What is a graven image?

Images were of two descriptions: they were cut or hewn out of a block of stone, and fashioned into some likeness. Dagon, the god of the Philistines, had face, head, and hands, being, as is supposed, half fish and half man. 1 Sam. 5:3-4. The gods made of a tree were also doubtless wrought, at least rudely, in the form of some living or imaginary creature. But there were also MOLTEN IMAGES, as the golden calf, which was first cast and then shaped more exactly with the graving tool. Ex. 32:4: cf. Acts 17:29. Yet Israel had been expressly forbidden to make 'any graven image' to bow down to or to worship. Ex. 20:4-5. The Gentile also, led on by Satan, made his own god, and worshipped it, turning his eyes away from God's 'eternal power and divinity' which are manifest in His works. Rom. 1:20-23.

The word pesilim is commonly translated 'graven images,' or 'carved images'; therefore in Judges 3:19, 26 the word is better rendered as in margin of A.V. 'graven images.' It is not supposed to refer to a place where stone was excavated, but to some images or blocks of stone so called which stood there.

The language of these laws is absolute and peremptory. “You shall” or “you shall not.” No allowance is made for any deviation. First, no other god could be allowed to take God's place. Nothing must in any way be used even to represent God, no image, no likeness of anything in creation must have any place of spiritual honor in people's minds. This is idolatry. Even pictures of this kind were forbidden (Num. 33:52)

In the first three commandments God demanded that His rights as Creator, and their Redeemer from bondage, should be respected. He alone is God, so they were in the first place to recognize no other "god."

In the second place they were to make no attempt to have an image or material representation of any unseen power. God is "in heaven above," and anything purporting to be an image of Him is forbidden. Many other powers there are both invisible and visible, and no representations of such are to be made. All the idols of the heathen are strictly forbidden, and in this connection the warning is issued as to the sins of the fathers descending in retribution on the children. God knew how terribly infectious such idolatrous practices are; and, that if the fathers start them the epidemic rages with tenfold virulence in the children, and brings down the judgment upon their heads.

The first commandment is absolutely basic, "You shall have no other gods before Me" (v.7). For immediately another god is introduced, whatever people say about it, it is not merely added as an object alongside of God, but it is always put before God. Some may claim it is only intended as a reminder of God, but this is Satan's deception, for such things will always give a wrong conception of God.

The second commandment is related to the first, forbidding the making of images of any created thing, whether in heaven or earth or in the waters (v.8). Bowing down to such things or worshiping them is an insult to God. Israel did this in the case of the golden calf (Ex.32:1-8), but God is rightly jealous of His own glory, and if the fathers are guilty of such iniquity, God will visit the results of this upon the children to the third and fourth generation (v.9). It is always true that our children will suffer because of our disobedience to God. This does not affect the question of eternal salvation, for any one of the children may still call on the Lord and be saved, but their lives on earth will be affected by their parents' wrongdoing. If a man is a robber, his children will suffer on earth because of this, but they can still be saved eternally by receiving Christ as Savior.

The first commandment plainly affirms the unity of God: it also affirms His exclusive sovereignty.

The second forbids idolatry, — the abasing Him to some creature-conception. (See Rom. 1:23.)

The third requires the hallowing of His Name, — that which stands for what He really is as revealed. These three commandments thus guard the grand primary truth upon which all others rest, for faith and practice. They are different in character from the fourth, so that this last has been by some of old transferred to the second division; but in fact, this only shows that the 4 here is, as usually, a 3 + 1. The difference sustains, therefore, the numerical arrangement.

But alas, how far he had got! Was man indeed the offspring of God? and did he think that gold and silver and stone, — dead matter, graven by human skill into some resemblance of himself, could be a worthy representation of the divine? Could the eyes and ears and bodies of men, — things of which God could have no possible need for seeing or hearing — represent that in which they were "in His image"? The spiritual they could not represent! they could only degrade it by such similitudes.

The image of jealousy presents, first, the general thought which underlies all that follows here. God will not give His glory to another. Hence any self-devised image of Him, which must of necessity be man's imagination, must be a challenge of the One only to be known by revelation, otherwise unsearchable. It is impossible indeed for man's thoughts to get beyond himself. Thus the image of God which he devises must be only in some way a reflection of himself; but this is the debasement of God to man's own likeness. The question is asked in Job as an unanswerable one: "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" Whatever the witness of creation therefore (true witness as it is), God never really left man to that. He declared Himself, as Scripture assures us, at the beginning; and it was man who voluntarily got away from this, banished himself into the darkness and distortion of his own thoughts.

And still this image of jealousy is that which threatens us all. It stands, as it were, at the very entrance when we would approach God Himself. And it need not be a visible or open image to do this. What admonition there is for us in this endeavor, as it really is, to have a god after our own thoughts, which is always in opposition to the true God? Thus "covetousness," the apostle tells us, "is idolatry;" and this, as we know, may be amongst those who are in all other respects most orthodox. But the heart after its own object, seeking that which gratifies itself (although it never satisfies), will have a god according to its own thought; while in name He may abide just what He was, and all the points of orthodoxy be preserved.

Man needs that which is greater than himself, a power outside the world, a being who can speak to him and assure his heart and conscience, and any religion without such assurance is worth nothing as a reality. The ancient Egyptian wanted to hear a voice, or at least to receive direction from the unseen World, and in order to obtain this communication, idols became a necessity to him. Whether it be the intellectual and cultivated, or the ignorant and savage pagan, idols or fetishes are to him indispensable. It is through them that communications are held with the unseen, and that magic and sorcery are performed. If the people be too rude to construct an image, stocks and stones are resorted to for the purpose.

Now, in itself, "an idol is nothing." (1 Cor. 8:4.) The outward form it possesses is of small moment. Some are made with consummate evil looks, others are charmingly seductive, but it is by no means the effect produced upon the imagination which we have to consider. An idol is not a mere image, it is a consecrated image, and after consecration to the deity represented, the idol becomes the habitation of the deity, and according to the system, the deity takes up his or her abode in the idol, or, at least, uses it as a medium through which communications are made to his or her clients. This principle is as old as Chaldea and Egypt, and as modern as our own day as may be proved, for example, by the habits and beliefs of the Chinese.

As to the sacrificing being to demons, the same thing is said of the idolatry at Corinth, with its Grecian mythology. 1 Cor. 10:20. Satan being the real promoter of it all, he knows how to lead a poor unintelligent heathen to be satisfied with an imaginary fetish; the Greeks and Romans to be pleased with their stately statues; and the Brahmins and Hindus to pride themselves in their superior and refined mysticism. Satan has also succeeded in introducing into the professing church the worship of the Virgin Mary and of the saints. To this must be added another species of idolatry to which Christians are sometimes enticed, namely, that of letting anything but Christ have the first place in the heart; for in Him God is revealed, He "is the image of the invisible God" — "He is the true God." "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." 1 John 5:21. The word εἴδωλον is from εἶδος, 'that which is seen,' and covetousness is specially characterised as idolatry. Col. 3:5.