Charles Spurgeon Commentary Exodus 32:4

"And he received it at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf: and they said, These are thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." — Exodus 32:4 (ASV)

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.

No doubt they copied the Egyptian God, which was in the form of a bull, which the Holy Spirit, by the pen of Moses, here calls a calf. The psalmist probably also alludes to it when he speaks of an ox or a bullock that hath horns and hoofs. It seems strange that these people should have thought of worshipping the living God under such a symbol as that.

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.

This was an Egyptian idolatry, the worship of God in the form of an ox, the emblem of strength; but God is not to be worshipped using emblems at all. What a poor representation of God any emblem must be!