[294] It is said that not only the ten commandments, but the whole law was written thereon.—S.
[295] That is, as some understand it, consisting of flesh and blood; or, as others, being a mere body or mass of metal, without a soul.—S. (B.)
[296] The person who cast this calf, the Moḥammadans say, was not Aaron but Es-Sámiree, one of the principal men among the children of Israel, some of whose descendants, it is pretended, still inhabit an island of that name in the Arabian Gulf. It was made of the rings and bracelets of gold, silver, and other materials, which the Israelites had borrowed of the Egyptians; for Aaron, who commanded in his brother’s absence, having ordered Es-Sámiree to collect those ornaments from the people, who carried on a wicked commerce with them, and to keep them together till the return of Moses, Es-Sámiree, understanding the founder’s art, put them altogether into a furnace, to melt them down into one mass, which came out in the form of a calf. One writer says, that all the Israelites adored this calf, except only twelve thousand.—S. (A. F.)
[297] After he had completed his forty days’ stay in the mount, and had received the Law.—S. (B.)
[298] Or, I knew that which they knew not—that the messenger sent to thee from God was a pure spirit, and that his footsteps gave life to whatever they touched; being no other than the angel Gabriel, mounted on the horse of life: and therefore I made use of the dust of his feet to animate the molten calf. It is said, Es-Sámiree knew the angel because he had saved and taken care of him when a child and exposed by his mother for fear of Pharaoh.—S. (B., Jelál.)
[299] The word here rendered ‘hearts’ often signifies stomachs; and if this be its meaning here, the narrative agrees with the [so-called] Mosaic account: for Moses ‘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.’—Exod. xxxii. 20.
[300] The persons here meant are said to have been seventy men, who were made choice of by Moses, and heard the voice of God talking with him. But not being satisfied with that, they demanded to see God; whereupon they were all struck dead by lightning, and on Moses’ intercession restored to life.—S.
[301] This person is represented by the commentators as the most beautiful of the Israelites, and so far surpassing them all in opulence that the riches of Ḳároon have become a proverb.—S.
[302] Moses, as some say, having complained to God of a false accusation brought against him by Ḳároon, He directed him to command the earth what he pleased, and it should obey him; whereupon he said, ‘O earth, swallow them up;’ and immediately the earth opened under Ḳároon and his confederates, and swallowed them up, with his palace and all his riches.—There goes a tradition that as Ḳároon sank gradually into the ground, first to his knees, then to his waist, then to his neck, he cried out four several times, ‘O Moses, have mercy on me!’ but that Moses continued to say, ‘O earth, swallow them up!’ till at last he wholly disappeared: upon which God said to Moses, ‘Thou hadst no mercy on Ḳároon, though he asked pardon of thee four times; but I would have had compassion on him if he had asked pardon of me but once.’—S. (B.)
[303] Or rather, fawn-coloured; as are most of the cows of Arabia. The word in the original properly signifies yellow.