Matthew Poole and continuators on Exodus 32:1

1 AND when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount , the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron , and said unto him, Up, make us gods which shall go before us : for as for this Moses , the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him .

Where he had now been for near 40 days.

(i. e.) Most or some of the people, as it is expressed, 1 Cor. 10. 7.

As the chief person in Moses his absence.

(i. e.) Images or representations of God, whom, after the manner of Idolaters, they call by Gods name. For it is ridiculous to think that the body of the Israelites, who were now lately instructed by the Mouth and words and miraculous works of the eternal God, should be so senceless as to think that was the true God, which themselves made, and that out of their own ear-rings, much more, that that was the God that brought them out of Egypt, as they say, ver. 4.

To guide us through this vast wilderness to the land of promise, where they longed to be, For as the cloud, which hitherto had guided them that seemed now to be fixed upon the mount, and they thought both that and Moses had deserted them. The Iewish Doctors note, that he doth not say, Make us Gods whom we may worship, but, which shall go before us, which, as they truly say, shews that they wanted not a God, whom they knew by infallible evidences they had, but a visible guide, who might supply the want of Moses, as the next words shew.

An expression of contempt towards their great deliverer.

Whether he be not consumed by the fire in the cloud, or taken up to heaven, or conveyed away by God to some other place.

Marginal references: Act. 7. 4.