“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, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.” When Aaron heard this proposition he showed no objection to accept, provided the people made it worth his while to risk the wrath of Moses; so he answered forthwith, “Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.” These were the ornaments of which the departing Israelites had spoiled the Egyptians and they must have been of very considerable value. At all events, Aaron took them and melted them and made them into the image of a calf, such as he had been used to see in Egypt. The calf was probably made of wood and laminated with gold. Sir G. Wilkinson thinks that the calf was made to represent Mnevis, with whose worship the Israelites had been familiar in Egypt. Then Aaron proclaimed a feast for the next day in honor of this calf and said, “To-morrow is a feast to the Lord,” and they said, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” “And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings: and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.” It was not very long before Moses became suspicious that all was not right in the camp, and he prepared to go down, taking the two tables of testimony in his hands. These stone tablets were covered with writing on both sides, which must have taken a long time to engrave considering that Moses was on a bare mountainside with probably nobody to help but Joshua. Of course all that made this weary expedition worth the doing was that, as the Bible says, “the tables were” to pass for “the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God.” Accordingly, it is not surprising that as Moses “came nigh unto the camp,” and he “saw the calf, and the dancing”: that his “anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. “And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. “And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them? “And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. “For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. “And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.