God's answer to Moses contains one of the most mysterious promises in the entire Torah. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, reveals the secret hidden in the verse.
"Behold, I make covenant that I will not change this people to become an alien people. Nevertheless from you shall proceed a multitude of the righteous; and with all your people will I do wondrous things in the time when they go into captivity by the rivers of Bavel. For I will bring them up from thence, and make them dwell from within the river Sambation; and like wonders shall not be created among all the inhabitants of the earth, nor among any nation" (Exodus 34:10).
The Targum inserts what the plain verse does not name. First, the promise answers Moses' fear of replacement with a direct oath - Israel will not be swapped. Second, the Aramaic predicts the Babylonian exile by the rivers of Bavel, the captivity that would come nearly a thousand years later after the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE. Third, and most strikingly, it names the Sambation, the legendary river that according to rabbinic tradition flows with stones six days a week and rests on the Sabbath, and beyond which the Ten Lost Tribes are said to dwell.
This is the Targum's cosmic horizon. The exile is real. The return is real. And hidden somewhere beyond the Sambation, a portion of Israel still waits to be brought home. The covenant given at this moment, in the aftermath of the calf, stretches across millennia.
Takeaway: The covenant God made after the calf holds even when we are scattered. Beyond every river of exile, a promise of return is still in force.