spare. Carried in, the law could only have brought immediate judgment. Breaking it left room for God to bring out His own resource.
- Broken, then pleading. The hand that smashed the stones went back up the mountain. Moses asked God to blot him out for the very people who sinned.
- Broken, then hidden. The second tablets went into the ark. Law was still given, but now mingled with mercy, not displayed in all its terror.