Golden calf out of the way which God commanded them and he was going to destroy them and start a new people from Moses. Moses besought and pleaded that they should be spared (), and God "repented of the evil which He said He would do unto His people." Moses went down from the mountain, but upon seeing the calf, he became angry and threw down the two Tablets of Stone, breaking them. Moses burnt the golden calf in a fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on water, and forced the Israelites to drink it. When Moses asked him, Aaron admitted
Moses (Michelangelo) Freud associates the moment in the biblical narrative when Moses descends from the mountain the first time, carrying the tablets, and finds the Hebrew people worshipping the Golden Calf, as described in Exodus 32. Freud describes Moses in a complex psychological state: We may now, I believe, permit ourselves to reap the fruits of our endeavors. We have seen how many of those who have felt the influence of this statue has been compelled to interpret it as representing Moses agitated by the spectacle of his people fallen from grace and dancing round an idol. But this interpretation had to