And he received them from their hand, and fashioned it with an engraving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
All Commentaries on Exodus 32:4 Go To Exodus 32
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Received them, "in a purse, (as Gideon did afterwards, Judges viii. 25,) he made a molten calf. "(Jonathan)
Perhaps he engraved on it the peculiar marks of the Egyptian idol, Apis; a square white spot on the forehead, and a crescent upon the side. For it is generally believed, that this calf was designed to imitate that object of worship, to which the Hebrews had been too much accustomed. (Acts vii. 39, 41.; St. Jerome in Osee iv.) The Egyptians adored not only the living ox, but also its image, which they kept in their temple. (Porphyrius, Abst. ii. Mela. i. 8.) Some of the fathers think, that the head of a calf only appeared. (St. Ambrose; Lactantius) The rest of the figure was perhaps human, as Osiris was represented with the head of an ox, as well as Astarte and Serapis. Monceau pretends that Aaron represented the true God, under the form of a cherub, in which he falsely asserts he had appeared on Mount Sinai, and that his fault consisted only in giving occasion of superstition to the people. But his opinion (though adopted by many Protestants, who excuse all from the guilt of idolatry, but papists; Haydock) has been condemned at Rome, and refuted by Visorius
Thy gods Thus spoke the infatuated ringleaders. (Calmet)
And they changed their glory, the true God, into the likeness of a calf that eateth grass, Psalm cv. 19.
They forgot God, who saved them, (Psalm cv. 21,) and forsook Him, (Deuteronomy xxxii. 18,) to adore the calf. (Worthington)
