The moment the calf was made, the voice on the mountain changed. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the chilling command God gave to Moses: "Descend from the greatness of thine honour; for I have not given thee greatness except on account of Israel. But now thy people, whom thou didst bring up from the land of Mizraim, have corrupted their works" (Exodus 32:7).
What did "descend from thine honour" mean?
The sages heard the verse as a double descent. Moses was told to come down the mountain physically — the literal movement of the narrative. But the targum adds a second descent: from the greatness of thine honour. Moses's exalted standing had been entirely because he was the leader of Israel. If Israel was falling, Moses's greatness fell with them.
The midrashic tradition (Berakhot 32a, c. 500 CE) drew the principle out: a leader has no standing apart from those he leads. Moses's authority flowed through him for the sake of the people, not instead of them. When the people collapsed, the conduit collapsed. Moses was being reminded, in the harshest language possible, that his own spiritual altitude was borrowed.
The second cut is even sharper. God says thy people, whom thou didst bring up from Mizraim. The possessive pronoun has shifted. Normally the Torah says My people. Now, in the aftermath of the calf, God calls them Moses's people. The midrash (Shemot Rabbah 42:6) explains: it was as if God was disowning them, handing the problem to Moses to solve. "You brought them up. You deal with them."
Moses would hear this language and understand its danger. His response, in the verses ahead, would be to refuse the disowning — to insist, against God's grammar, that Israel was still God's people. That insistence is the beginning of one of the greatest intercessory prayers in Jewish history.
The Maggid takes this home: the honor of a leader rises and falls with the people they serve. There is no solitary greatness in the tradition of Israel.