What Does Exodus 32:35 Mean in the King James?
And the LORD plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew behind “plagued” carries the concrete sense of a blow, and the verse names the LORD who strikes, the people who make the calf, and Aaron who makes it.
THE MEANING
This verse holds making and consequence together: the people are struck because they make the calf, and Aaron’s part remains named. Shared responsibility does not blur individual agency.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that shared wrongdoing makes a leader’s part disappear; the verse names the people’s making and Aaron’s making in the same sentence.
THE ROOT
וַיִּגֹּף
wayyiggōp
GROWS FROM
נגף
n-g-p
To strike, smite, or dash against.
Alongside the KJV’s “plagued,” the Hebrew verb carries the concrete sense of striking. A related noun can mean plague or defeat, holding the large calamity together with the image of a blow.
ALSO GROWS
nāgaph: To strike or dash against.
נָגַף
In Psalm 91:12, the same verb describes a foot dashing against a stone, showing the root’s concrete force.
maggēphāh: Plague, outbreak, or defeat.
מַגֵּפָה
This related noun names a calamity as a blow from the same root.
THE PATTERN
What people make and set in motion does not remain outside them; it can reshape them or return upon them.
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.Psalm 91:12 uses this same root for the foot that might “dash” against a stone. The shared root reveals the concrete image of striking inside Exodus’s “plagued,” though the scale shifts from one body to a people.
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