“And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”
He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, these are your gods, Israel, who brought you out of Egypt. Aaron fashions the calf and the people declare it their deliverer from Egypt. Psalm 106:19–20 captures the indictment: they exchanged their glorious God for an image of a bull which eats grass. Jeroboam will repeat this exact formula in 1 Kings 12:28–29, making the golden calf the archetype for Israel's recurring apostasy. The idol is made from their own gold, fashioned by their own priest, and declared the author of their liberation.
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