Exodus 32:4

“And he received [them] at their hand, etc.] For the use they delivered them to him: and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf; that is, after he had melted the gold, and cast it into a mould, which gave it the figure of a calf, and with his tool wrought it into a more agreeable form, he took off the roughness of it, and polished it; or if it was in imitation of the Egyptian Apis or Osiris, he might with his graving tool engrave such marks and figures as were upon that; to cause the greater resemblance, so Selden f937 thinks; see Gill “<244620>Jeremiah 46:20” or else the sense may be, that he drew the figure of a calf with his tool, or made it in “a mould” f938,…”

“fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf--The words are transposed, and the rendering should be, "he framed with a graving tool the image to be made, and having poured the liquid gold into the mould, he made it a molten calf." It is not said whether it was of life size, whether it was of solid gold or merely a wooden frame covered with plates of gold. This idol seems to have been the god Apis, the chief deity of the Egyptians, worshipped at Memphis under the form of a live ox, three years old. It was distinguished by a triangular white spot on its forehead and other peculiar marks. Images of it in the form of a whole ox, or of a calf's head on the end of a pole,…”

“In all probability these three chapters originally formed a distinct composition. The main incidents recorded in them follow in the order of time, and are therefore in their proper place as regards historical sequence. The golden calf - The people had, to a great extent, lost the patriarchal faith, and were but imperfectly instructed in the reality of a personal unseen God. Being disappointed at the long absence of Moses, they seem to have imagined that he had deluded them, and had probably been destroyed amidst the thunders of the mountain Exodus 24:15-18. Accordingly, they gave way to their superstitious fears and fell back upon that form of idolatry which was most familiar to them (see…”

“32:4 the shape of a calf: The idol might actually have been an image of a bull, like the images of the Egyptian god Amon-Re that the people had known in Egypt. The bull represented power, domination, and fertility. The writer would then be using the term calf as a way of expressing contempt for the idol. Alternatively, Aaron might have made a calf, feeling that this sin was not as serious as if the idol were a full-sized bull. • these are the gods who brought you out: The people attributed to the idol what they had just said that Moses had done (32:1). Idolatry expresses the belief that the divine realm and the visible world are continuous with one another. This worldview sees it as possible…”

“fashioned: Exo 20:23; Deu 9:16; Psa 106:19-21; Isa 44:9, Isa 44:10, Isa 46:6; Act 7:41, Act 17:29 a graving: Exo 28:9, Exo 28:11 calf: Kg1 12:28, Kg1 12:32; Kg2 10:29; Ch2 11:15, Ch2 13:8; Hos 8:4, Hos 8:5, Hos 10:5, Hos 13:2 These: Exo 32:8; Jdg 17:3, Jdg 17:4; Neh 9:18; Isa 40:18, Isa 40:19; Rom 1:21-23 which brought: Exo 32:1, Exo 32:8, Exo 20:2 Exodus 32:5”