According to the Bible, the golden calf (עֵגֶל הַזָּהָב ‘ēgel hazzāhāv) was an idol (a cult image) made by the Israelites when Moses went up to Mount Sinai. In Hebrew, the incident is known as ḥēṭə’ hā‘ēgel (חֵטְא הָעֵגֶל) or "the sin of the calf". It is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus. Bull worship was common in many cultures. In Egypt, whence according to the Exodus narrative the Hebrews had recently come, the Apis Bull was a comparable object of worship, which some believe the Hebrews were reviving in the wilderness; alternatively, some believe Yahweh, the national god of the Israelites, was associated with or pictured as a calf/bull deity through the process of religious assimilation and syncretism. Among the Canaanites, some of whom would become the Israelites, the bull was widely worshipped as the Lunar Bull and as the creature of El. Biblical narrative When Moses went up into Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments (), he left the Israelites for forty days and nights. The Israelites feared that he would not return and demanded that Aaron make them "a god to go before them". Aaron gathered up the Israelites' golden earrings and ornaments, constructed a "molten calf" and they declared: "'This is thy god, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt" (). Aaron built an altar before the calf and proclaimed the next day to be a feast to the . So they rose up early the next day and "offered burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play." (Exodus 32:6) God told Moses what the Israelites were up to back in camp, that they had turned aside quickly out of the way which God commanded them and he was going to destroy them and start a new people from Moses. Moses besought and pleaded that they should be spared and "the repented of the evil which He said He would do unto His people." () Moses went down from the mountain, but upon seeing the calf, he became angry and threw down the two Tablets of Stone, breaking them. Moses burnt the golden calf in a fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on water, and forced the Israelites to drink it. When Moses asked him, Aaron admitted to collecting the gold, and throwing it into the fire,