And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.
Joshua, trained in war, feared battle at the noise. But Moses, fresh from God's presence, distinguished the sound more truly: it was the voice of singers, not soldiers. Those whom God advances are not puffed up, nor too distant to attend freely to their servants' concerns, nor careless of the camp below.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 32:15-20
And when Joshua heard the noise of the people, as they shouted,.... Dancing about the calf: when Moses went up into the mount, Joshua went with him, and tarried in a lower part of the mount all the forty days until he returned, see Exo 24:13 though not so low as the bottom of the mount where the people were, nor so near it as...
And the tables [were] the work of God, and the writing [was] the writing of God, graven upon the tables. (h) All these repetitions show how excellent a thing they defrauded themselves of by their idolatry.