Why Did the Israelites Worship a Calf?

Why did Israel create at Sinai a calf idol instead of an image of some other animal? The likely reason is that a calf or bull was among the most important of the Egyptian animal images that represented Egypt’s gods (e.g., it was held to represent the god Ptah), and the Israelites had worshiped Egypt’s gods before coming out of Egypt, presumably including Ptah. It is not clear whether or not Israel’s statement, “these are your gods, who brought you up from the land of Egypt,” refers to another deity or a representation of the true God by a pagan image.

The latter of these is likely the case in Exodus 32 because of the identification in verse 8 with the divine agent of the exodus. However, the distinction does not seem significant, since the text of Exodus 32 itself explicitly refers to this event as idolatry; “your people …have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.’ ” This evaluation of the calf worship as idolatrous is in line with Exodus 20, which says not only that is it wrong to “have other…gods before Me” (Ex 20:3) but that it is forbidden to “make for yourself an image or any likeness” of any created thing (Ex 20:4), even if that image is seen to represent Israel’s God, the latter of which is likely the case in Exodus 32 because of the identification in verse 8 with the divine agent of the exodus.