According to Exodus 32, what did Aaron make for the Israelites to worship?

According to Exodus 32, Aaron made a golden calf for the Israelites to worship. While Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the covenant tablets, the people asked Aaron to make a visible god to lead them. Aaron collected their gold jewelry and fashioned the calf.

The Israelites then held a festival and proclaimed the calf as the god that had brought them out of Egypt. Moses came down from the mountain carrying the tablets, saw the worship, and shattered the tablets at the foot of the mountain. The episode became one of the Bible’s clearest examples of Israelite apostasy and idolatry.

The golden calf is distinct from the bronze serpent made much later in the wilderness and from the cherubim associated with the Ark. Those objects belong to different episodes and purposes. Exodus presents the calf as an unauthorized image made during Moses’s absence.