And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, who shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has become of him.
All Commentaries on Exodus 32:1 Go To Exodus 32
Ephrem The Syrian
AD 373
Bitter signs had accompanied [Israel] as far as the [Red] Sea so that they would fear [God]. And blessed wonders surrounded [Israel] in the desert waste so that they would be reconciled [to him]. But for want of faith [Israel] rejected [the signs] with the feeble excuse: “As for the man Moses who brought us out, we do not know what has become of him.” They no longer considered the triumphs that had accompanied them. They only saw that Moses was not near. And so, with this as a convenient excuse, they could draw near to the paganism of Egypt. Therefore Moses was not seen by them for a while, so that the calf could be seen with them [and] so that they could worship openly what they had been worshiping in their hearts. When their paganism came out of hiding and into the open, Moses also came out of hiding and into the open to deliver openly the penalty to those whose paganism had become unrestrained beneath the holy cloud that overshadowed them. God deprived the flock of its shepherd for forty days, so that it would show that it trusted securely in the calf as the god that had pastured it with every delight. It made as its shepherd a calf which could not even graze! Moses, who inspired fear in them, was taken away from them, so that idolatry, which fear of Moses had quieted in their hearts, would cry out from their own mouths. And they did cry out: “Make gods for us to lead us.” –..
