Exodus 20:4

THE SECOND COMMANDMENT, Exodus 20:4-6.

4. Graven image That this commandment was not designed to prohibit the productions of sculpture and painting is apparent from the fact that Moses was expressly ordered to construct cherubim for the most holy place of the tabernacle, and to make the brazen serpent in the wilderness . Only idolatrous images, representations of God and designed for worship, are contemplated . The golden calf, Exodus 32:1-4, is an illustration of the kind of graven images intended . Such images were graven or carved out of metal, wood, or stone. Comp. Jdg 17:3 ; 2 Kings 21:7. The word translated likeness ( תמונה ) is commonly used of attempted representations of God, or of the real form of God as seen or conceived by man . Comp . Numbers 12:8; Deuteronomy 4:12; Deuteronomy 4:15-16; Psalms 17:15. Accordingly a likeness of something in heaven above would be a portraiture of a god under the form of a star, or sun, or moon, or fowl; that of what is in the earth beneath would be the formation of a god in the similitude of a man or a woman, of a beast or any creeping thing that moves on land: that of things in the water under the earth would be, like the Philistine fish-god Dagon, the image of something that lives and moves in the water. All these are enumerated in Deuteronomy 4:15-19, which passage is an inspired commentary on this second commandment . The words under the earth show us the Hebrew conception of the water as lying lower than the land . When the land was elevated above the waters the latter fell back into the lower level of the seas. Genesis 1:9-10. We should here observe that the use of images in worship is not always idolatry. Hence this second commandment is not to be confounded with the first, for it was assumed in the worship of the golden calf that the true God, who brought Israel out of Egypt, was honoured by means of the image. It has been persistently claimed by many religious leaders that the use of images in worship may be very helpful; they serve to concentrate the mind, and so prevent distraction of thought in one’s devotions. They deepen impressions, and so intensify and enliven the forms of worship. But all history shows that such employment of images in worship begets superstition, and turns the thought of the average worshipper more upon the creature than the Creator. The narrative of chapter 32 sets forth the unquestionable fact that the image-worship there described brought down the penal wrath of God upon the people. Such a method of promoting religious devotions is therefore fraught with great danger, and a perfect law required this prohibition of the use of graven images in worship.