Israel encountered the one true living God at Sinai in a manifestation of fire and storm, and when they set out again to take the land he had promised their forefathers, they were bound to him in the living bond of the covenant; as his people and a holy people they were to worship him alone, and to obey the elementary moral law he had established among’ them. Whatever the religious practices of Israel had been until then and whatever they assimilated from their neighbours in Canaan and further afield, only that was now acceptable which could be used or reinterpreted in the light of this unique revelation and relationship. The golden calf was not acceptable as an image of the living God, because he could not be represented by lifeless images.