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Before Moses asks Aaron what he did, the narrative account of the Golden Calf's creation is that Aaron asked for gold, received the gold, "and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf".
When Moses questions Aaron, he says of the gold, "and I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf."
What is going on here?
Rav Hirsch explains Ki Sisa 32:24 as meaning that Aharon did not try to explain all the details of the event and that he had tried to delay the Jewish people unsuccessfully. He glosses over his attempts to prolong the actual work and tries to skip over the murder of Chur and his own danger had he completely refused.
How great Aharon show himself in this reply! Not a word to justify himself, does not mention the circumstances of which we know, which would serve to modify his guilt. Nothing of the overwhelming threatening mob - וַיִּקָּהֵל הָעָם עַל אַהֲרֹן - nothing of his attempts to use the vanity of the women as a means of delay - nothing of his laborious work of engraving and modeling to postpone the completion of the work as long as possible - nothing of all this. He will not adduce any reason for the mitigation of his own guilt which would increase the guilt of the people. He takes practically the whole guilt on his own shoulders, accuses himself of the most listless weakness.
