People committed idolatry in a variety of ways, from setting up pagan altars at special locations to hold sacrifices to worshipping plants or animals or worshipping human beings. However, the way the idol is made is not the point.

Moses was enraged when he came down the mountain and saw what was going on and threw down the two tablets inscribed with the commandments.Ī good lawyer might have tried getting the Israelites off by pointing out to Moses that the golden calf was a molten image, not a graven image (which has to be carved or sculpted). The Israelites got impatient, and Moses’ brother Aaron melted down gold to make an idol in the form of a calf for the people to worship ( Exodus 32:1-4).

Perhaps the classic example of people making an idol comes while God was giving Moses the 10 Commandments and other laws on Mount Sinai. Isaiah 44’s story of the carpenter making a wooden idol is one of the numerous verses in the Old and New Testament that reference idolatry. What Is the History of Idolatry in the Bible? So, the point is not that God has a problem with creating images in and of itself he has a problem with idolatry. Isaiah 44:13-20 describes this action with the story of a carpenter who cuts down a tree and uses half the wood to cook food and the other half to make an idol. However, Biblical scholars have generally agreed that the phrase refers to “ household idols,” statues that pagans made as personal gods to worship and pray to. Some fundamentalist groups over the centuries have taken this to mean that people should not make artwork of any kind. The command is reiterated in Leviticus 26:1, which says, “You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God.” Generally, Protestants refer to it as the second commandment, building on the commandment “you shall have no other gods before me” ( Exodus 20:3). This is one of the 10 Commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, depending on your Bible translation or tradition its order may change.

The phrase comes from Exodus 20:4, which in the King James translation reads, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” What Is a Graven Image according to the Bible? It gets to the heart of a classic temptation that every human faces: the temptation to worship and glorify something other than God. Changes in language aside, the concept is actually very important. It is very easy for something to get in the way of our relationship with God. That’s the purpose of the second commandment 3,500 years ago.Unless you grew up reading the King James Bible, the term “graven image” probably sounds a bit old-fashioned. Is there anything today (even something “innocent” in and of itself) that has become a graven image or mini-god to us? For some, the earth itself has become a god to be worshiped. For others, it’s the remote control. Our phones. Our computers. Our social media. Our kids’ ball games. Our jobs. Our prestige. Our money. Our credit cards. Our bucket list. 18:4). Something innocent had become a god to them. What about us? 20:4). That’s so “3,500 years ago”! Fast forward about 700 years from Exodus 20 and God’s people had hung on to “the bronze serpent” Moses made in Numbers 20 to save the people from the fiery serpents, and for centuries they worshiped and “burned incense to it” (2 Kgs. Growing up and memorizing the Ten Commandments, the second commandment seemed so obvious that it’s not even necessary to teach it today. Right? “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” (Ex.

Graven images biblical