What is a graven image?
A graven image is a carved or shaped object — wood, stone, silver, gold — set up to stand for God or for some power behind the visible world. The second of the Ten Commandments bans making one, which raises two questions worth answering: why is a mere object so dangerous, and does the ban still touch people who own no statues?
What the Word Covers
The command reaches further than statues of foreign gods. It shuts down every attempt to give the unseen a visible form.
F. B. HoleIn 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 claiming to be an image of Him is forbidden. Many other powers exist, both invisible and visible, and no representations of these are to be made. All the idols of the nations are strictly forbidden.
Sincere Intentions, Same Sin
Israel's golden calf was not a switch to another god. It was an attempt to make the real one visible — and the excuse used then is still used now.
L. M. GrantThey probably excused their idolatry, as many do today, by saying this was only an image made to represent God, but God forbade any such images (Ex. 20:4). In fact, though things like this are claimed to be only representations, it is very soon that the thing itself becomes the god that people worship.
Why No Likeness Will Do
The problem is not poor craftsmanship. Nothing in the material world is capable of carrying what God is, so every image drags Him downward.
F. W. GrantDid he think that gold and silver and stone — dead matter, carved 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"? They could not represent the spiritual! They could only degrade it by such likenesses.
The Image Has Everything but Life
Scripture's mockery of idols turns on a simple comparison. The idol has every organ and no function; the maker is more alive than the thing he made.
The Bible TreasuryGod was unseen, yet He saw everything that went on. These gods could be seen, but could not see. God was the living God, who lived in heaven. These had the form of living creatures, but were without life, and were found on earth... How could a dying creature make a living God to save him? What need of a God has the one who can make one?
The Jealousy Behind the Ban
The reason God gives for the command is His own jealousy. One writer connects that jealousy directly to Christ, who is the one true image God Himself has given.
Samuel RidoutGod is jealous of giving His glory to another, but that only underlines the fact that the Son is one with the Father. All images that man might make can only provoke jealousy — but here is "the image of the invisible God." He is jealous for His Son, "that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father."
Images Nobody Carved
Commentators are clear that the command is not finished when the statues are gone. What the heart puts first functions as an idol, whatever it is made of.
C. H. MackintoshIt is not at all necessary to bow down to a block of wood or a stone in order to be an idolater. Whatever commands the heart is an idol; the yielding of the heart to that thing is idolatry, and the one who yields it is an idolater... Take that one great, crying, universal sin of "covetousness." What does the inspired apostle call it? He calls it "idolatry." How many hearts are commanded by money!
The same warning is put another way: the invisible image is the more dangerous one, because it can sit comfortably beside correct beliefs.
F. W. GrantAnd it need not be a visible or open image to do this. What a warning there is for us in this attempt, as it really is, to have a god after our own thoughts, which is always in opposition to the true God... and this, as we know, may be found among those who are in every other respect most orthodox.
Summary
- Definition. A graven image is any carved or cast object made to represent God or an unseen power — the command bans the attempt itself, not just foreign gods.
- Excuse. "It only reminds me of God" was Israel's defence at the golden calf; the representation soon becomes the thing worshipped.
- Reason. Dead matter shaped by human skill cannot carry what is spiritual; it can only drag God down to a creature's level.
- Contrast. The idol has mouth, eyes and hands but no life; the living God is unseen yet sees everything, and God's jealousy is jealousy for His Son, the true image of the invisible God.
- Reach. Whatever commands the heart is an idol — which is why covetousness is called idolatry, and why a god shaped by our own thoughts can hide behind sound doctrine.