He took the calf—and burnt it, &c.— This perhaps might be rendered more properly he melted it down, and afterwards reduced it to powder. It is not probable that this calf was of any considerable size; the materials whereof it was made, as well as its speedy reduction to powder, whether by the file or whatever other means, would lead one to believe so. The idol, thus reduced to powder, Moses threw into the water, which flowed for them from the rock in Horeb: Deuteronomy 9:21 and which being the only water they had to drink of, they were led by a double act to see their folly, and adore Jehovah; while they drank that impotent idol, miserably reduced, in the very water which the Omnipotence of Jehovah had called forth for them from the rock. The authors of the Universal History observe, that "though nothing is more commonly received than the notion that gold cannot be destroyed, yet the Royal Academy at Paris have a burning-glass which will vitrify it in an instant, by evaporating all the sulphur of it, which crackles, and flies up in a thick smoke: while the glass that remains can never be reduced into any other form. That gold can be reduced into a fine powder, even gold-beaters can inform us; and who can tell but that Moses might have some particular secret for doing this which we know nothing of? By the help of a file, however, he might grate it into a dust as fine as flour which is ground in a mill."
Note; When God's honour is at stake, to be lukewarm is to be criminal. Filled with indignation, Moses beheld the shocking scene; and, though in his own concerns the meekest of men, now holy anger kindles in his bosom.
1. The sacred tables he dashes on the ground. Since they had thus forsaken God's covenant, he would awaken in them a sense of the heinousness of their guilt. The blessings that God intended for them are lost, and they are left, as it were, open to every judgment which they had provoked. Observe; The greatest curse that can fall upon any people is the taking from them the word of God.
2. He seizes the hateful idol, plucks it from its throne in the midst of the astonished multitude, grinds it to powder, and, sprinkling the dust in the water, makes them drink it, to shew them the vanity of their wretched idol. Learn, The heart, which departs from God, drinks in iniquity like water; but in all its draughts of pleasurable sin, the curse, like this dust, mixes with it, and leaves a misery behind, which only they who taste it know.