the laws and symbols he has announced to a golden calf without laws and without any symbols beyond itself. Moses is the representative of a God invisible in mystery. The calf is to be the representative of that same God, whose invisibility and mystery is compromised by an image he has forbidden. The terrible irony of the foolish, impulsive action of Israel is incisively summed up in the trenchant summary of Ps 106:19–20: They made a calf at Horeb, They bowed themselves down to an overlaid image (מַסֵכָה)