The Quran

Preface

وَإِذ قالَ موسىٰ لِقَومِهِ يا قَومِ إِنَّكُم ظَلَمتُم أَنفُسَكُم بِاتِّخاذِكُمُ العِجلَ فَتوبوا إِلىٰ بارِئِكُم فَاقتُلوا أَنفُسَكُم ذٰلِكُم خَيرٌ لَكُم عِندَ بارِئِكُم فَتابَ عَلَيكُم ۚ إِنَّهُ هُوَ التَّوّابُ الرَّحيمُ

Yusuf Ali

And remember Moses said to his people: “O my people! Ye have indeed wronged yourselves by your worship of the calf: So turn (in repentance) to your Maker, and slay yourselves (the wrongdoers)¹; that will be better for you in the sight of your Maker.” Then He turned towards you (in forgiveness): For He is Oft-Returning, Most Merciful.

Moses’s speech may be construed literally, as translated, in which case it reproduces Exod. 32:27-28 but in a much softened form, for the Old Testament says: “Go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. . . and there fell of the people that day 3,000 men.” A more spiritualized version would be that the order for slaying was given by way of trial, but was withdrawn, for God turned to them in forgiveness. A still more spiritualized way of construing it would be to take “anfusakum” as meaning “souls”, not “selves”. Then the sense of Moses speech (abbreviated) would be: “By the worship of the calf you have wronged your own souls; repent: mortify (=slay) your souls now: it will be better in the sight of God.”
The word here translated Maker (Bari') has also in it a touch of the root-meaning of “liberator”- an apt word as referring to the Israelites, who had just been liberated from bondage in Egypt.