2/51-54 — The calf
Note the timing: the span between the parting of the sea and the making of the calf is forty days. That the narrative sets these two events one on top of the other is no coincidence — having seen the greatest of miracles is no guarantee for forty days later.
The finding that follows joins with the two comparisons at the beginning of the sūra (2/17-20): seeing does not keep one on the road. One had to walk when the light came; that the light came once is not enough.
عِجْل (ʿijl) — the calf. The classical commentaries transmit a play resting on the sound-kinship of the word with the root ʿ-j-l (haste): they hurried and did not wait for Moses, and their haste brought them an ʿijl. I transmit this as a point about the language; that the word really derives from this root is not certain, and it is no basis for a ruling.
When the command to repent is given, it does not say "turn back to your Lord"; it says "turn back to your Bāriʾ". Bāriʾ is from the root b-r-ʾ: to bring out of non-being into being, to create by separating and by making flawless. The same root is present in the words barāʾa (being cleared) and bariyya (created things).
Now consider the situation: these people have made a statue. They have cast metal, given it a shape, produced a form. And that God should be named, in the call to repentance, precisely by the name meaning "the one who truly gives form, who brings into being from nothing", is a name set directly opposite the offence. What they have done is recalled to them by the name inside the call.
The command "kill yourselves" is the heaviest sentence in the section, and the exegetes have differed over it:
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Actual retaliation | It is a real sentence of death passed upon those who worshipped the calf; it is peculiar to that law and produces no ruling for later communities |
| In the sense of "one another" | Anfusakum in Arabic can also mean "those among your own number"; it is a command to carry out the sentence upon the guilty |
| Figurative | What is meant is the killing of the self, that is, the ending of the ego that inclined to the calf |
The majority gathers around the first two views. I state no preference here; but this qualification has to be entered: this is the transmission of a ruling given to a particular community upon a particular event — it is not a general rule and produces no ruling for today.