f God's holy presence, the people "fell back and stood at a distance. 'You speak to us,' they said to Moses, 'and we will obey; but let not God speak to us, lest we die.'" Once again Moses approached the presence of God, and the Lord spoke to Moses: "Thus shall you say to the Israelites: You yourselves saw that I spoke to you from the very heavens: With Me, therefore, you shall not make any gods of silver, nor shall you make for yourselves any gods of gold."
From this point in Exodus 20, and continuously through chapter 23, the Lord spoke dozens of additional commandments to Moses, and "Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of the Lord and all the rules; and all the people answered with one voice, saying, 'All the things that the Lord has commanded we will do!'" In Exodus 24:12, God calls Moses back up the mountain to receive the tablets He has inscribed with the commandments and teachings for the instruction of the people. And, according to the Scriptures, it was on the seventh day following the appearance of the Lord's Presence upon Sinai that Moses entered the cloud, ascended the mountain, and remained there forty days and forty nights.
At this point, we skip over to Exodus 32. The people have become restless and, confronting Aaron, they ask him to "Rise up, make for us gods, that shall go before us" because they don't know what has happened to Moses. According to Rashi, this anxiety was a direct result of Satan's arrival on the sixteenth of Tammuz. Satan "brought confusion into the world . . . so that (they) should say: 'Certainly Moses has died . . . ." Indeed, Rashi comments, "(Satan) said to them: 'Moses is dead, for six hours have already passed and he has not come. . . ." If one refers only to the biblical account, there is no justification for this impatience--although scripture reveals that Moses would spend forty days and nights, it is not mentioned that anyone knew how lo...