Golden calf God of Israel was associated with or pictured as a calf/bull deity through the process of religious assimilation and syncretism. Among the Egyptians' and Hebrews' neighbors in the ancient Near East and in the Aegean, the aurochs, the wild bull, was widely worshipped, often as the Lunar Bull and as the creature of El. When Moses went up into Biblical Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments (), he left the Israelites for forty days and forty nights. The Israelites feared that he would not return and demanded that Aaron make them "gods" to go before them (). Aaron gathered
Golden calf (Qur'an 7:167-174). Moses then questioned Samiri for the creation of the golden calf; Samiri justified his actions by stating that he had thrown the dust of the ground upon which Gabriel had tread on into the fire because his soul had suggested it to him. Moses informed him that he would be banished and that they would burn the golden calf and spread its dust into the sea. Moses ordered seventy delegates to repent to God and pray for forgiveness. The delegates traveled alongside Moses to Mount Sinai, where they witnessed the speech between him and God but refused to