Category:Golden Calf

The golden calf was an idol made by Aaron when Moses went up to Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. Exodus 19:20

'''19:20. The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, in the very top of the mount, and He called Moses unto the top thereof. When he was gone up thither,'''

Exodus 24:18

24:18. Moses entering into the midst of the cloud, went up into the mountain: He was there forty days and forty nights.

Exodus 32:1 - 32:8

32:1. The people seeing that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, gathering together against Aaron, said: Arise, make us gods, that may go before us: For as to this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has befallen him.



32:2. Aaron said to them: Take the golden earrings from the ears of your wives, and your sons and daughters, and bring them to me.

32:3. The people did what he had commanded, bringing the earrings to Aaron.

'''32:4. When he had received them, he fashioned them by founders' work, and made of them a molten calf. They said: These are your gods, O Israel, that have brought you out of the land of Egypt.'''

32:5. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and made proclamation by a crier's voice, saying tomorrow is the solemnity of the Lord.

32:6. Rising in the morning, they offered holocausts, and peace victims, and the people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.

32:7. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Go, get you down: your people, which you have brought out of the land of Egypt, has sinned.

32:8. They have quickly strayed from the way which you didst show them: and they have made to themselves a molten calf, and have adored it, and sacrificing victims to it, have said: These are your gods, O Israel, that have brought you out of the land of Egypt.

1 Kings 12:26–33

12:26. Jeroboam said in his heart: Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David,

12:27. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem: and the heart of this people will turn to their lord Roboam, the king of Judah, and they will kill me, and return to him.

12:28. Finding out a device, he made two golden calves, and said to them: Go ye up no more to Jerusalem: Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

Golden calves. . .It is likely, by making his gods in this form, he mimicked the Egyptians, among whom he had sojourned, who worshipped their Apis and their Osiris under the form of a bullock.

12:29. He set the one in Bethel, and the other in Dan:

Bethel and Dan. . .Bethel was a city of the tribe of Ephraim in the southern part of the dominions of Jeroboam, about six leagues from Jerusalem; Dan was in the extremity of his dominions to the north in the confines of Syria.

12:30. This thing became an occasion of sin: for the people went to adore the calf as far as Dan.

12:31. He made temples in the high places, and priests of the lowest of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi.

'''12:32. He appointed a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, after the manner of the feast that was celebrated in Judah. And going up to the altar, he did in like manner in Bethel, to sacrifice to the calves, which he had made: and he placed in Bethel priests of the high places, which he had made.'''

12:33. He went up to the altar, which he had built in Bethel, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, which he had devised of his own heart: and he ordained a feast to the children of Israel, and went up on the altar to burn incense.

Nehemiah 9:18–19

9:18. Yea when they had made also to themselves a molten calf, and had said: This is thy God, that brought thee out of Egypt: and had committed great blasphemies:

9:19. Yet Thou, in Thy many mercies, did not leave them in the desert: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day to lead them in the way, and the pillar of fire by night to show them the way by which they should go.

- ---excerpt from the Illustrated Bible Dictionary

Golden Calf - (Exodus 32:4, Exodus 32:8; Deuteronomy 9:16; Nehemiah 9:18). This was a molten image of a calf which the idolatrous Israelites formed at Sinai. This symbol was borrowed from the custom of the Egyptians. It was destroyed at the command of Moses (Exodus 32:20). (See AARON; MOSES.)