(And their hearts absorbed [the worship of] the calf)

And the love of the calf mingled with the innermost lining of their hearts, like water that seeps deep inside the body, and this was because of their rejection of the truth.

Ushribū (“they were made to drink”): as if someone else had made them drink the love of the calf, as if they had reached a degree with it in which they had no choice. And in it is that attachment and passion for this world strip a person of freedom of spirit and will, so he becomes its slave, until it strips him of the dearest thing he owns: freedom. And you find that the believer is free, because he has freed himself from his desires and from his attachment to this world, so he says no to the forbidden; while the non-believer whom the world has taken hold of says yes to everything in it, out of his attachment to it and his enslavement to doubts and forbidden desires. And in it is an eloquent comparison: their love of the world was absorbed by their hearts like water that the earth absorbs. Their life and nourishment depend on it, so the results of their deeds and their disobedience became the fruit of this water they were made to drink. We hold fast to Allah and seek refuge in Him from this state.

And in it is that disobedience without repentance leads to love of this world and what is in it, attachment to it and passion for it. (al-Tafsir al-Muharrar)

— Shoroog Almehmadi