Deu 4:16 | KingComments | STEP | For the second time Moses insists on watching carefully ( ), to avoid wickedness by making an image of God. How would they portray God? For they have not seen His likeness, but only heard His voice. If they did, they would take something from creation. There is nothing against the things in creation. Nevertheless, taking something that is created and loosening it from creation to make it an object of worship, is idolatry. Moses lists all the things that can be abused. He begins with the highest in creation on earth, man and woman, and descends to the lowest kind of creatures, after the example of which a graven picture can be made. Direct worship of heavenly bodies as a form of worship elevated above the earth is also an abomination to God. It is easy for man to come to worship heavenly bodies. They make a great impression by their height, their brilliance and their meaning for life on earth, while there is no thought of Him Who made them. Many are the sun worshipers, but few are the true worshipers of the Father who worship Him in spirit and truth ( ). Any form of idolatry is a great insult to Him and a great deceit to the idolater himself. The people of God are a redeemed people. God has redeemed His people, that they may be His own people. He has freed them from the “iron furnace, from Egypt”. An iron furnace is fired as hot as possible in order to process the metal afterwards. For Israel, Egypt had been a place of great distress and misery, where the fire of the trial had burned hot. Their liberation from that must have provided tremendous enlightenment. God wants His people to serve and honor Him alone and in the way He indicates. Any relationship that His people have with something He has created in order to give honor to it, which only He is entitled to, is sin. It is a denial of the special relationship He has with this people and the special work by which He has made them His own people. God had said that they would be His own people, and now that has become reality. The last words of , “as today”, sound like an exclamation that underlines the relationship of the people to God. It sounds like the exclamation “and we are” of John that immediately follows what he has spoken about the love that “the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God” ( ).

‏ Deuteronomy 4:16

Prohibition to Make Any Idol

For the second time Moses insists on watching carefully (Deu 4:9 ; 15), to avoid wickedness by making an image of God. How would they portray God? For they have not seen His likeness, but only heard His voice. If they did, they would take something from creation. There is nothing against the things in creation. Nevertheless, taking something that is created and loosening it from creation to make it an object of worship, is idolatry.

Moses lists all the things that can be abused. He begins with the highest in creation on earth, man and woman, and descends to the lowest kind of creatures, after the example of which a graven picture can be made. Direct worship of heavenly bodies as a form of worship elevated above the earth is also an abomination to God.

It is easy for man to come to worship heavenly bodies. They make a great impression by their height, their brilliance and their meaning for life on earth, while there is no thought of Him Who made them. Many are the sun worshipers, but few are the true worshipers of the Father who worship Him in spirit and truth (Jn 4:23). Any form of idolatry is a great insult to Him and a great deceit to the idolater himself.

The people of God are a redeemed people. God has redeemed His people, that they may be His own people. He has freed them from the “iron furnace, from Egypt”. An iron furnace is fired as hot as possible in order to process the metal afterwards. For Israel, Egypt had been a place of great distress and misery, where the fire of the trial had burned hot. Their liberation from that must have provided tremendous enlightenment.

God wants His people to serve and honor Him alone and in the way He indicates. Any relationship that His people have with something He has created in order to give honor to it, which only He is entitled to, is sin. It is a denial of the special relationship He has with this people and the special work by which He has made them His own people. God had said that they would be His own people, and now that has become reality.

The last words of Deu 4:20, “as today”, sound like an exclamation that underlines the relationship of the people to God. It sounds like the exclamation “and we are” of John that immediately follows what he has spoken about the love that “the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God” (1Jn 3:1a).