Exodus 32:8

סָרוּ מַהֵר מִן־הַדֶּרֶךְ אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִם עָשׂוּ לָהֶם עֵגֶל מַסֵּכָה וַיִּשְׁתַּֽחֲווּ־לוֹ וַיִּזְבְּחוּ־לוֹ וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלֶּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר הֶֽעֱלוּךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

סָ֣רוּ מַהֵ֗ר מִן־הַדֶּ֙רֶךְ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר צִוִּיתִ֔ם עָשׂ֣וּ לָהֶ֔ם עֵ֖גֶל מַסֵּכָ֑ה וַיִּשְׁתַּֽחֲווּ־לוֹ֙ וַיִּזְבְּחוּ־ל֔וֹ וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ אֵ֤לֶּה אֱלֹהֶ֙יךָ֙ יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר הֶֽעֱל֖וּךָ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃

Greek (Septuagint)

παρέβησαν ταχὺ ἐκ τῆς ὁδοῦ ἧς ἐνετείλω αὐτοῖς· ἐποίησαν ἑαυτοῖς μόσχον, καὶ προσκεκυνήκασιν αὐτῷ καὶ εἶπαν

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Recesserunt cito de via, quam ostendisti eis: feceruntque sibi vitulum conflatilem, et adoraverunt, atque immolantes ei hostias, dixerunt: Isti sunt dii tui Israël, qui te eduxerunt de terra Ægypti.

Spanish

Muy rápido se desviaron del camino que yo les marqué. Se hicieron un becerro de metal fundido, se han inclinado ante él, le han ofrecido sacrificios y han dicho: ‘¡Israel, estos son tus dioses que te sacaron de Egipto!’”.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Presto se han apartado del camino que yo les mandé, y se han hecho un becerro de fundición, y lo han adorado, y han sacrificado á él, y han dicho: Israel, estos son tus dioses, que te sacaron de la tierra de Egipto.

English

How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it. They have sacrificed to it and said, ‘ These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”

✦ What the text says

Summary

The verse reports, in narrated speech attributed to God, that the people have quickly abandoned the way commanded to them, fashioned a molten calf, bowed to it, sacrificed to it, and proclaimed it as the deity that brought them out of Egypt. The verbs form a chain of completed and sequential actions describing what the people did.

Key words

Sa.ru ("they have turned aside", H5493I) — qal perfect, third person plural, marking a completed action of deviation.
ma.Her ("quickly", H4118B) — piel infinitive, functioning adverbially to intensify the manner of turning aside.
tzi.vi.Tim ("I commanded them", H6680 + H9038) — piel perfect with first-person subject and third-plural suffix, indicating a completed directive given to "them."
'E.gel ma.se.Khah ("a calf of molten metal", H5695 + H4541A) — construct chain, the first noun in construct state governing the second, meaning literally "calf of molten-metal."
he.'e.Lu.kha ("they brought you up", H5927H + H9031) — hiphil (causative) perfect with second-person suffix, describing a completed causative action ("caused you to go up") attributed to the calf/gods.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with two qal perfect verbs, Sa.ru ("they have turned aside", H5493I) and 'a.Su ("they have made", H6213H), both marking completed actions without an explicit subject noun — the subject is carried by verb morphology alone ("they"). The adverbial infinitive ma.Her ("quickly", H4118B) modifies the first verb, stressing the speed of the deviation from ha.De.rekh ("the way", H1870G + H9009), itself qualified by the relative clause 'a.Sher tzi.vi.Tim ("which I commanded them", H0834A + H6680 + H9038).

After the initial perfects, the narrative shifts to a chain of vav-consecutive (narrative) verbs — va.yish.ta.cha.vu ("and they bowed down", H7812), va.yiz.be.chu ("and they sacrificed", H2076), va.yo.me.Ru ("and they said", H0559) — each introduced by the narrative va (H9001), which links successive events in sequence: bowing, sacrificing, then speaking. The direct speech that follows uses the demonstrative 'E.leh ("these", H0428) with the construct plural 'e.lo.Hei.kha ("your gods", H0430J + H9021), naming the calf as the referent, and closes with the relative clause 'a.Sher he.'e.Lu.kha ("who brought you up", H0834A + H5927H + H9031), a hiphil form attributing a causative action of "bringing up" to the object just called "gods."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tzi.vi.Tim ("I commanded them") as ἐνετείλω αὐτοῖς ("you commanded them"), shifting the grammatical person from first to second, while the Vulgate similarly reads quam ostendisti eis ("which you showed them"), using "showed" rather than "commanded." The Hebrew ma.se.Khah ("molten metal", H4541A) appears in the Vulgate as conflatilem ("cast/molten"), matching the sense, while the LXX simply has μόσχον ("calf") without an explicit equivalent for "molten."

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.