in Zoology, the young of the ox kind. See MAMMALIA.

Golden Calf, an idol set up and worshipped by the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai, in their passage through the wilderness to the land of Canaan. Our version makes Aaron fashion this calf with a graving tool after he had cast it in a mould. The Geneva translation makes him engrave it first, and cast it afterwards. Others, with more probability, render the whole verse thus: "And Aaron received them (the golden car-rings), and tied them up in a bag, and got them cast into a molten calf;" which version is authorized by the different senses of the word tsur, which signifies to tie up or bind, as well as to shape or form; and of the word cheret, which is used both for a graving tool and a bag. Some of the ancient fathers have been of opinion that this idol had only the face of a calf, and the shape of a man from the neck downwards, in imitation of the Egyptian Isis; while others have thought it was only the head of an ox without a body. But the most general opinion is, that it was an entire calf, in imitation of the Apis worshipped by the Egyptians; among whom, no doubt, the Israelites had acquired their propensity to idolatry. This calf Moses is said to have burnt with fire, reduced to powder, and strewed upon the water which the people were to drink. How this could be accomplished has been a question. M. Stahl conjectures that Moses dissolved it by means of liver of sulphur. The rabbins tell us that the people were made to drink of this water, in order to distinguish the idolaters from the rest; for that as soon as they had drunk of it, the beards of the former turned red. The Cabbalists add, that the calf weighed 125 quintals; which they gather from the Hebrew word massekon, whose numerical letters make 125.