=Interpretation.= The people of Israel could not at once rise to the height of that conception of God, which had been revealed to them at Sinai. So long as Moses was with them to tell them the word of the Lord, they found it possible to believe in God, though they did not see Him, for He spoke to them daily through the mouth of His appointed servant, Moses. But Moses had vanished into the thick darkness, and days and weeks had passed without his return. This made it increasingly difficult for them to experience the reality of the invisible God, who had led them from Egypt. They, consequently, demanded some image to which they might look and which might keep them in mind of the object of their adoration. Their intention was not so much to exchange the God who had led them from Egypt for another as to image Him forth as an aid to their devotion. They, no doubt, spoke in good faith when they declared, "This is thy god, O Israel". That they should worship Him in the form of a bull (for the calf must be understood to be the small image of a bull, small by reason of the precious metal employed) is not surprising in view of the common conception of the divinity in that form, both in Egypt and in Canaan. Aaron reluctantly yields to their importunities, and the people rejoice in having a God who can go before them. But Moses could not yield. To have done so would have meant to have surrendered all that had been gained in a spiritual way by the Exodus and the Revelation. The apostasy of the whole people, which this act threatened, would have rendered his entire mission fruitless. His sense of despair is well conveyed by the Biblical narrative in the incident of the breaking of the tables of stone on which the words of the Decalogue were inscribed. A radical remedy was needed and Moses did not hesitate to apply it. The support which he received from the tribe of Levi was a justification for its claim to be the priestly tribe.