John Gill Commentary Exodus 32

And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out
of the mount
The time, according to the Targum of Jonathan, being elapsed, which he had fixed for his descent, and through a misreckoning, as Jarchi suggests; they taking the day of his going up to be one of the forty days, at the end of which he was to return, whereas he meant forty complete days.

But it is not probable that Moses knew himself how long he should stay, and much less that he acquainted them beforehand of it; but he staying longer than they supposed he would, they grew uneasy and impatient, and wanted to set out in their journey to Canaan, and to have some symbol and representation of deity to go before them:

the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron ;
who with Hur was left to judge them in the absence of Moses: it was very likely that they had had conferences with him before upon this head, but now they got together in a tumultuous manner, and determined to carry their point against all that he should say to the contrary:

and said unto him, up ;
put us off no longer, make no more delay, but arise at once, and set about what has been once and again advised to and importuned:

make us gods which shall go before us ;
not that they were so very stupid to think, that anything that could be made with hands was really God, or even could have life and breath, and the power of self-motion, or of walking before them; but that something should be made as a symbol and representation of the divine Being, carried before them; for as for the cloud which has hitherto gone before them, from their coming out of Egypt, that has not moved from its place for forty days or more, and seemed to them to be fixed on the mount, and would not depart from it; and therefore they wanted something in the room of it as a token of the divine Presence with them:

for [as for] this Moses ;
of whom they speak with great contempt, though he had been the deliverer of them, and had wrought so many miracles in their favour, and had been the instrument of so much good unto them:

the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt ;
this they own, but do not seem to be very thankful for it:

we know not what is become of him ;
they could scarcely believe that he was alive, that it was possible to live so long a time without eating and drinking; or they supposed he was burnt on the mount of flaming fire from before the Lord, as the Targum of Jonathan expresses it.

And Aaron said unto them
Perceiving that they were not to be dissuaded from their evil counsel, and diverted from their purpose, but were determined at all events to have an image made to represent God unto them in a visible manner:

break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives,
of your sons, and of your daughters ;
these were some of the jewels in gold they had borrowed of the Egyptians; and it seems that, in those times and countries, men, as well as women, used to wear earrings, and so Pliny ^F23 says, in the eastern countries men used to wear gold in their ears; and this may be confirmed from the instance of the Ishmaelites and Midianites, (Judges 8:24) .

Aaron did not ask the men for theirs, but for those of their wives and children; it may be, because he might suppose they were more fond of them, and would not so easily part with them, hoping by this means to have put them off of their design:

and bring [them] unto me ;
to make a god of, as they desired, that is, the representation of one.

FOOTNOTES:

• F23: Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 37.

And all the people broke off the golden earrings, which
were in their ears
The men took off their earrings, and persuaded their wives and children, or obliged them to part with theirs; though the Targum of Jonathan says the women refused to give their ornaments to their husbands, therefore all the people immediately broke off all the golden ornaments which were in their ears ^F24, so intent were they upon idolatry.

This is to be understood not of every individual, but of the greatest part of the people; so the apostle explains it of some of them, (1 Corinthians 10:7).

Idolaters spare no cost nor pains to support their worship, and will strip themselves, their wives, and children, of their ornaments, to deck their idols; which may shame the worshippers of the true God, who are oftentimes too backward to contribute towards the maintenance of his worship and service:

and brought [them] unto Aaron :
presently, the selfsame day; they soon forgot the commands enjoined them to have no other gods, save one, and to make no graven image to bow down to it, and their own words, (Exodus 24:7) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F24: So Pirke Eliezer, c. 45.

And he received [them] at their hand
For the use they delivered them to him:

and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten
calf ;
that is, after he had melted the gold, and cast it into a mould, which gave it the figure of a calf, and with his tool wrought it into a more agreeable form, he took off the roughness of it, and polished it; or if it was in imitation of the Egyptian Apis or Osiris, he might with his graving tool engrave such marks and figures as were upon that; to cause the greater resemblance, so Selden ^F25 thinks; (See Gill on Jeremiah 46:20)

or else the sense may be, that he drew the figure of a calf with his tool, or made it in "a mould" ^F26 , into which he poured in the melted gold,

and made it a molten calf ;
the Targum of Jonathan gives another sense of the former clause, "he bound it up in a napkin"; in a linen cloth or bag, i.e. the gold of the ear rings, and then put it into the melting pot, and so cast it into a mould, and made a calf of it. Jarchi takes notice of this sense, and it is espoused by Bochart ^F1 , who produces two passages of Scripture for the confirmation of it, (Judges 8:24) (2 Kings 5:23) and illustrates it by (Isaiah 46:6) .

What inclined Aaron to make it in the form of a calf, is not easy to say; whether in imitation of the cherubim, one of the faces of which was that of an ox, as Moncaeus thought; or whether in imitation of the Osiris of the Egyptians, who was worshipped in a living ox, and sometimes in the image of one, even a golden one. Plutarch is express for it, and says ^F2 , that the ox was an image of Osiris, and that it was a golden one; and so says Philo the Jew ^F3 , the Israelites, emulous of Egyptian figments, made a golden ox; or whether he did this to make them ashamed of their idolatry, thinking they would never be guilty of worshipping the form of an ox eating grass, or because an ox was an emblem of power and majesty:

and they said, these be your gods, O Israel, [which brought] you up
out of the land of Egypt ;
they own they were, brought up out of that land by the divine Being; and they could not be so stupid as to believe, that this calf, which was only a mass of gold, figured and decorated, was inanimate, had no life nor breath, and was just made, after their coming out of Egypt, was what brought them from hence; but that this was a representation of God, who had done this for them;

yet some Jewish writers are so foolish as to suppose, that through art it had the breath of life in it, and came out of the mould a living calf, Satan, or Samael, entering into it, and lowed in it ^F4 .

FOOTNOTES:

• F25: De Diis Syris Syntagm. 1. c. 4. p. 138.
• F26: (jrxb wta ruyw) "formavit illud modulo", Piscator; so some in Ben Melech, and in Vatablus; and so the Vulgate Latin, "formant opere fusorio"; see Fagius in loc.
• F1: Hierozoic. p. 1. l. 2. c. 39. col. 334, 335.
• F2: De Isid. & Osir.
• F3: De Vita Mosis, l. 3. p. 677.
• F4: Pirke Eliezer, c. 45.

And when Aaron saw it
In what form it was, and what a figure it made, and how acceptable it was to the Israelites. The Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem paraphrase it, "and Aaron saw Hur slain before him;" for reproving them for their idolatry, as the Midrash ^F5 , quoted by Jarchi, says: and Aaron fearing they would take away his life if he opposed them,

he built an altar before it ;
that sacrifice might be offered on it to it:

and Aaron made proclamation, and said, tomorrow [is] a feast to the
Lord ;
that is, he gave orders to have it published throughout the camp, there would be solemn sacrifices offered up to the Lord, as represented by this calf, and a feast thereon, which was a public invitation of them to the solemnity.

Though some think this was a protracting time, and putting the people off till the morrow, who would have been for offering sacrifice immediately, hoping that Moses would come down from the mount before that time, and prevent their idolatry.

FOOTNOTES:

• F5: So Pirke Eliezer, c. 45.