God has put on my heart a burden to revisit the 2nd commandment which He gave to Moses on Mount Sinai after the exodus from Egypt. For a review, I will first post the 10 Commandments:
The second commandment here reads: You shall make no idols. This is the crux of the commandment. However, I will post fuller versions from the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy below.
“You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.” ~Exodus 20:4-6
And
“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. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” ~Deuteronomy 5:8-10
“Idol” in the hebrew language is פֶּסֶל or pesel. This means simply a graven image, something that is hewn or carved from a material. Idols were formed to be worshiped in ancient times as written about in the Old Testament, such as the golden calf, the Asherah pole, or any of the multitudinous statues of baal or other gods placed in temples or the high places.
“Likeness” in the Hebrew language is תְּמוּנָה or tmûwnâh. It means something portioned (i.e. fashioned) out, as a shape, i.e. (indefinitely) phantom, or (specifically) embodiment, or (figuratively) manifestation (of favor):—image, likeness, similitude.
So there are two parts to this very important (and longest) law given to God’s people. We are not to make an idol (object) OR likeness (image) of anything we can see in the sky, on earth, or in the sea. Likeness is the look of something that resembles something else. Note that it can even be figurative, or a phantom which implies immaterial. I think of demons that we imagine or sometimes catch glimpses of in photographs or in the middle of the night, etc.
Not only are there are two parts of this commandment as a whole, but the first part of the 2nd Commandment also has 2 parts. And this same verbiage is reiterated in different places in the bible to make sure we understand that it isn’t just the object itself that God prohibits but it is also the image of the object He prohibits us creating. In this way He is covering all manner of photographic imagery we can conjure, even in to–and beyond– our modern time!
He tells us firstly, do not make any hard idols from any images you can imagine. Secondly, He then follows it with the commandment: Do not bow down and worship those images and idols you might create.
Some Christians in their vain attempt to continue in idolatry of images and photographs, cherry-pick this commandment to mean that God is saying it’s okay to make images, as long as you don’t worship said images. But that is not accurate. He clearly sets 3 distinct sentiments forth in this longest 3-part commandment: Don’t make any idols or images of anything you can see or imagine, don’t worship them, and if you do this, I will bless your bloodline forever and if you don’t, I will curse your bloodline.
I have to wonder about the most prevalent and obvious images of our time: Photographs. Photography was invented in the 1800s and was applied to paper which created a ‘graven image’ hewn on paper. 200 years later, that process now is immaterial or digital and the graven image is now in binary code or pixels or electronically stored in our phone, projected screens, or printed out into hard copies. God’s word tmûwnâh, or likeness, as we have seen covers the possibility of this and says that it is forbidden. So even in our modern times, the same bible principles apply to us as they did in more primitive times. If we had no ability to make print or digital images, we would probably also be tempted to fashion a golden calf for ourselves, like those ‘stubborn’ Hebrews did when Moses led them out of slavery. How many of us have clucked when reading that story and thought to ourselves how far advanced we are compared to them!
This is such a deep and heavy topic because media has pervaded our lives in an infinite number of ways. As the camera got better at capturing images on paper, men invented ways of transmitting those images over the air waves (television), and now those pictures can be transmitted more efficiently than ever and sent across the globe in a matter of seconds (internet). Anything we can imagine, real or not, can be made into an image with the potential of becoming an idol.
Should it be any surprise to us that children (and adults) who spend the majority of their lives on the computer are depressed. This is Satan’s main way of capturing man. It’s a futurist form of slavery, a slavery of the mind, not unlike the imaginary world depicted in the Matrix movies. I can’t think of one Christian who would say that you shouldn’t take a picture or paint a picture of something, but that is clearly what the 2nd Commandment states!
All these images, scenes, photos, movies, documentaries, pictures, artwork are simply–in their most basic form–distractions from God. Distractions from God are idols. Whether we want to acknowledge the truth of this in our lives is up to us. No one wants to give up an idol because it gives us some sort of secret delight, some sort of sinful pleasure. But God is a jealous God, and He wants all our attention focused on Him so He can bless us and our children, and their children, and so on.
As I wrap up this blog of mine, I am grateful for its purpose in my life: To give me a place to put my thoughts, feelings, and research as I yearn to know God. But I hope to journey forward into a place that I will follow all His commandments in my life, even beyond the 10. And I think there, in that place, my life will simply unfold in the present moment and pass away without a visual record, as He intended all along~ Here today, gone tomorrow.
All that matters is that He is glorified, not me, not you, not anyone or anything else. Just God.
~Song of Mary~ 