Endnote 28 – Did King Solomon Violate the Second Commandment?

But it is implied in Deuteronomy 4:15–19, where we read: “For your own sake, therefore, be most careful—since you saw no shape when the Lord your God spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire—not to act wickedly and make yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness whatever: the form of a man or a woman, the form of a beast on earth, the form of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the form of anything that creeps on the ground, the form of any fish that is in the waters below the earth…” (translation NJPS). A similar, chronologically older prohibition appears in Exodus 20:19–20 (20:22–23 in the KJV); the passage from Deuteronomy just cited is probably an expansion of it: “The Lord said to Moses: Thus shall you say to the Israelite: You yourselves saw that I spoke to you from the very heavens. With Me, therefore, you shall not make any gods of silver, nor shall you make for yourselves any gods of gold.” Since Israel has seen with their own eyes that YHWH has no form or shape, He cannot be represented legitimately by a corporal object.