Let me take Aaron’s statement a little further. What if the golden calf that emerged from the pot was self forming and animated (at least initially), that would certainly trick the nervous people into worshiping it. Was that an opening the devil took advantage of?
Actually, the excuse "it jumped out of the fire" was Aaron's flimsy excuse for making it and leading the children of Israel astray.
Moses response was to grind the calf to powder, added water, and made them drink it.
For the real problem was, that they had seen 10 plagues on Egypt, been delivered out of Egypt through the waters, been given water and food (6 days out of 7) in the desert, a cloud to follow by day and a pillar of fire by night, and yet with all this, they quickly turned to a false idol.
The sin of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, was to erect two golden calves for the Northern tribes to sacrifice at, rather than the temple in Jerusalem. In essence, repeating the offense of the golden calf before Gd.
For this the northern tribes eventually had to back to slavery in Egypt. The southern tribes succumbed later to idolatry and human sacrifice and were taken to Babylon. It is a picture of the Total Depravity of Man, that man will sink to the lowest state that Gd permits.
The amazing thing was that both the Northern and Southern tribes were returned. Those who came back from Egypt did not learn their lesson and continued as Samaritans. Those who came back from Babylon, restored Jerusalem and the temple and continue, yet after being exiled once again, to this day.
As it says in the Scriptures, "I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy, and compassion upon whom I will have compassion".
Repentance and returning to Gd is essential. In our day, we are turning to the golden calf of self. Pregnant women to Combat, the Marriage of Gys in the military, making us pay for the blood of the unborn - all these point to the fact that the golden calf is among us once again.
And human sacrifice is right around the corner unless we Repent as a nation and turn back to the Lord our Gd.
The ‘Devil’ (called the Satan, ‘the one who causes to stray’ in Hebrew,) enhanced the possibility to sin (the free choice) that G-d had orchestrated. In the beginning of the class he quotes a famous teaching in Judaism that the Satan showed everyone a vision of Moses’ funeral.... they needed a new leader! But that’s only one level. On a deeper level, they saw a vision of the calf (ox) already on G-d’s own ‘throne,’ (see vision of Ezikiel Chapter 1) at the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. Hmmm...a godly animal with good credentials—and now human frailty (like Moses, seemingly) to leave the flock in the dust and ascend to heaven.