Comentário sobre Êxodo 32:6

וישכימו AND THEY ROSE UP EARLY [IN THE MORNING] — Satan made them zealous in order that they might sin, for later on in the forenoon Moses actually came down from the mountain.

AND THE PEOPLE SAT DOWN TO EAT AND TO DRINK. This means that they all sat down together to eat and drink inordinately, as they would do at feasts and on festivals, and afterwards they rose up to make merry with their idols and indulge in revelry. Scripture tells us this on account of what Moses [later] said, the noise of them that sing do I hear,³⁰²Verse 18. for Moses found them acting riotously in front of him and his heart was lifted up in the ways of the Eternal,³⁰³II Chronicles 17:6. to take it from before them and to burn it in their presence [and scatter its powder upon the water] and make them drink of it.
Now Scripture first completed the account of everything they had done with the calf, and afterwards told of what the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, Go, get thee down.³⁰⁴Verse 7. This communication, however, was given to Moses early that morning, when they worshipped the calf and sacrificed to it. When Moses came down from the mountain they had sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to make merry,³⁰⁰Verse 6. and he found them in revelry. This also is proof to what I have explained [that at first their intent was not to worship idols], since it was not said to Moses, Go, get thee down, for thy people have dealt corruptly³⁰⁴Verse 7. on the day that Aaron made the [golden] calf and the altar, [for had they been made for the purpose of idolatry, Moses] would have come down immediately. Instead, it was only when the people sacrificed to it and worshipped it that He told Moses to go down.

וישכימו ממחרת, They rose up early on the morrow, etc. It is difficult to understand why G'd did not tell Moses to descend from the Mountain as soon as the golden calf emerged from the crucible instead of waiting until the following morning after the people began to worship it by offering sacrifices in its honour. If G'd had told Moses to descend as soon as the calf emerged the people would not have had a chance commit the sin of offering sacrifices to a man-made idol. We cannot assume that the Torah did not report this in chronological order and that G'd did indeed tell Moses to descend at once but that Moses delayed his descent in order to try and diminish G'd's anger at His people. The report of the Torah spoke first about the people offering sacrificing to the calf before it mentions G'd as having become angry and telling Moses to descend. [Verse seven only supplies the reason for what is written in verses eight and nine. It does not represent the order in which things happened. Ed.] While we are aware of the statement by Rabbi Joshua ben Levi in Avodah Zarah 4 that "the children of Israel were not on a low enough spiritual level at the time to make the golden calf, and that the only reason this was allowed to occur was to teach future generations of Jews the power of repentance," this statement would not have lost any of its validity if G'd had interfered before it came to the point when the people actually offered sacrifices to that calf. G'd could have told Moses to descend as soon as some of the people had said: "these are your gods, O Israel, who have brought you up from Egypt." All this occurred on the day before they offered the sacrifices. The people's passive attitude to the idolatrous provocation by the mixed multitude had already made them sufficiently culpable. In fact we can be certain that there were only a few dissidents amongst the natural-born Israelites for if they had indeed been the majority their passive acceptance of such a provocation to sin is totally beyond imagination! If a majority who were physically able to prevent this sin had stood by idly, they would have become guilty as accessories. Why did G'd have to wait until after offerings had been made to the golden calf?