1When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, the Jarai and the Adamawa Fulfulde translation both use the exclusive pronoun, excluding Aaron.
Following are a number of back-translations of Acts 7:40:
Uma: “They said to Harun: ‘Make for us (incl.) an idol that we can worship, so that that idol will lead us. Because we (excl.) no longer know what has happened to that Musa who led us (incl.) out of Mesir.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Then because Moses was a long time there on the mountain, they said to Harun, ‘Make gods for us (incl.) so that they will go ahead to lead us (incl.). We (incl.) do not know what has happened to Musa who brought us (incl.) out of Misil.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And they said to Aaron, the older brother of Moses, they said, ‘Make us images that can be the gods that we will follow, because as for this Moses, the one who brought us out of Egypt, we do not know where he has gone.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “When Moses was a long-time on the summit (lit. head) of that-aforementioned mountain, they said to Aaron, ‘Please make gods to lead us, because we (excl.) don’t know what happened to that Moses-(fellow) who led us in our leaving Egipto.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “That’s why they asked Aaron, saying, ‘Make images/likenesses of God, that being what will lead us in place of Moises, because we don’t know what has happened to this Moises who caused us to come out of Egipto.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
The name that is transliterated as “Aaron” in English is translated in Catalan Sign Language and Spanish Sign Language as “stones on chest plate” (according to Exodus 28:15-30) (Source: John Elwode in The Bible Translator 2008, p. 78ff.)