출애굽기 32:20의 주석

ויזר AND STREWED IT — The verb זרה denotes scattering about, similar to, (Job 18:15) “Brimstone shall be scattered (יזרה) upon his habitation”; (Proverbs 1:17) “Surely in vain the net is strewn (מזורה) [in the sight of any bird]” where this expression is used because people usually bestrew it (the net) with grain and pulse.

AND HE STREWED IT UPON THE WATER, AND MADE THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL DRINK IT. After grinding the golden calf to a fine powder, he scattered it on the surface of the stream which came down from the mountain, and made the people drink of those waters. It is possible that gold burnt in fire does not melt, but instead when placed therein is charred and can be ground to powder, as Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra mentioned.³⁵⁸“There is a certain substance which, if put with gold into the fire, will cause the gold to become charred to dust and never return to its former properties” (Ibn Ezra). This powder was light upon the face of the waters,³⁵⁹Job 24:18. and therefore it floated, and he made them drink of it. Or it may be that he scattered it upon the stream in small quantities, and then drew the water and made them drink it before the gold powder sank in the stream. Or perhaps it was a miraculous event. Thus he wanted to disgrace their deeds by grinding their god to powder and bringing it into their bellies to issue as excrement, something like it is said, Thou shalt put them [i.e., the graven images] far away as one unclean; thou shalt say unto it: ‘get thee hence.’³⁶⁰Isaiah 30:22. In the opinion of our Rabbis³⁶¹Abodah Zarah 44a. he also intended to put them to the test in the same way that faithless wives were tried,³⁶²Numbers 5:16-22. [so that those guilty of having worshipped the golden calf] would have their bellies swell and their thighs fall away.³⁶³Ibid., Verse 27. This is the truth.

ויקח את העגל אשר עשו, He took the calf which they had made, etc. The words "which they had made" appear quite superfluous; perhaps the Torah had to mention this according to the view that the golden calf looked like a calf from the front and like a donkey when viewed from the rear as we find in the Zohar volume 2 page 192. If the Torah had written only "he took the calf," I could have understood this as a reference only to the front section of the calf and that Moses burned only that section of the image. By adding the words: "which they had made," the Torah makes it clear that Moses burned the entire inert creature.