His saying, exalted and majestic is He:

﴿So they said, 'This is your god and the god of Moses, but he forgot.'﴾ [Ta-Ha: 88] ﴿Do they not see that he cannot return to them a saying, nor does he possess for them any harm or benefit?﴾ ﴿And indeed, Aaron had said to them before, 'O my people, you have been led astray by it, and your Lord is the Most Merciful, so follow me and obey my command.'﴾ ﴿They said, 'We will not cease to be devoted to it until Moses returns to us.'﴾

The pronoun in His saying: 'So they said' refers to the Children of Israel. That is, they were misguided when their leaders said to their followers, and 'this' is a reference to the calf. His saying, exalted and majestic is He: 'but he forgot' can be understood as being from the words of the Children of Israel, meaning: Moses, peace be upon him, forgot his Lord and his God and went to seek Him in another place. It can also be understood as 'he forgot' being a report from Allah, exalted and majestic is He, about the Samaritan that he forgot his religion and the path of truth.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

So forgetfulness in the first interpretation means negligence, and in the second means abandonment.

Then Allah, exalted and majestic is He, linked the place of His address to them with His saying: ﴿Do they not see﴾. The meaning is: Did not those who went astray realize that this calf is merely an inanimate object that does not speak nor return a saying, nor does it harm or benefit? And these are attributes that do not hide the occurrence and incapacity; for if these attributes were to occur for it, it would necessitate its being a god. A group read: 'that he cannot return' with the raising of the letter 'a', and 'that' - according to this reading - is a lightened form of the heavy one, and the estimation is: that he does not return. Another group read: 'that he cannot return', and 'that' - according to this reading - is the one that indicates.

And He, exalted and majestic is He, informed that Aaron, peace be upon him, had said to them at the beginning of the situation of the calf: 'It is merely a trial and a test and a deception from the Samaritan, and your Lord is the Most Merciful who has power, knowledge, creation, and invention, so follow me to the mountain which Allah, exalted and majestic is He, has promised you, and obey my command regarding what I have mentioned to you.' A group read: 'It is merely' and 'and your Lord is the Most Merciful' with the breaking of both hamzah letters. A group read: 'that it is merely' and 'that' with the opening of the hamzah. A group read: 'It is merely' with the breaking and 'that' with the opening, and the middle reading is weak.

So the Children of Israel said when Aaron, peace be upon him, admonished them and urged them towards the truth: 'We will not cease to be devoted to this god, remaining devoted to it.' That is, we will be steadfast to it, and 'devotion' means bending towards something due to the intensity of one's attachment to it, and from it is the saying of the poet:

The devoted one plays the fandango.