Another matter: “These are the words that Moses spoke” – this is what the verse said: “You have done these, and I was silent. Did you think I was like you…?” (Psalms 50:21). What is “You have done these [eleh] and I was silent”? Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman said: [God said:] ‘You performed [the sin of stating:] “This is [eleh] your god, Israel” (Exodus 32:4) in the wilderness and I was silent to you.
Why? It is because Moses was appeasing Me and saying to Me: “Please forgive […this people]” (Numbers 14:19), and I listened to him.’ “Did you think I was like you” – you likened a form to its Creator, and the plant to the One who planted it. “[Did you think I was like you,] that I would reprove you and set it [ve’e’erkha] before your eyes?” (Psalms 50:21). Two amora’im, one said: I will arouse [a’orer] it all before you, and one said: I will arrange it all before you.9God may still punish the Israelites for the sin of the Golden Calf, as the verse states, “on the day of My reckoning, I will reckon their sin upon them” (Exodus 32:34) (Etz Yosef).
Moses said to them: ‘I am not rebuking you regarding what you are destined to perform, but rather, regarding what you performed in the past – “in the wilderness, in the Arava, opposite the Red Sea.”’