Jeroboam Offering Sacrifice in front of the golden calf. Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806)
Reading the Golden Calves of Sinai and Northern Israel in Context
The story of the Golden Calf overtly describes a religious sin in the wilderness generation, but aspects of the story also evoke the (later) behavior of King Jeroboam I of Israel. Ancient readers would have understood these resonances as having political ramifications.
Published: March 1, 2015
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
There it appears to be out of chronological order.
:וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ אֵ֤לֶּה אֱלֹהֶ֙יךָ֙ יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר הֶעֱל֖וּךָ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם
Although the word elohim appears to be plural, that may be a grammatical rather than a semantic feature, much like our words “scissors” and “pants.”
:כִּי־זֶ֣ה׀ מֹשֶׁ֣ה הָאִ֗ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֤ר הֶֽעֱלָ֙נוּ֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם לֹ֥א יָדַ֖עְנוּ מֶה־הָ֥יָה לֽוֹ
According to Rashi, Aaron’s reaction – calling on the Israelites to turn over their jewelry – may have been an effort to stall, testing the level of their fear and thus the situation’s urgency. After constructing the calf, he proclaims a feast to the Lord, as if trying to bring them back from their idolatrous delusion. Despite this mitigating approach to understanding Aaron’s actions, Moses, upon arriving at the camp, challenges Aaron to explain his behavior, implying that, from his perspective at least, the calf is partly Aaron’s fault.
לֶךְ־רֵ֕ד כִּ֚י שִׁחֵ֣ת עַמְּךָ֔ אֲשֶׁ֥ר הֶעֱלֵ֖יתָ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם
לָמָ֤ה יְ־הֹוָה֙ יֶחֱרֶ֤ה אַפְּךָ֙ בְּעַמֶּ֔ךָ אֲשֶׁ֤ר הוֹצֵ֙אתָ֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם
That said, after having defended the people, Moses returns to the foot of the mountain, castigates them, and shatters the tablets that represent God’s covenant with them.
See, for example, j. Ta’anit 4:5; b. Sanhedrin 102a.
For more on the probability that the calf was meant as a pedestal for God and not an image of God—something already suggested by ibn Ezra—see Deena Grant’s TABS essay,“What was the Golden Calf?” For a different interpretation, seeing the calf/bull as a representation of God/El/YHWH, see Dudu Cohen’s TABS essay, “Dancing Erotically with the Golden Calf.” Archeologists have found a bronze statue of a small bull from the twelfth century, which some believe was used for ritual purposes, in northern Israel.
For more on the cherubs and what they might have represented, see Zev Farber’s TABS essay, “The Cherubim: Their Role on the Ark in the Holy of Holies.”
Some scholars have also suggested that the story in Exodus is a Southern adaptation of an earlier tradition, which traced Northern worship practices back to Sinai.
