(4) And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool.--Rather, and he received it (i.e., the gold) at their hand, and bound it in a bag. So Gesenius, Rosenmller, Frst, Knobel, Kurtz, Maurer, Ser”der, Cook, &c. "Fashioned it with a graving tool" is a possible rendering of the Hebrew words, but will not suit here, since the next clause tells us that the image was a molten one, and if it had been intended to say that the image was first molten and then finished with a graving too!, the order of the two clauses would have been inverted. A similar phrase to that here used has the sense of "bound in a bag" in 2Kings 5:23.

After he had made it a molten calf.--This is a quite impossible rendering. The original gives "and," not "after." The action of this clause must either be simultaneous with that of the last or subsequent. Translate, and made it into a molten calf.

A molten calf.--It has been usual to regard the selection of the "calf" form for the image as due to Egyptian influences. But the Egyptian calf-worship, or, rather, bull-worship, was not a worship of images, but of living animals. A sacred bull, called Apis, was worshipped at Memphis, and another, called Mnevis, at Heliopolis, both being regarded as actual incarnate deities. Had Egyptian ideas been in the ascendant, it would have been natural to select a living bull, which might have "gone before" the people literally. The "molten calf," which had no very exact counterpart in Egypt, perhaps points back to an older idolatry, such as is glanced at in Joshua 24:14, where the Israelites are warned to "put away the gods which their fathers served on the other side of the flood," i.e., of the Euphrates. Certainly the bull form was more distinctive of the Babylonian and Assyrian than of the Egyptian worship, and it may he suspected that the emigrants from Chaldaea had clung through all their wanderings to the mystic symbolism which had been elaborated in that primaeval land, and which they would contrast favourably with the coarse animal worship of Egypt. In Chaldaea, the bull, generally winged and human-headed, represented the combination of wisdom, strength, and omnipresence, which characterises divinity; and this combination might well have seemed to carnal minds no unapt symbol of Jehovah.

These be thy gods.--Rather, This is thy god.

Verse 4. - And fashioned it with a graving tool. Rather, "and bound it (the gold) in a bag." Compare 2 Kings 5:23, where the same two Hebrew words occur in the same sense. It is impossible to extract from the original the sense given in the Authorised Version, since the simple copula van cannot mean "after." When two verbs in the same tense are conjoined by van "and," the two actions must be simultaneous, or the latter follow the former. But the calf cannot have been graven first, and then molten. It is objected to the rendering, "he bound it in a bag," that that action is so trivial that it would be superfluous to mention it (Keil). But it is quite consonant with the simplicity of Scripture to mention very trivial circumstances. The act of putting up in bags is mentioned both here and also in 2 Kings 5:23, and 2 Kings 12:9. They said. The fashioners of the image said this. These be thy gods. Rather, "This is thy God." Why Aaron selected the form of the calf as that which he would present to the Israelites to receive their worship, has been generally explained by supposing that his thoughts reverted to Egypt, and found in the Apis of Memphis or the Mnevis of Hellopolis the pattern which he thought it best to follow. But there are several objections to this view.

1. The Egyptian gods had just been discredited by their powerlessness being manifested - it was an odd time at which to fly to them.

2. Apis and Mnevis were not molten calves, but live bulls. If the design had been to revert to Egypt, would not a living animal have been selected?

3. The calf when made was not viewed as an image of any Egyptian god, but as a representation of Jehovah (ver. 5).

4. The Israelites are never taxed with having worshipped the idols of Egypt anywhere else than in Egypt (Joshua 24:14; Ezekiel 20:8; Ezekiel 23:3). To us it seems probable that Aaron reverted to an earlier period than the time of the sojourn in Egypt, that he went back to those "gods on the other side of the flood," which Joshua warned the Israelites some sixty years later, to "put away" (Joshua l.s.c.). The subject is one too large for discussion here; but may not the winged and human-headed bull, which was the emblem of divine power from a very early date in Babylon, have retained a place in the recollections of the people in all their wanderings, and have formed a portion of their religions symbolism? May it not have been this conception which lay at the root of the cherubic forms, and the revival of which now seemed to Aaron the smallest departure from pure monotheism with which the people would be contented?

32:1-6 While Moses was in the mount, receiving the law from God, the people made a tumultuous address to Aaron. This giddy multitude were weary of waiting for the return of Moses. Weariness in waiting betrays to many temptations. The Lord must be waited for till he comes, and waited for though he tarry. Let their readiness to part with their ear-rings to make an idol, shame our stubbornness in the service of the true God. They did not draw back on account of the cost of their idolatry; and shall we grudge the expenses of religion? Aaron produced the shape of an ox or calf, giving it some finish with a graving tool. They offered sacrifice to this idol. Having set up an image before them, and so changed the truth of God into a lie, their sacrifices were abomination. Had they not, only a few days before, in this very place, heard the voice of the Lord God speaking to them out of the midst of the fire, Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image? Had they not themselves solemnly entered into covenant with God, that they would do all he had said to them, and would be obedient? ch. 24:7. Yet before they stirred from the place where this covenant had been solemnly made, they brake an express command, in defiance of an express threatening. It plainly shows, that the law was no more able to make holy, than it was to justify; by it is the knowledge of sin, but not the cure of sin. Aaron was set apart by the Divine appointment to the office of the priesthood; but he, who had once shamed himself so far as to build an altar to a golden calf, must own himself unworthy of the honour of attending at the altar of God, and indebted to free grace alone for it. Thus pride and boasting were silenced.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 (y) 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" (z), 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 (a), who produces two passages of Scripture for the confirmation of it, Judges 8:24 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 (b), that the ox was an image of Osiris, and that it was a golden one; and so says Philo the Jew (c), 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 thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee 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 (d).

(y) De Diis Syris Syntagm. 1. c. 4. p. 138. (z) "formavit illud modulo", Piscator; so some in Ben Melech, and in Vatablus; and so the Vulgate Latin, "formant opere fusorio"; see Fagius in loc. (a) Hierozoic. p. 1. l. 2. c. 39. col. 334, 335. (b) De Isid. & Osir. (c) De Vita Mosis, l. 3. p. 677. (d) Pirke Eliezer, c. 45.