And they rose up early on the next day, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
He who wallows and sinks in mud pits falls into the snares of treachery. For “the people sat down to eat and drink,” and they demanded that gods be made for them. Whence the Lord teaches that he who gives his soul over to these two types of shameful deeds is divested of a garment not of wool but of living virtue, for the cloak of virtue is not temporal but eternal. ()..
Of old, the Word educated through Moses and after that through the prophets; even Moses was in fact a prophet. For the law was the education of children difficult to control. “Having eaten their fill,” Scripture says, “they got up to play,” using a Greek word which means not food but cattle fodder, because of their irrational gorging. And since they were continually filling themselves without obeying reason and playing without listening to reason, the law and fear followed them to restrain them from sin and to encourage them to reform themselves. –.
They offered, by the hands of Aaron, to whom the Septuagint refer all this. "He offered", appearing at the head of the idolaters. Cornelius A Lap ide insinuates, that he wished to supplant his brother in the supreme command; and after a faint resistance, became the promoter of idolatry, to ingratiate himself with the people. The Scripture lays not this, however, to his charge. (Calmet)
To eat of the victims.
To play, dancing and singing in honour of their idol, probably with many indecent gestures, as was customary on such occasions among the nations of Chanaan. (Haydock)
Tertullian (de jejunio) understands impure play. The word means also to dance, and to play on instruments of music. Ludere quæ vellem calamo permisit agresti. (Virgil, Ec. i) (Calmet)
Sulpitius says, the people abandoned themselves to drunkenness and gluttony, or debauchery, vinoque seventri dedisset. (Haydock)
They might get wine from Madian. (Salien)
Foolish mirth is the daughter of gluttony, and the mother of...
