1. Bani Israel had held the cow in such high esteem that they had moulded a calf for worship from their ornaments. Allah (SWT) probably wanted to totally wipe off this high esteem from their minds by ordering them to slaughter a cow, so that they could realize that they had worshipped something which they themselves could slaughter and which was helpless even to resist its own killing, leave alone helping others.

2. A person was murdered by someone and they were not able to find out the murderer, so they were ordered to strike the body of the murdered person with flesh of the slaughtered cow, when the murdered person miraculously came back to life and revealed the name of his murderer (Chapter: 2 Verses: 72, 73). When Musa (PBH) had informed the Bani Israel that Allah (SWT) wanted them to slaughter a cow they first asked him whether he was joking with them. This indicates that they were arrogant. It would have been the best for them to have obeyed the order of Allah (SWT) and slaughtered any cow. But they started asking questions about the qualities of the cow to be slaughtered. Each answer to their question made it more and more difficult for them to find the cow with the exact specifications. Finally, they slaughtered a cow which was middle aged, delightfully coloured bright yellow which was neither used for ploughing nor irrigating fields and which was sound and defectless, but they did this reluctantly. Bani Israel witnessed the dead man coming back to life and revealing the name of his murderer. This miracle is a clear proof that Allah (SWT) will raise the dead to life to take their account of deeds.