67وَإِذ قالَ موسىٰ لِقَومِهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأمُرُكُم أَن تَذبَحوا بَقَرَةً ۖ قالوا أَتَتَّخِذُنا هُزُوًا ۖ قالَ أَعوذُ بِاللَّهِ أَن أَكونَ مِنَ الجاهِلينَMuhammad AsadAND LO! Moses said unto his people: "Behold, God bids you to sacrifice a cow."1They said: "Dost thou mock at us?" He answered: "I seek refuge with God against being so ignorant!"2As is evident from verse 72, the story related in this and the subsequent passages almost certainly refers to the Mosaic law which ordains that in certain cases of unresolved murder a cow should be sacrificed, and the elders of the town or village nearest to the place of the murder should wash their hands over it and declare, "Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it" - whereupon the community would be absolved of collective responsibility. For the details of this Old Testament ordinance, see Deuteronomy xxi, 1-9.Lit., "lest I be one of the ignorant". The imputation of mockery was obviously due to the fact that Moses promulgated the above ordinance in very general terms, without specifying any details.