Aa'ron said to the people, "Break off the gold from your earrings and bring this to me, and other jewels of gold." Then he took the gold furnished by the Is'ra-el-ites, melted it in the fire, and carved for them a golden calf which resembled some of the idols worshiped by the E'gyp-tians. One of the chief gods of the E'gyp-tians was a sacred bull, and the people often used little golden images of a bull in their heathen worship.
In the hope of preventing the people from turning away from the true God during their worship around the golden calf, Aa'ron built an altar near the idol, and proclaimed a day of special worship unto the LORD. But once the first step toward idolatry had been taken, the people could not be controlled. Memories of the riotous worship they had seen in E'gypt filled them with sinful thoughts, and they began to dance around the golden calf shouting, "These are thy gods, O Is'ra-el, that brought thee out of the land of E'gypt."
Both Is'ra-el and Aa'ron were guilty of sins against the LORD. Already they had broken the first of the Commandments spoken by the LORD just a short time before from the fiery top of Mount Si'nai. The golden idol had for the moment taken the place of God in the hearts of His chosen people, and the forbidden worship had led them on to other shameful sins.
When Mo'ses came down from Mount Si'nai with the two tablets of stone upon which God had written the Ten Commandments, and saw the Is'ra-el-ites bowing down before an idol, his anger was so great that he hurled the tablets to the ground and broke them. Aa'ron tried to excuse himself for what had happened, but was severely blamed and rebuked by Mo'ses. His excuses were weak and false, and did not deceive the man of God. He said that the people had forced him to make the image, that he had cast the gold into the fire and the calf had come out, so that the blame for all this mischief rested upon the Is'ra-el-ites. But Mo'ses said, "Thou hast brought this great sin upon Is'ra-el."
The people were also sternly rebuked for the sins which they had committed, and a severe punishment was inflicted upon them. God had seen the idolatry of Is'ra-el, and had heard their cries of worship for the golden calf. He, therefore, told Mo'ses that He intended to destroy the entire nation, and to make Mo'ses' descendants the chosen nation for which Is'ra-el had been intended. But Mo'ses set the welfare of the nation above the glory of his own family, and pleaded with God to spare the Is'ra-el-ites. God was moved by this prayer, and agreed to pardon Is'ra-el after suitable punishment.
Mo'ses took the golden calf, burnt it in the fire, ground it into a fine powder, and sprinkled the powder upon water. The Is'ra-el-ites were then forced to drink the water filled with golden particles: token of the bitterness of their sin.
