By Water & Blood

Questions on Exodus 66: Why Aaron fashioned the calf

Why then did Aaron carve the calf for the people?

One should seek the purpose of what was done. For examining it in this way, we shall find him not altogether deprived of pardon. For when his brother had spent forty days on the summit of the mountain and the people had gone mad and were eager to turn back to Egypt, he first tried to check their impulse with words. But when he saw them disobedient, he asked for the women’s gold, setting one passion against another—love of adornment and of money against the madness of superstition. But not even this device quenched their frenzy. Hence he was compelled to carve the calf; and using even such a purpose, he needed the divine kindness in order to escape the punishment. The most divine Moses also made this clear in Deuteronomy: “I begged,” he says, “the Lord concerning Aaron my brother, and he did not die.”