What Does Exodus 33:4 Mean?

(4) **When the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned.**—It was something that the people felt the tidings to be “evil.” It is natural for sinful men to shrink from the near presence of God (Matthew 8:34; Luke 5:8); and so the Israelites had shrunk from it a short time previously (Exodus 20:19). Even now they would probably have feared a too near contact; but still, they were unwilling that God should cease to be the leader and guide of the host: they set a value on His presence and protection, which they felt that that of an angel would ill replace. Accordingly, when Moses communicated to them what God had said (Exodus 33:1-3), they “mourned,” *i.e.*, not only grieved inwardly, but showed the outward tokens of grief—made a public and, as it were, national lamentation. **No man did put on him his ornaments.**—The Orientals, both men and women, have always affected ornament, and taken an extreme delight in it. Herodotus tells us that the Persians who accompanied Xerxes into Greece wore generally collars and bracelets of gold (*Hist. ix.* 80). Xenophon says that the Medes indulged a similar taste (*Cyropœd*. i. 3, § 2). In Egypt, at the time of the exodus, men of station wore generally collars, armlets, and bracelets, occasionally anklets. The Assyrians wore armlets, bracelets, and ear-rings. To strip himself of his ornaments was a great act of self-denial on the part of an Oriental; but it was done commonly in the case of mourning on account of a family bereavement, and sometimes in the case of national misfortunes. (See Note on Exodus 33:1-6.)