Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Exodus

[Zesty]

Can someone explain the following commandment rules in a way to someone who hasn't read much of the Bible?

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images."

[jimwalton]

In the ancient Near East (ANE), the idol mediated the presence of the god to the people because it was believed to contain the divine essence. It also was believed to be the avenue of revelation. Both of these ideas are quite misguided in Old Testament theology because they misrepresent who God is and how He reveals Himself.

Also in the ANE, the people of the surrounding polytheistic cultures believed that they had to meet the needs of the gods (food, water, etc.). This was also a ludicrous idea to ancient Israel.

The gods of the ANE were manifested in the heavenly bodies, the powers of nature, and the images that had been made to house their essence. In Israel, Yahweh is not associated with any image, and He controls the powers of nature but is not manifest in them. This commandment (the 2nd commandment about graven images) forbids that Yahweh be associated in this way with any created thing.

The command in Exodus 20.4-6 is that no image be used as the mediator of revelation or presence from deity to people, or as the mediator of worship from the people to Deity. The image reduced God in many ways to a distorted idea of what He was like: it implied His presence could be mediated through a man-made article, it implied that He had needs, and it implied that this local sculpture held sway over a locality. They are all false teachings about God, and hence the command. The command is not about sculpture or art. YHWH doesn't mediate his presence through an image. In Yahwism images are meaningless. That is not how YHWH works.

Dr. John Walton writes,

"Israel is known for being aniconic—that is, no crafted cult image served as a receptacle for the divine presence. People are the only image that YHWH tolerates. That means that all of the functions of the cult statue that were so central to temple ideology in the ancient Near East, if retained at all, had to be reassigned in Israel. ... Thus no parallel to the cult image is present in Israelite theology. Aniconism is observable in various ways in other times and places in the ANE, but it is not programmatic as it is in Israel. Total aniconism in the ANE outside Israel is unknown. The significance of this is far-reaching and cannot be overstated. Having images of other deities would, of course, be a violation of the covenant arrangement between YHWH and Israel.

"The role of images in the religious practices of the ANE can be best understood by investigating the way they were manufactured. The making of cult images to be used in the shrines and sanctuaries of the ancient world took place amid complex rituals that provided for the image to be approved by the god with the result that he/she would adopt the image into his/her identification. The material construction of the image (by the most skilled artisans, using the finest materials) was concluded by ritual processes that transformed (if not transubstantiated) the image so that it could take its rightful place in the sanctuary. Its ears, eyes, and nose were ritually opened so that it could function as the deity on earth. Much of its function entailed being able to receive the gifts of the people (food, drink, clothing, housing). In this way the image was central in the functioning of the Great Symbiosis (god meets our needs if we meet his). Through the images, the needs of the gods were met. Given this understanding, it is not surprise that images were forbidden in the worship of YHWH. This was one of the way that the Great Symbiosis was disrupted and rejected."