Later text
Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, 'This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,' and when they committed terrible blasphemies,
Intertextuality Pair
Nehemiah 9:18 → Exodus 32:4
Quotation
Earlier text
Exodus 32:4BSB
He took the gold from their hands, and with an engraving tool he fashioned it into a molten calf. And they said, "These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!"
Significance
Exodus 32:4 narrates the golden calf incident where the people declared "These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt," and Nehemiah 9:18 recalls this in the post-exilic confession prayer: "Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, 'This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,' and when they committed terrible blasphemies." Nehemiah's liturgical retrospective classifies the golden calf as "terrible blasphemies" (נֶאָצוֹת גְּדֹלוֹת, ne'atsot gedolot), a term of the gravest covenant violation. Yet remarkably, the prayer immediately continues with God's mercy: "You in Your great compassion did not forsake them in the wilderness" (Neh 9:19), demonstrating that even Israel's worst sin could not exhaust divine faithfulness.
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Direct Quotation
- Connection Method(s)
- Redemptive-Historical Progression — Nehemiah 9:18 places the golden calf of Exodus 32:4 within the historical recital of God's dealings, confessing the fathers' worst blasphemy as a past stage in the one redemptive story whose thread is God's persisting compassion toward the now-restored community.
Linked Mentions 3