Golden Calf. According to the Bible, the golden calf was an idol made by the Israelites when Moses went up to Mount Sinai.
It is first mentioned in. Bull worship was common in many cultures. In Egypt, whence according to the Exodus narrative the Hebrews had recently come, the Apis Bull was a comparable object of worship, which some believe the Hebrews were reviving in the wilderness; alternatively, some believe the God of Israel was associated with or pictured as a calf/bull deity through the process of religious assimilation and syncretism.
Among the Egyptians' and Hebrews' neighbors in the ancient Near East and in the Aegean, the aurochs, the wild bull, was widely worshipped, often as the Lunar Bull and as the creature of El. When Moses went up into biblical Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, he left the Israelites for forty days and forty nights. The Israelites feared that he would not return and demanded that Aaron make them gods to go before them.
Aaron gathered up the Israelites' golden earrings and ornaments, constructed a molten calf and they declared: These thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. Aaron built an altar before the calf and proclaimed the next day to be a feast to the L. So they rose up early the next day and offered burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
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