Note [original edition] : The ornaments of the people;] These ornaments were rings, bracelets, and the like, which the
Israelities had borrowed of the
Egyptians, under pretence of decking
themselves out for some feast, and had not returned to them; or, as some
think, what they had stripped from the dead bodies of the
Egyptians, cast on
shore by the sea: and
al Sâmeri, conceiving them unlawful to be kept, and the
occasion of much wickedness, persuaded
Aaron to let him collect them from the
people; which being done, he threw them all into the fire, to melt them down
into one mass
3.
It is observable, that the
Mohammedans generally suppose the cast
metal’s coming forth in the shape of a calf, was beside the expectation of
al
Sâmeri, who had not made a mould of that figure: and that when
Aaron excuses
himself to his brother, in the
Pentateuch, he seems as if he would persuade
him it was an accident
5.
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3
Al Beidawi.
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5
See Exod. xxxii. 24.