Tafsir Ibn Abbas: Al-A'raaf, Ayah 148
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Other Scholars on This Ayah
Tafsir
And the people of Moses after him that is after he had departed for the communion with God made of their ornaments which they had borrowed from Pharaoh’s folk on the pretext of a wedding celebration and which remained in their possession a calf which the Samaritan had fashioned for them therefrom; a mere living body jasadan is a substitution for ‘ijlan ‘a calf’ of flesh and blood which lowed that is which made audible sounds like a cow it the calf was transformed in this way when the dust which he the Samaritan had collected from where the hoof of Gabriel’s steed had trodden was placed in its mouth for it has the effect of giving life to that in which it is placed the second direct object of the verb ittakhadha ‘they made’ has been omitted but it would be ilāhan ‘as a god’. Did they not see that it spoke not to them nor guided them to any way? so how can it be taken as a god? Yet they took it as such a god and were evildoers for taking it so.
Ibn Abbas Commentary
(And the folk of Moses, after (he had left them)) to go in retreat in the mountain, (chose) made (a calf (for worship), (made) out of their ornaments, of saffron hue) of their gold, (which gave a lowing sound) a sound that the Samiri made for them. (Saw they not) did the people of Moses not know (that it spake not unto them) i.e. the calf (nor guided them to any way? They chose it) they worshipped the calf out of ignorance, (and became wrong-doers) and they harmed themselves by worshipping it.