Matthew Poole and continuators on Exodus 32:20

20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder , and strawed it upon the water , and made the children of Israel to drink of it .

Melted it either into one great mass, or rather into divers little fragments, which afterwards by a file or other instruments he by the help of many others might soon ground to powder or dust of gold.

Upon the brook which came out of the rock Horeb, Exod. 17. 6.

Not all, which would require long time, but some in the name of the rest, and most probably either the chief promoters of this idolatrous design, or the chief rulers of the people who should by their power and authority have restrained the people from this wickedness.

Of the water into which that dust was cast, partly to make them ashamed of their madness in worshipping a God which now must be drunk and cast out into the draught, and partly to fill them with terrour and dreadful expectation of some ill effect or curse of God to come upon them either by this draught or by other means.

Marginal references: Deut. 9. 21.