Surah 20. Ta-Ha, Ayah 83

This passage relates to the time of Moses' ascent of Mount Sinai, mentioned in 2:51 and 7:142 .

Lit., "what has hastened thee ahead of thy people?" - implying that he should not have left them alone, without his personal guidance, at so early a stage in their freedom. In this inimitable elliptic manner the Qur'an alludes to the psychological fact that a community which attains to political and social freedom after centuries of bondage remains for a long time subject to the demoralizing influences of its past, and cannot all at once develop a spiritual and social discipline of its own.

 Moses selected a delegation of seventy people from his community to go to Mount Ṭûr where it was appointed for him to receive the Tablets. On the way, he rushed for the appointment with Allah, arriving before the delegation.

This was when Moses was up on the Mount for forty days and forty nights: ii. 51, and n. 66. Moses had left the elders of Israel with Aaron behind him: Exod. xxiv. 14. While he was in a state of ecstatic honour on the Mount, his people were enacting strange scenes down below. They were tested and tried, and they failed in the trial. They made a golden calf for worship, as described below. See also vii. 148-150 and notes.