Selected story
The Golden Calf and the Samiri
Read the cited context and compare 11 documented textual points.
Comparison 11 of 34
The Golden Calf and the Samiri
The two accounts at a glance
Bible
World English BibleAaron collects gold, fashions a calf, and Israel worships it while Moses is on the mountain.
Qur'an
Sahih InternationalThe Samiri produces a calf with a lowing sound; Aaron says he warned the people against worshiping it and is rebuked by Moses.
These are concise account summaries with exact references. Open the complete texts at these passages →
11 documented comparison points
The comparison covers Moses' forty-day absence, the calf's construction and worship, Aaron's role, Moses' return, judgment, intercession, and the Qur'anic Samiri episode. Labels use one standard: agreement means both texts state the point; additional detail means one adds a non-conflicting detail; omission means one is silent; ambiguity means an identity or meaning is not explicit; contradiction means both texts state mutually exclusive claims. Stylistic wording alone is not counted.
Moses' absence
Moses remains on the mountain forty days and nights after ascending with Joshua nearby.
God appoints thirty nights and completes them with ten, or speaks of forty nights; Moses goes ahead of his people, while Joshua is not named in the calf account.
Who makes the calf
Aaron collects gold earrings, fashions the calf with a tool, builds an altar, and announces a feast.
The Samiri produces the calf from the people's ornaments. Aaron warns the people and tells them to follow him rather than continue worshiping it.
Where the gold comes from
Aaron orders the people to remove gold earrings from wives, sons, and daughters.
The people cast ornaments they had been made to carry, described as burdens; the Samaritan also throws something into the fire.
The calf makes a sound
The golden calf is called a molded image, but Exodus does not say it produces a lowing sound.
The calf is a body that produces a lowing sound, though it cannot speak or guide.
Aaron's response before Moses returns
Aaron actively makes the calf and altar, then later says the gold came out as a calf and blames the people's evil.
Aaron tells the people they are being tested, commands them to follow him, and refrains from force because he fears division.
What Moses does with the tablets
Moses throws down and shatters the two tablets at the foot of the mountain, then later cuts replacement tablets.
Moses casts down the tablets in anger and later takes them up; the account does not say they shatter or that replacement tablets are cut.
Moses' treatment of Aaron
Moses questions Aaron about the people's sin but does not seize his head or beard.
Moses seizes Aaron by the hair or head and pulls him; Aaron pleads that the people overpowered him and that he feared division.
How the calf is destroyed
Moses burns and grinds the calf to powder, scatters it on water, and makes Israel drink.
Moses tells the Samaritan the calf will be burned and scattered into the sea; the people are not made to drink its powder.
Judgment on the worshipers
Levites kill about three thousand men, and Yahweh later sends a plague.
Q 2 commands the people to turn in repentance and kill themselves or the guilty among them; the Qur'anic text does not name Levi, give a total of three thousand, or narrate a separate plague here.
The Samiri's punishment
No Samiri character exists in Exodus, so no personal ban on contact is pronounced.
Moses sentences the Samiri to say 'No contact' in this life and warns of a further appointed punishment.
Moses' intercession
Moses appeals to God's reputation and promises, offers to be blotted from God's book, and later intercedes for forty days.
Moses asks forgiveness for himself and Aaron and prays for mercy; the offer to be erased from a divine book and the forty-day intercession are not narrated in these passages.
What do both texts share?
- A calf is made and worshiped while Moses is absent.
- Moses returns and confronts the idolatry.