If I were to ask you to name the Ten Commandments, how many could you get? For me, it would be probably be half off the top of my head (that’s disappointing to me too, for what it’s worth).
We would most likely all get the main ones: don’t murder, honor your father and mother, and keep the Sabbath, to name a few.
How many of us would remember the one about “not making graven images”? Is that high on your list?
We forget the second commandment a lot, probably because it sounds so much like the first one: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” If anything, we assume God is repeating Himself because (a) the prohibition against idolatry is so severe, and (b) God wants His name respected above all.
I have no problem with that line of reasoning. But God gave us the second commandment for a reason. Deuteronomy 4:15 tells us what it is.
In this section, God is reminiscing with Israel about their time at Mt. Sinai during the giving of the Law. He reminds them that they “did not see any form” on that day. They only heard a voice; there was no physical representation of Jehovah at that moment.
At the time, they might not have thought much about it—although Moses certainly did, since he asked to see God’s glory in person (Exodus 33:17-20).
God goes on to prohibit graven images of any kind, such as the likenesses of animals, humans, insects, fish, or stars. Nothing you can see with your eyes can be created to represent the unseen.
Why is that? Why does God care so much about people not making things that represent Him?
Think back to the golden calf incident in Exodus 32. When Aaron finished that project, he said, “Behold, this is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!”
Aaron did exactly what God eventually said not to do—make a physical image that represents the form of God.
Jehovah’s reaction was swift and fierce. Moses crushed the image, made them drink it, then let the tribe of Levi slaughter thousands of offenders. God was furious, threatening to kill every last one of the Israelites.
But again… why?
Far be it from me to speak for God, but it seems like the issue is that you can’t compartmentalize the immortal into something that is mortal. The unseen can’t be seen.
Think about it. If you claim to worship an all-powerful God, and yet make Him take the form of a lizard, you are unintentionally saying that God only has as much power as a lizard. In people’s minds, He is limited by the form He takes.
You just can’t do that with God. His ambiguity makes Him even more powerful and grander than we can imagine, because our very imagination is limited by the things we see around us.
God is greater than all of that. A graven image is an insult to the God of Heaven.