What Does Exodus 32:5 Mean?
And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it, and Aaron called out and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD.THE KEY
Aaron proclaims a feast to the LORD while placing the altar before the calf, keeping the words and the altar’s direction in view at once.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks wherever a sacred announcement and its altar point in different directions. The feast is proclaimed “to the LORD,” while the altar stands before the calf; both facts remain visible in the same scene.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that naming a rite for the LORD, by itself, proves what stands at its center.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְרָא
wayyiqraʾ
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
qaraʾ (קָרָא) means to call, summon, or proclaim.
“called out” in this verse is wayyiqraʾ. The Hebrew verb behind “made proclamation” is qaraʾ (קָרָא), “to call, summon, or proclaim.” Its branch miqraʾ (מִקְרָא), “a convocation or gathering called together,” shows that Aaron’s words do more than describe a feast: they call people together under the LORD’s name.
ALSO GROWS
miqraʾ: Convocation or public gathering; something called together.
מִקְרָא
It shows how a call can gather people around the feast Aaron announces.
qoreʾ: One who calls or reads.
קֹרֵא
The caller gives the announcement its public voice and names the gathering.
מִזְבֵּחַ
mizbēaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
z-b-ḥ
zāvaḥ (זָבַח) means to slaughter or sacrifice.
The Hebrew word mizbēaḥ (מִזְבֵּחַ), “altar,” grows from the root zāvaḥ (זָבַח), “to slaughter or sacrifice.” The altar’s name carries the action of sacrifice within it, so the verse places that act before the calf even as the feast is verbally dedicated to the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
zāvaḥ: To slaughter or sacrifice.
זָבַח
The verb reveals the sacrificial action carried by the altar’s root.
zevaḥ: A sacrifice or slaughter offering.
זֶבַח
The noun names what is brought to the altar whose placement the verse emphasizes.
THE PATTERN
Ritual language alone does not establish what a sacrifice serves or whether a feast is received.
Stop bringing empty gifts. The smoke is sickening to me. The new moons and the sabbath, the calling of assemblies, I cannot bear. It is emptiness, even the restrained assembly.I hate, I cast off your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.But I say that what the nations offer, they offer to demons and not to God, and I do not wish you to become sharers in common with demons.THE THREAD
And to Seth, to him also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call out in the nature of the LORD.Both verses use qaraʾ (קָרָא), “to call or proclaim”: Genesis says people call upon the LORD’s name, while Aaron proclaims a feast to the LORD. The pairing brings the invoked name and what gathers people around an altar into the same frame.
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