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
Balak (parsha) intermingling of sex and the worship of foreign gods, using the same Hebrew word, "zanah", in (4) The Levites kill 3,000 of those guilty of worshiping the Golden Calf, and the Israelite leaders are instructed to kill the people who had yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor. (5) Because of their obedience in carrying out God's punishment on the idolaters, the Levites are ordained for the service of God, and in the priest Phinehas executes God's punishment on the sinners, and a special covenant of perpetual priesthood is established with him. (6) After the Golden Calf incident, Moses “makes