The First Three Commandments
I came across something I hadn’t thought of before about the Idolatry Commandments. I was preparing a 3rd grade art project that had to do with sculpture and in my research of the ancient versions of that art form, I found that most of the articles found were probably about deities or religious ceremonial items - like the Venus of Hohle Fels.
I also planned a “cuneiform tablet” project planned and we are going to pick one of the 10 Commandments to write in that style. That caused me to look at the 10 Commandments. This is where my question came in:
What would it look like to "serve” and idol? I understand bowing to it and praying to it but serving it? Was that like when they sacrifice things and leave it food and so on? Here is the verse and there are a couple others with the same terminology:
“You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved 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.
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Exodus 20:3-6 (ESV)
I couldn’t find any answers about that specifically but below is a note from Jonathan Edwards and I found it interesting:
Exo. 20:3-7. The three first commandments. The first commandment respects the object of worship; and especially forbids those things in worship that are against God the Father.
The second commandment respects the means of worship; and especially forbids those things in worship that are against God the Son, that it should not be by other lords and mediators instead of Christ, the Lord our God, who is, as it were, the husband of His people, and is a jealous God, a jealous husband, that will not bear spiritual adultery. This commandment forbids our making use of other images in our worshipping God besides Christ, who is "the image of the invisible God, the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person," by which image alone God makes known Himself and sets forth Himself, and shows His glory as the fit object of our worship; for we behold "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The Heathen had images that they might have something present with them as representatives of the Deity that was absent; but Christ only is our Immanuel or "God with us."
The third commandment forbids those things in worship that are especially against the Holy Ghost, even the unholy manner of worship. We ought, when we come to God to worship Him, to come by the son, that we may come by right means; and we ought to come by the Holy Spirit, that we may worship with a right spirit and in a holy manner. These sins against the Holy Spirit are represented as peculiarly exposing persons to Divine vengeance without forgiveness, agreeable to what we are taught in the New Testament.
Jonathan Edwards' Notes on the Scriptures.
I haven’t been creating very much lately but these are somewhat recent – I did them to submit for t-shirt designs:
