Exodus 32:20

The people are made to drink their own sin.

burnt it with fire i.e. either (cf. on v.4) burnt the wooden core, and ground the gold plating to powder by rolling large stones to and fro over it; or, if it were wholly of gold, reduced it by fire to shapeless lumps of metal, which were then ground to powder similarly.

strewed it upon the water Deuteronomy 9:21 says -and I cast the dust thereof into the wâdythat descended out of the mount" apparently to carry it away, without any mention of the Israelites being made to drink it.

to drink of it Cf. the curses to be drunk by the suspected wife, Numbers 5:24.