You shall not make for yourself an image,
or any manner of likeness, in the form
of anything in heaven above or on
the earth beneath or in the waters below.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them...
~Exodus 20:4-5
This is another Commandment that actually means more than people usually think it does. People think this merely refers to carving some idol, say of Baal or Asherah or some pagan entity, and then bowing down to worship and sacrifice to them. They say that this is not an issue anymore for most people at least in the West so keeping this Commandment is unproblematic.
Oh, foolish people. Most people are completely unaware how deep this Commandment goes, and what a condemnation on our modern society it represents. Let me see if I can break it down some.
Part I: What Is Idolatry
An idol in the broadest sense is anything that you place more value on than you do G-d. In a very limited sense ancient idol worshipers were more perceptive than idolaters today because they placed the focus of their attention on a spiritual plane. A demonic spiritual plane, but still spiritual in a sense. The idols were middlemen to the satisfaction of desire: sometimes desire to have a good crop this year or to have your sheep multiply or to get the love object of your desire or money or to kill your enemies. Modern man, he cuts out the middleman and pays no attention to the source, he just gets straight to the object of desire. He's way more businesslike in that way.
Advertisers use images to seduce to desire. Like a prostitute in a brothel window, they show their stuff in advertisements so as to arouse unthinking primitive urges. As far as G-d is concerned, there is no difference between a sexy ad trying to get you to buy a product, and an idol to Dagon (the fish-man god of the Canaanites.) The idol to Dagon is actually more subtle and less overt. But if what is desired is the corruption of the soul, why do you need Dagon or the rest? Get directly straight to the business at hand: getting people to value created things more than they do the Creator. Dagon and the rest are a spiritual appendix, they aren't needed anymore. People don't need their gods to make their corruption decent to themselves anymore.
I was actually conflicted about even showing these images, this is the visual whoring used to advertise these days, but I feel it is acceptable to do so for an educational purpose. I hope the more refined among us can forgive me for showing these, I know they turn my stomach. What feelings are aroused by these advertisements? Do they have anything do to with the actual products being sold? THIS is idolatry, these are graven images:
These are images designed to please your most unregenerate self. The third image almost looks like the beginning of a choreographed gang rape. The message sent by these ads have little to nothing to do with the actual products being sold. They are designed to please our demonic impulses. The evolved idolatry of today does not call Dagon or Asherah or Moloch or Baal gods. Human appetites are the modern gods, humans make themselves their gods. Their belly and parts lower than that are their gods.
ANY image that invites to idolatry, whether that is the worship of pagan gods or of sex itself, is included under the ban against graven images. Think about it: the idol is just wood or stone. It is nothing of itself. What matters is the mentality behind it and the intent. That mentality doesn't even need to be overt as it is in these images. What it needs is a wrong heart, a wrong spirit and a wrong intent. It can even be a very little thing in our minds, as I will show.
Part II: What Images Are Proscribed?
If you are very careful, you will see the wording of Exodus 20:4-5 above, and that some Bibles and perhaps your Bible does not express it in exactly that way. The words above are the closest transliteration from Hebrew. You can see a word-for-word transliteration from Hebrew here: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/exodus/20-4.htm
Now lets compare that to the NIV. The Christian Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek and then into English, whereas the Tanakh is a direct translation from Hebrew, but I don't think this is the fault of the original translation into Greek (the Septuagint.) I think this is the fault of the compilers of the NIV:
You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
~Exodus 20:4 NIV
Notice that the language is specific: an image. One image, not some other. Not all images. That is not at all what Exodus 20:4 says. Exodus 20:4 says:
any image, or any manner of likeness.
What does the KJV say? "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness." Which aside from the archaic thees and thous, is just about right. So this is not a problem with the Greek Septuagint. It's a problem with the NIV. Why would it be translated this way? Well, because Christian churches are tolerant of images, some more than others.
What would be included under this ban against images? Let's take it down from the most obvious to the least obvious.
Would images of Mary and the Saints be included? Yes.
Would any image of Jesus Christ be included? Yes. Jesus Christ is believed by Christians to be the incarnation of G-d, so any image of Jesus is intended to be an image of G-d. It's not, but that is the intent.
Would the representation of the Cross itself be included? No with qualifications. It is technically not included under Exodus 20:4 because it is not an image of a created being. It is arguably still an idolatrous image, but not technically under Exodus 20:4
Okay, hold on to your hats, things are about to get real.
If I paint a painting of a tree in my front yard, just a normal painting of a tree, is that included?
YES.
Why should that be so? I am not going to argue that this is not what Exodus 20:4 says, it clearly says ANY image or ANY manner of likeness. I am just going to ask the question, why should this be so?
It is said, "only G-d can make a tree." And that's absolutely true. Humanity in all its technological power could never dream of making anything like a tree, it is the expression of a genius far beyond our ken. Now by manipulating the stuff of life we might create something similar, but that would be plagiarism. We didn't create the fundamental machinery, we're just hacking it. Such a thing would also be an abomination.
Now a painting of a tree is not merely a matter of plagiarism. This is going to be a hard concept, bear with me.
What is one big difference between my painting and a real tree?
The tree is alive.
It is a being of some kind. Metaphorically, the breath that animated us animates them. What human beings are fond of doing all the time is turning living things in the world into dead concepts in our minds. Capitalism is great at this, turning living forests into so many cords of wood, ignoring the living world that is being destroyed in the process. My painting is a way of making that tree dead, of not recognizing its livingness which was given to it by G-d. Now you may still think I am full of stuffing, bear with me.
In ancient Hebrew, vowels were never written. We have the consonants for the name of G-d but not the vowels; if the vowels were ever known they have long been forgotten. What is the difference between consonants and vowels? In consonants, the breath stops. Say the sounds of these letters: t, k, b. Your breath is stopped short, isn't it? Not so with vowels. For the ancient Hebrews, breath represented life itself and the unwritten vowels represented the flow of life which is always dynamic, always moving. So the consonants, being static and unliving like rocks, can be written. The vowels, the breath, which is living were not written. This was a primordial understanding of the Hebrew people that Life should not be represented, it was beyond representation. And it is also said that G-d Himself IS life and the origin of the same. The life, the breath (and even trees breathe) is from G-d and transcends human representation. How much more G-d himself?
The Muslims are right on this part: representation of any living being is to some extent idolatry.
Part III: Who is G-d?
The 2nd Commandment ultimately addresses how we should respect G-d, even if it has application to all these other things. G-d is unrepresentable. You shall not make an image intending that image to in any way represent Him. Indeed you should not make an image of any created being, but especially not an image of a created being that is meant to represent Him. So pics of Jesus are straight out; G-d was never a man and an image of a man intended to represent such man as G-d is straight out of the question. It is a flagrant violation of the 2nd Commandment.
Indeed it says in Exodus that the Israelites originally did not even know G-d's name. Arguably we still don't, He is beyond naming. Devout Jews call him Hashem: The Name. The unknowable name. They also call Him Adonai, which simply means "Lord." When Moses asked G-d at the burning bush what he should tell the Israelites His name is, G-d did not answer directly. He said,
"I Am that I Am. Tell them 'I Am' sent you."
What the Lord was saying, was that His reality cannot be expressed through anything other than His existence: His livingness and power transcends any attempt to encapsulate it. He is the rushing living water that utterly destroys any attempt to enclose it in banks. He cannot be represented in any way whatsoever, not even a name.
And ultimately this is what this commandment is saying. We derive from it prohibitions on idolatry, but the inverse of idolatry that is being aimed at here is our acknowledgement and reverence of the living moving unnameable indefinable unrepresentable G-d.
Part IV: A Jealous G-d?
The part right after the prohibition against images states: "I your G-d YHWH am a jealous G-d" and also that G-d will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their sons and also show mercy to thousands of those who love Him and keep His commandments.
Whoa. See, this is the sort of thing that people have a problem with.
Let's deal with the first part first: G-d is a jealous G-d. Elsewhere it says that G-d is an impassioned G-d. This is the first sort of thing that liberal-minded churches are going to edit out or otherwise explain away. Something like:
"Naw son, that ain't a thing. G-d is love and loves everybody and forgives everybody and ain't putting the smite down on no one. That's just those bronze age idiots in the Middle East talking."
Yeah, well if you say that you might as well throw out the entire Tanakh (or Old Testament if you are a Christian,) because an impassioned G-d is entirely consistent with everything the Tanakh says. G-d is an impassioned G-d. Deal with it, or toss your Old Testament in the trash, because that is what you are doing when you deny what the Tanakh actually says. What stupifies me beyond belief is so many churches who essentially do that very thing. It's mind-blowing, the churches that condone what G-d forbids. I blame Paul for that, once you start saying that the message of the Tanakh can be modified or watered down for the masses, it can be modified out of existence.
In any case, what does our aversion to the idea of an impassioned G-d say about us? That we would prefer a G-d who does not give a damn? That would be very convenient for the worldly. But that is clearly not the G-d of the Tanakh: he is an impassioned G-d, a consuming fire. Praise be to Him. Who the heck wants a G-d that doesn't care? Someone who wants to break that G-d's laws, that's who.
Now, an even worse thing to modern sensibilities follows: that G-d visits the iniquity of the fathers on their sons. But is that not what we actually see? Abusive fathers create abusive sons. Drug-abusing fathers make drug-abusing sons. Now this is not to say that the son of a man who hates the Lord cannot be redeemed from that condition. What it means is that there is always a price paid, that son will always have to deal with the baggage that his father brought down on him. I know that full well, my own dad hated religion with a passion. He never formulated it to me in precisely this way, but if I had ever spoken to him about the Lord G-d of Israel, he would have expressed hatred towards Him. He definitely expressed hatred towards Christianity (which I am not a Christian but I was once.) Whether you consider it a direct expression of a natural law (evil and corruption sows evil,) or a direct act of G-d, the result is the same. Children suffer consequences for the iniquities of their parents. That's a fact.
Part V: Personal Note
I am actually an artist, so obeying this Commandment has very personal implications for me. Since coming to understand fully this Commandment, I cannot make art that represents created beings. I could still technically make abstract or geometric art, I just haven't thus far. You may regard this as a shame, that less art will come into the world. I honestly regard the simplest weed as a far greater work of art than anything I could ever make. Things that we disregard and trod under our feet all the time. All honor is due to Adonai, He is the only real Creator.
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