وَلَقَدْ جَاءَكُم مُّوسَىٰ بِالْبَيِّنَاتِ ثُمَّ اتَّخَذْتُمُ الْعِجْلَ مِن بَعْدِهِ وَأَنتُمْ ظَالِمُونَ
Wa laqad jaaa'akum Moosaa bil bayyinaati summattakhaztumul 'ijla mim ba'dihee wa antum zaalimoon
Musa came to you with clear proofs, yet you took up the calf in his absence, and you were wrongdoers.
The calf appears for the third time in this passage, and each appearance does different work: first as the event, then as the sentence that followed it, and here as evidence in an argument about clear proofs. Bayyināt, the word for what Musa brought, means things made plain, so the verse sets maximum clarity against what happened anyway. Absence is again the condition under which it occurs.