Exodus 20:4 Komentář

All things being prepared for the solemn promulgation of the divine law, we have, in this chapter, I. The ten commandments, as God himself spoke them upon mount Sinai (v. 1-17), as remarkable a portion of scripture as any in the Old Testament. II. The impressions made upon the people thereby (Exo 20:18-21). III. Some particular instructions which God gave privately to Moses, to be by him communicated to the people, relating to his worship (Exo 20:22, etc.).

INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 20 In this chapter we have an account of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai; the preface to it, Exo 20:1, the ten commandments it consists of, Exo 20:8, the circumstances attending it, which caused the people to remove at some distance, Exo 20:18, when they desired of Moses, that he would speak to them and not God, who bid them not fear, since this was for the trial of them; but still they kept at a distance, while Moses drew nigh to God, Exo 20:19 who ordered him to caution the children of Israel against idolatry, and directed what sort of an altar he would have made whereon to offer their sacrifices, promising that where his name was recorded he would grant his presence and blessing, Exo 20:22.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,.... An image of anything graven by art or man's device, cut out of wood of stone, and so anything that was molten, or cast into a mould or form, engraved by men, and this in order to be worshipped; for otherwise images of things might be made for other uses and purposes, as the cherubim over the mercy seat, and the brazen serpent, and images and impressions on coin, which we do not find the Jews themselves scrupled to make use of in Christ's time on that account; though they vehemently opposed the setting up any images of the Caesars or emperors in their temple, because they seemed to be placed there as deities, and had a show of religious worship: however, any image of God was not to be made at all, since no similitude was ever seen of him, or any likeness could be conceived; and it must be a gross piece of ignorance, madness, and impudence, to pretend to make one, and great impiety to make it in order to be the object of religious worship; on which account, not any image or the image of anything whatever was to be made: or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above; any form, figure, portrait, or picture of anything or creature whatever, whether in the supreme, starry, or airy heaven; as of angels, which some have gone into the worship of; and of the sun, moon, and stars, the host of heaven; and of any of the birds of the air, as the hawk by the Egyptians, and the dove by the Assyrians: or that is in the earth beneath; as oxen, sheep, goats, cats, dogs, &c. such as were the gods of Egypt: or that is in the water under the earth: as of fishes, such as were the crocodile of Egypt, the Dagon of the Philistines, and the Derceto of the Syrians: this is the second command, as the Targum of Jonathan expressly calls it; that is, the first part of it, which forbids the making of graven images for worship; the other part follows, which is the worship of them itself: Clemens of Alexandria (d) observes, that Numa, king of the Romans, took this from Moses, and forbid the Romans to make any image of God, like to man or beast. (d) Stromat. l. 1. p. 304.

The preface to the ten commandments, Exo 20:1, Exo 20:2. The First commandment, against mental or theoretic idolatry, Exo 20:3. The Second, against making and worshipping images, or practical idolatry, Exo 20:4-6. The Third, against false swearing, blasphemy, and irreverent use of the name of God, Exo 20:7. The Fourth, against profanation of the Sabbath, and idleness on the other days of the week, Exo 20:8-11. The Fifth, against disrespect and disobedience to parents, Exo 20:12. The Sixth, against murder and cruelty, Exo 20:13. The Seventh, against adultery and uncleanness, Exo 20:14. The Eighth, against stealing and dishonesty, Exo 20:15. The Ninth, against false testimony, perjury, etc., Exo 20:16. The Tenth, against covetousness, Exo 20:17. The people are alarmed at the awful appearance of God on the mount, and stand afar off, Exo 20:18. They pray that Moses may be mediator between God and them, Exo 20:19. Moses encourages them, Exo 20:20. He draws near to the thick darkness, and God communes with him, Exo 20:21, Exo 20:22. Farther directions against idolatry, Exo 20:23. Directions concerning making an altar of earth, Exo 20:24; and an altar of hewn stone, Exo 20:25. None of these to be ascended by steps, and the reason given, Exo 20:26.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image - As the word פסל pasal signifies to hew, carve, grave, etc., פסל pesel may here signify any kind of image, either of wood, stone, or metal, on which the axe, the chisel, or the graving tool has been employed. This commandment includes in its prohibitions every species of idolatry known to have been practiced among the Egyptians. The reader will see this the more plainly by consulting the notes on the ten plagues, particularly those on Exodus 12. Or any likeness, etc. - To know the full spirit and extent of this commandment, this place must be collated with Deu 4:15, etc.: Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves - lest ye corrupt yourselves - and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of Male or Female. All who have even the slightest acquaintance with the ancient history of Egypt, know that Osiris and his wife Isis were supreme divinities among that people. The likeness of any Beast - בהמה behemah, such as the ox and the heifer. Among the Egyptians the ox was not only sacred but adored, because they supposed that in one of these animals Osiris took up his residence: hence they always had a living ox, which they supposed to be the habitation of this deity; and they imagined that on the death of one he entered into the body of another, and so on successively. This famous ox-god they called Apis and Mnevis. The likeness of any winged Fowl - The ibis, or stork, or crane, and hawk, may be here intended, for all these were objects of Egyptian idolatry. The likeness of any thing that Creepeth - The crocodile, serpents, the scarabeus or beetle, were all objects of their adoration; and Mr. Bryant has rendered it very probable that even the frog itself was a sacred animal, as from its inflation it was emblematic of the prophetic influence, for they supposed that the god inflated or distended the body of the person by whom he gave oracular answers. The likeness of any Fish - All fish were esteemed sacred animals among the Egyptians. One called Oxurunchus had, according to Strabo, lib. xvii., a temple, and divine honors paid to it. Another fish, called Phagrus, was worshipped at Syene, according to Clemens Alexandrinus in his Cohortatio. And the Lepidotus and eel were objects of their adoration, as we find from Herodotus, lib. ii., cap. 72. In short, oxen, heifers, sheep, goats, lions, dogs, monkeys, and cats; the ibis, the crane, and the hawk; the crocodile, serpents, frogs, flies, and the scarabeus or beetle; the Nile and its fish; the sun, moon, planets, and stars; fire, light, air, darkness, and night, were all objects of Egyptian idolatry, and all included in this very circumstantial prohibition as detailed in Deuteronomy, and very forcibly in the general terms of the text: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in the Heavens above, or that is in the Earth beneath, or that is in the Water under the earth. And the reason of this becomes self-evident, when the various objects of Egyptian idolatry are considered. To countenance its image worship, the Roman Catholic Church has left the whole of this second commandment out of the decalogue, and thus lost one whole commandment out of the ten; but to keep up the number they have divided the tenth into two. This is totally contrary to the faith of God's elect and to the acknowledgment of that truth which is according to godliness. The verse is found in every MS. of the Hebrew Pentateuch that has ever yet been discovered. It is in all the ancient versions, Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac, Septuagint, Vulgate, Coptic, and Arabic; also in the Persian, and in all modern versions. There is not one word of the whole verse wanting in the many hundreds of MSS. collected by Kennicott and De Rossi. This corruption of the word of God by the Roman Catholic Church stamps it, as a false and heretical Church, with the deepest brand of ever-during infamy! This commandment also prohibits every species of external idolatry, as the first does all idolatry that may be called internal or mental. All false worship may be considered of this kind, together with all image worship, and all other superstitious rites and ceremonies. See Clarke's note on Exo 20:23.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. (Exo. 20:1-26) And God spake all these words--The Divine Being Himself was the speaker (Deu 5:12, Deu 5:32-33), in tones so loud as to be heard--so distinct as to be intelligible by the whole multitude standing in the valleys below, amid the most appalling phenomena of agitated nature. Had He been simply addressing rational and intelligent creatures, He would have spoken with the still small voice of persuasion and love. But He was speaking to those who were at the same time fallen and sinful creatures, and a corresponding change was required in the manner of God's procedure, in order to give a suitable impression of the character and sanctions of the law revealed from heaven (Rom 11:5-9).

Thou shalt not make . . . any graven image . . . thou shalt not bow down thyself to them--that is, "make in order to bow." Under the auspices of Moses himself, figures of cherubim, brazen serpents, oxen, and many other things in the earth beneath, were made and never condemned. The mere making was no sin--it was the making with the intent to give idolatrous worship.

The Second Word. - To the prohibition of idolatrous worship there is linked on, as a second word, the prohibition of the worship of images. "After declaring in the first commandment who was the true God, He commanded that He alone should be worshipped; and now He defines what is His lawful worship" (Calvin). "Thou shalt not make to thyself a likeness and any form of that which is in heaven above," etc. עשׂה is construed with a double accusative, so that the literal rendering would be "make, as a likeness and any form, that which is in heaven," etc. פּסל, from פּסל to carve wood or stone, is a figure made of wood or stone, and is used in Jdg 17:3. for a figure representing Jehovah, and in other places for figures of heathen deities - of Asherah, for example, in Kg2 21:7. תּמוּנה does not signify an image made by man, but a form which is seen by him (Num 12:8; Deu 4:12, Deu 4:15.; Job 4:16; Psa 17:15). In Deu 5:8 (cf. Exo 4:16) we find כּל־תּמוּנה פּסל "likeness of any form:" so that in this passage also וכל־תּמוּנה is to be taken as in apposition to פּסל, and the ו as vav explic.: "and indeed any form," viz., of Jehovah, not of heathen gods. That the words should be so understood, is demanded by Deu 4:15., where Moses lays stress upon the command, not to make to themselves an image (פסל) in the form of any sculpture (סמל), and gives this as the reason: "For ye saw no form in the day when Jehovah spake to you at Horeb." This authoritative exposition of the divine prohibition on the part of Moses himself proves undeniably, that פסל and תמונה are to be understood as referring to symbolical representations of Jehovah. And the words which follow also receive their authoritative exposition from Deu 4:17 and Deu 4:18. By "that which is in heaven" we are to understand the birds, not the angels, or at the most, according to Deu 4:19, the stars as well; by "that which is in earth," the cattle, reptiles, and the larger or smaller animals; and by "that which is in the water," fishes and water animals. "Under the earth" is appended to the "water," to express in a pictorial manner the idea of its being lower than the solid ground (cf. Deu 4:18). It is not only evident from the context that the allusion is not to the making of images generally, but to the construction of figures of God as objects of religious reverence or worship, but this is expressly stated in Exo 20:5; so that even Calvin observes, that "there is no necessity to refute what some have foolishly imagined, that sculpture and painting of every kind are condemned here." With the same aptness he has just before observed, that "although Moses only speaks of idols, there is no doubt that by implication he condemns all the forms of false worship, which men have invented for themselves." Exo 20:5-6 "Thou shalt not pray to them and serve them." (On the form תּעבדם with the o-sound under the guttural, see Ewald, 251d.). השׁתּחוה signifies bending before God in prayer, and invoking His name; עבד, worship by means of sacrifice and religious ceremonies. The suffixes להם and - ם (to them, and them) refer to the things in heaven, etc., which are made into pesel, symbols of Jehovah, as being the principal object of the previous clause, and not to כּל־תּמוּנה פּסל, although פּסל עבד is applied in Psa 97:7 and Kg2 17:41 to a rude idolatrous worship, which identifies the image as the symbol of deity with the deity itself, Still less do they refer to אחרים אלהים in Exo 20:3. The threat and promise, which follow in Exo 20:5 and Exo 20:6, relate to the first two commandments, and not to the second alone; because both of them, although forbidding two forms of idolatry, viz., idolo-latry and ikono-latry, are combined in a higher unity, by the fact, that whenever Jehovah, the God who cannot be copied because He reveals His spiritual nature in no visible form, is worshipped under some visible image, the glory of the invisible God is changed, or Jehovah changed into a different God from what He really is. Through either form of idolatry, therefore, Israel would break its covenant with Jehovah. For this reason God enforces the two commandments with the solemn declaration: "I, Jehovah thy God, am קנּא אל a jealous God;" i.e., not only ζηλωτής, a zealous avenger of sinners, but ζηλοτύπος, a jealous God, who will not transfer to another the honour that is due to Himself (Isa 42:8; Isa 48:11), nor tolerate the worship of any other god (Exo 34:14), but who directs the warmth of His anger against those who hate Him (Deu 6:15), with the same energy with which the warmth of His love (Sol 8:6) embraces those who love Him, except that love in the form of grace reaches much further than wrath. The sin of the fathers He visits (punishes) on the children to the third and fourth generation. שׁלּשׁים third (sc., children) are not grandchildren, but great-grandchildren, and רבּעים the fourth generation. On the other hand He shows mercy to the thousandths, i.e., to the thousandth generation (cf. Deu 7:9, where דּור לאלף stands for לאלפים). The cardinal number is used here for the ordinal, for which there was no special form in the case of אלף. The words לשׂנאי and לאהבי, in which the punishment and grace are traced to their ultimate foundation, are of great importance to a correct understanding of this utterance of God. The ל before שׂנאי does not take up the genitive with עון again, as Knobel supposes, for no such use of ל can be established from Gen 7:11; Gen 16:3; Gen 14:18; Gen 41:12, or in fact in any way whatever. In this instance ל signifies "at" or "in relation to;" and לשׂנאי, from its very position, cannot refer to the fathers alone, but to the fathers and children to the third and fourth generation. If it referred to the fathers alone, it would necessarily stand after אבת. וגו לאהבי is to be taken in the same way. God punishes the sin of the fathers in the children to the third and fourth generation in relation to those who hate Him, and shows mercy to the thousandth generation in relation to those who love Him. The human race is a living organism, in which not only sin and wickedness are transmitted, but evil as the curse of the sin and the punishment of the wickedness. As children receive their nature from their parents, or those who beget them, so they have also to bear and atone for their fathers' guilt. This truth forced itself upon the minds even of thoughtful heathen from their own varied experience (cf. Aeschyl. Sept. 744; Eurip. according to Plutarch de sera num. vind. 12, 21; Cicero de nat. deorum 3, 38; and Baumgarten-Crusius, bibl. Theol. p. 208). Yet there is no fate in the divine government of the world, no irresistible necessity in the continuous results of good and evil; but there reigns in the world a righteous and gracious God, who not only restrains the course of His penal judgments, as soon as the sinner is brought to reflection by the punishment and hearkens to the voice of God, but who also forgives the sin and iniquity of those who love Him, keeping mercy to the thousandth generation (Exo 34:7). The words neither affirm that sinning fathers remain unpunished, nor that the sins of fathers are punished in the children and grandchildren without any fault of their own: they simply say nothing about whether and how the fathers themselves are punished; and, in order to show the dreadful severity of the penal righteousness of God, give prominence to the fact, that punishment is not omitted-that even when, in the long-suffering of God, it is deferred, it is not therefore neglected, but that the children have to bear the sins of their fathers, whenever, for example (as naturally follows from the connection of children with their fathers, and, as Onkelos has added in his paraphrase of the words), "the children fill up the sins of their fathers," so that the descendants suffer punishment for both their own and their forefathers' misdeeds (Lev 26:39; Isa 65:7; Amo 7:17; Jer 16:11.; Dan 9:16). But when, on the other hand, the hating ceases, when the children forsake their fathers' evil ways, the warmth of the divine wrath is turned into the warmth of love, and God becomes חסד עשׂה ("showing mercy") to them; and this mercy endures not only to the third and fourth generation, but to the thousandth generation, though only in relation to those who love God, and manifest this love by keeping His commandments. "If God continues for a long time His visitation of sin, He continues to all eternity His manifestation of mercy, and we cannot have a better proof of this than in the history of Israel itself" (Schultz). (Note: On the visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the children, see also Hengstenberg, Dissertations, vol. ii. p. 446ff.)