In any case it is certain that there were “likenesses of that which is in the sky above and on earth below and in the waters” in the orthodox Jewish cult. It may be that the word translated “graven image “-PSL-already had a technical sense, meant more than a statue, and included the idea of “idol” though this does not explain the difficulty of the next phrase VKL-TMVNH ASR KSMYS, since TMVNH can hardly be made to mean more than “representation” WO, to “think of”, then to “form”, “represent”).
#Commandments memory pictures full
It is the statues made and used with the full approval of the authorities which show that the words, “Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image”, were not understood absolutely and literally. The many cases of idolatry and various deflections from the Law which the prophets denounce are not, of course, cases in point. Throughout the Old Testament there are instances of representations of living things, not in any way worshipped, but used lawfully, even ordered by the law as ornaments of the tabernacle and temple. Any attempt to represent the God of Israel graphically (it seems that the golden calf had this meaning-Ex., xxxii, 5) is always put down as being abominable idolatry.īut, except for one late period, we notice that the commandment was never understood as an absolute and universal prohibition of any kind of image. This law obtained certainly as far as images of God are concerned. In distinction to the nations around, Israel was to worship an unseen God there was to be no danger of the Israelites falling into the kind of religion of Egypt or Babylon. How likely they were to set up a graven thing as a strange god is shown by the story of the golden calf at the very time that the ten words were promulgated.
If they made statues or pictures, they probably would end by adoring them. One could understand so far-reaching a command at that time. The people are not only told not to adore images nor serve them they are not even to make any graven thing or the likeness-it would seem-of anything at all. Still any one who reads it might see in the other words too an absolute command. It is of course obvious that the emphasis of this law is in the first and last clauses-”no strange gods”, “thou shalt not adore them”.
Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them” (Ex., xx, 3-5). Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. The First Commandment would seem absolutely to forbid the making of any kind of representation of men, animals, or even plants: “Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.
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