Exodus 32: 15-20, “And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.”
As Moses and Joshua went down from the mountain where they were meeting with the Lord they wondered why they were sent down in such a hurry The people were celebrating because they had asserted their ability to define what was good and what was evil for themselves. Joshua though that the people had been attacked and the sound was that of war. However, Moses knew the difference between the sound of war and the sound of celebration because the people were singing. When Moses saw the golden calf he was very angry and smashed the tablets of the Law, that the Lord had carved and written on. Moses realised that they people were not worthy to have the Law at that stage and their sin had to be dealt with before they could have a holy relationship with the Lord. This is why he smashed the tablets. When the issue had been dealt with again and the people were clean once more then they would be in a position to make an agreement with the Lord to be His people. The first thing that Moses had to do was destroy the calf so that it would never be a temptation to the people again. He did by burning the golden calf and then making what was left after it was melted into powder. He put this powder on their water and made them drink it. This may sound strange and vindictive but when the gold had passed through the people and come out the other side it was unclean and could never be used to make any other god again.
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
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