A bible study by Adam Osborne, JR.
COMMANDMENT #2
Exodus 20:4-6 “You shall not make for yourself an image (idol) in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 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, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Notes on Exodus 20:4-6
• v. 4 “idol†– peh’-sel – idol: – carved (graven) image.
• v. 5 “bow down†– shaw-khaw’ – prostrate (especially reflexively in homage to royalty or God): – bow (self) down, crouch, fall down (flat), humbly beseech, do (make) obeisance, do reverence, make to stoop, worship.
• v. 6 “keep†– shaw-mar’ – A primitive root; properly to hedge about (as with thorns), that is, guard; generally to protect, attend to, etc.
———————————————————————————————————————
ASK: Before we even begin today’s bible study, what does the 2ND Commandment scriptures above make you think of? Discuss.
ASK: What’s the difference between last week’s commandment and this week’s commandment? (last week: Thou shalt have no other gods before me) (This week: make no idols)
• (Matthew Henry’s commentary) As the first commandment requires the inward worship of love, desire, joy, hope, and admiration, so the second requires the outward worship of prayer and praise, and solemn attendance on God’s word.
ASK question: “What are some modern forms of idolatry?”
Basic Christianity by John Stott
“If the first commandment concerns the object of our worship, the second concerns its manner. In the first God demands our exclusive worship, and in the second our sincere and spiritual worship. For God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24).
We may never have manufactured some gruesome metal image with our hands, but what hideous mental image do we hold in our minds? Further, although this commandment does not forbid the use of all external forms in worship, it implies that they are useless unless there is inward reality as well. We may have attended church; have we ever really worshipped God? We may have said prayers, but have we ever truly prayed? We may have read the Bible, have we ever let God speak to us through it and done what he said?†Basic Christianity by John Stott .
MATTHEW HENRY COMMENTARY & MY NOTES ADDED ON EXODUS 20:4-6
The second commandment concerns the ordinances of worship, or the way in which God will be worshipped. Only God himself can tell us how to worship him.
• ASK: Did you notice something in verse 4 & 5? We are even forbidden here to worship even the true God by images,
• ASK: Why would God mind if we built alters in HIS image and worshipped that?
o We would start to eventually worship the image, not our God.
o How could we ever build anything as magnificent and marvelous as God?
Isa 40:18 With whom, then, will you compare God? To what image will you liken him?
o The Jews (at least after the captivity) thought themselves forbidden by this commandment to make any image or picture whatsoever. Hence the very images which the Roman armies had in their ensigns are called an abomination to them (Mat_24:15), especially when they were set up in the holy place.
Mat 24:15 15 “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand
o It is called the changing of the truth of God into a lie (Rom_1:25), for an image is a teacher of lies; it insinuates to us that God has a body, whereas he is an infinite spirit, Hab_2:18.
Rom 1:25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Hab 2:18 “Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman? Or an image that teaches lies?
For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.
• It also forbids us to make images of God in our fancies, as if he were a man as we are.
• Our religious worship must be governed by the power of faith, not by the power of imagination. They (Israel) must not make such images or pictures as the heathen worshipped, lest they also should be tempted to worship them.
• Those who would be kept from sin must keep themselves from the occasions of sin.
• They must not bow down to them occasionally, that is, show any sign of respect or honour to them, much less serve them constantly, by sacrifice or incense, or any other act of religious worship.
• When they paid their devotion to the true God, they must not have any image before them, for the directing, exciting, or assisting of their devotion.
• Though the worship was designed to terminate in God, it would not please him if it came to him through an image.
• CONSIDER THIS, I FOUND THIS VERY INTERESTING: The best and most ancient lawgivers among the heathen forbade the setting up of images in their temples. This practice was forbidden in Rome by Numa, a pagan prince; yet commanded in Rome by the pope, a Christian bishop. This is anti-christian.
o The use of images in the church of Rome, at this day, is so plainly contrary to the letter of this command, and so impossible to be reconciled to it, that in all their catechisms and books of devotion, which they put into the hands of the people, they leave out this commandment, joining the reason of it to the first; and so the third commandment they call the second, the fourth the third, etc.; only, to make up the number ten, they divide the tenth into two. Thus have they committed two great evils, in which they persist, and from which they hate to be reformed; they take away from God’s word, and add to his worship.
ASK/DISCUSS: God tells us to NOT make or worship Idols. Think about all your religious background, your training, your studying and reading. We know that He says do NOT do it, but in your mind, knowing God, what are the “reasons†that God would not want you to?
The reasons to not make idols (Exo_20:5, Exo_20:6),
• God’s jealousy in the matters of his worship: “I am the Lord Jehovah, and thy God, am a jealous God, especially in things of this nature.†This intimates the care he has of his own institutions, his hatred of idolatry and all false worship, his displeasure against idolaters, and that he resents every thing in his worship that looks like, or leads to, idolatry.
• Idolatry being spiritual adultery, as it is very often represented in scripture, the displeasure of God against it is fitly called jealousy.
• If God is jealous, then we should be so afraid of offering any worship to God other than as he has appointed in his word.
• The punishment of idolaters. God looks upon them as haters of him, though they perhaps pretend love to him;
• V5. He will visit their iniquity, that is, he will very severely punish it, not only as a breach of his law, but as an affront to his majesty, a violation of the covenant, and a blow at the root of all religion.
• PARENTS, LISTEN TO THIS: He will visit it upon the children.
o OK, “WHY†would God tell us that He will “visit it upon the children� Is that fair? What’s that all about?
 Children are dear to their parents; therefore, to deter men from idolatry, and to show how much God is displeased with it, the judgments of God may be executed upon the poor children when the parents are dead and gone.
 He will bring such judgments upon a people as shall be the total ruin of families. If idolaters live to be old, so as to see their children of the third or fourth generation, it shall be the vexation of their eyes, and the breaking of their hearts, to see them fall by the sword, carried captive, and enslaved.
 Nor is it an unrighteous thing with God (if the parents died in their iniquity, and the children tread in their steps, and keep up false worships, because they received them by tradition from their fathers), when the measure is full, and God comes by his judgments to reckon with them, to bring into the account the idolatries their fathers were guilty of.
 Though he bear long with an idolatrous people, he will not bear always, but by the fourth generation, at furthest, he will begin to visit. (OUCH…THINK ABOUT THAT COMMENT)
NOW, THE GOOD STUFF: The favor God would show to his faithful worshippers: Keeping mercy for thousands of persons, thousands of generations of those that love me, and keep my commandments.
• Note, First, Those that truly love God will make it their constant care and endeavour to keep his commandments, particularly those that relate to his worship.
• Those that love God, and keep those commandments, shall receive grace to keep his other commandments.
• Gospel worship will have a good influence upon all manner of gospel obedience.
• Secondly, God has mercy in store for such. Even they need mercy, and cannot plead merit; and mercy they shall find with God, merciful protection in their obedience and a merciful compensation for their faithfulness.
Thirdly, This mercy shall extend to thousands, much further than the wrath threatened to those that hate him, for that reaches but to the third or fourth generation. The streams of mercy run now as full, as free, and as fresh, as ever. MATTHEW HENRY COMMENTARY & MY NOTES ADDED ON EXODUS 20:4-6
For Teachers
Context and Commentary
When we think of idols, we immediately think of the golden calf from Exodus or the statue of Dagon (see below comments) in the Philistine temple. Paul wrote extensively on idols and idolatry and problems that Christians faced in dealing with idols and food sacrificed to them. That seems to be the most immediate application of this scripture. We are not to make images of God or other “deities†and bow down to them. However, not all idols are carved images or imaginary demi-gods and the lesson of this command is extendable beyond just graven images. Often times the sin of idolatry is more subtle, more deceptive than statues of Dagon. It slithers into our lives like its father the serpent until soon it is the object we spend a majority of our thoughts and energy on instead of God. It may be a sport, or an inanimate object like a car, or perhaps a person, even a spouse or child. Could it even be a nation or symbol of national pride?
TRIVIA OF THE DAY: Dagon was the god of the Philistines mentioned in the Old Testament in connection with the Ark of the Covenant. The Philistines placed the captured Ark in a temple of Dagon in Ashdod, before the statue of Dagon. The next morning they found the statue lying on its face on the temple floor. They set it upright again, but the morning after the statue was again lying face down on the floor, this time with its head and hands broken off. The Hebrews regarded this as a sign of the Ark’s power (see First Samuel 5:1-7). Dagon was a Semitic god adopted by the Philistines after their invasion of Canaan. Dagon (or Dagan) was worshipped in Mesopotamia at Ur in 2500 BC. His cult was popular among the Assyrians. He probably began his existence as a god of vegetation and evolved into a storm god.
The Hebrew name Dagon means “Great Fish.” The god was variously described as a fish god, an idol with the head and hands of a man and the tail of a fish, and as half-woman and half-fish. The woodcut from Kircher, shown above, adopts the latter representation. An identification or association was sometimes made between Dagon and the goddess Atargatis (or Atergata), who had the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a fish. Atargatis was worshipped in Carnaim, a town in Bashan (see the apocryphal text Second Maccabees 12:26). The fishtail on the goddess was said to represent her journey through the Underworld.
From Albert Barnes Notes on the Bible
On Exodus 2:4
Idol…Any sort of image is here intended. As the first commandment forbids the worship of any false god, seen or unseen, it is here forbidden to worship an image of any sort, whether the figure of a false deity Jos_23:7 or one in any way symbolic of Yahweh (see Exo_32:4).
Joshua 23:7 (NIV) 7 Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them.
Exodus 32:4 (NIV) 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods,[a] Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.â€
Bible Fellowship Time
Discussion questions:
1. What does the commandment specifically refer to?
a.
2. What is an idol or graven image in the context of the culture of ancient Israel or Canaan?
a.
3. One of the passages in this week’s reading was the 10th chapter of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians. What was Paul’s opinion of idols?
a. 1 Corinthians 10: 14-22 14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 15 I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf. 18 Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? 19 Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. 22 Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
4. What was Paul’s instruction regarding idols?
a.
Going Deeper – Matthew 17:1-9 & Mark 13:1-2
5. What is Peter’s reaction to the transfiguration?
a.
6. What elements of idolatry do we see in his reaction?
a.
7. Do we often try to hang on to things (people or memories in this case) instead of loving God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength, and all of our mind?
a.
8. What does God say regarding Moses and Elijah?
a.
9. In Mark 13, the disciples draw Jesus’ attention to magnificence and splendor of the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. What mistake in their thinking did Jesus point out to them in His prophecy?
a.
10. Is this a mistake Christians can make today? Give some examples.
Application:
God calls all people to look to Him alone in faith for salvation and worship. When we are reconciled to God we see clearly that He alone is God and worthy. But that doesn’t always seem to last in a practical sense, does it? Christians too can slowly fall into the sin of idolatry and grieve the Holy Spirit. Maybe not with graven images, but it happens when we give more authority to the created instead of the Creator. Subtly, these things can consume us and lead us astray like King Solomon who put his faith in his own wisdom or the Jews who put faith in their ancestor Abraham and the temple. Both put their faith in the created instead of Jehovah.
Are you placing your faith in an idol today? Do you give people or inanimate objects such as buildings more authority and higher standing than the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Do you let the cares of this world destroy your prayer life or worship? There is an old hymn that speaks of Christ’s all sufficiency:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
Closing Devotion
Samuel Rutherford, in his book The Loveliness of Christ wrote:
“How blessed are we to enjoy this invaluable treasure, the love of Christ; or rather allow ourselves to be mastered and subdued in his love, so that Christ is our all, and all other things are nothing. O that we might be ready for the time our Lord’s wind and tide call for us! There are infinite plies in his love that the saints will never be able to unfold. I urge upon you a nearer and growing communion with Christ. There are curtains to be drawn back in Christ that we have never seen. There are new foldings of love in him. Dig deep, sweat, labor, and take pains for him, and set by so much time in the day as you can; he will be won with labor. Live on Christ’s love. Christ’s love is so kingly, that it will not wait until tomorrow; it must have a throne all alone in your soul. It is our folly to divide our narrow and little love. It is best to give it all to Christ. Lay no more on earthly than it can carry. Lay your soul and your weights upon God; make him your only and best-beloved. Look up to him and love him. O, love and live! Let those who love this present world have it, but Christ is more worthy and noble portion; blessed are those who love him.â€
Question: “What are some modern forms of idolatry?”
Answer: All the various forms of modern idolatry have one thing at their core: self. We no longer bow down to idols and images. Instead we worship at the altar of the god of SELF. This brand of modern idolatry takes various forms.
DISCUSS: Whether or not you agree that “SELF†can be a form of Idolatry, the below is a good discussion that warrants consideration and comment:
First, we worship at the altar of materialism which feeds our need to build our egos through the acquisition of more “stuff.â€
• Our homes are filled with all manner of possessions.
• We build bigger and bigger houses with more closets and storage space in order to house all the things we buy.
• ASK: What ends up happening with a lot of that STUFF that we buy over time?
o It ends up in the garage or other storage space.
o Then we rush out to buy the newest item, garment or gadget and the whole process starts over.
• This insatiable desire for more, better, and newer stuff is nothing more than covetousness.
• Looking at “stuff†from God’s opinion, why does God know we will never be happy indulging our materialistic desires?
o Because it is Satan’s trap to keep our focus on ourselves and not on Him.
Second, we worship at the altar of our own pride and ego.
• This often takes the form of obsession with careers and jobs.
• ASK: How much time do you, men and women, spend per week at work?
• Millions of men—and increasingly more women—spend 60-80 hours a week working.
• ASK: What about your week-ends, how about your vacations?
• Even on the weekends and during vacations, our laptops are humming and our minds are whirling with thoughts of how to make our businesses more successful, how to get that promotion, how to get the next raise, how to close the next deal.
• ASK: Where do our children fit in to the balance?
o In the meantime, our children are starving for attention and love. We fool ourselves into thinking we are doing it for them, to give them a better life. But the truth is we are doing it for ourselves, to increase our self-esteem by appearing more successful in the eyes of the world.
• This is folly. All our labors and accomplishments will be of no use to us after we die, nor will the admiration of the world, because these things have no eternal value. As King Solomon put it, “For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless†(Ecclesiastes 2:21-23).
Third, we idolize mankind—and by extension ourselves—through naturalism and the power of science.
• This gives us the illusion that we are lords of our world and builds our self-esteem to godlike proportions.
• We reject God’s Word and His description of how He created the heavens and the earth, and we accept the nonsense of evolution and naturalism.
Finally, and perhaps most destructively, we worship at the altar of the fulfillment of the self to the exclusion of all others and their needs and desires.
ASK: Please give me some examples of what I am talking about “fulfillment of the self to the exclusion of all others and their needs and desires.â€
• This manifests itself in self-indulgence through alcohol, drugs, and food.
• Those in affluent countries have unlimited access to alcohol, drugs (prescription drug use is at an all-time high, even among children), and food.
• Obesity rates in the U.S. have skyrocketed, and childhood diabetes brought on by overeating is epidemic.
• The self-control we so desperately need is spurned in our insatiable desire to eat, drink, and medicate more and more.
• We resist any effort to get us to curb our appetites, and we are determined to make ourselves the god of our lives.
• This has its origin in the Garden of Eden where Satan tempted Eve to eat of the tree with the words “you will be like God†(Genesis 3:5). This has been man’s desire ever since—to be god and, as we have seen, the worship of self is the basis of all modern idolatry.
All idolatry of self has at its core the three lusts found in 1 John 2:16: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.â€
• If we are to escape modern idolatry, we have to admit that it is rampant and reject it in all its forms.
• It is not of God, but of Satan, and in it we will never find fulfillment. This is the great lie and the same one Satan has been telling since he first lied to Adam and Eve. Sadly, we are still falling for it.
• Even more sadly, many churches are propagating it in the preaching of the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel built on the idol of self-esteem.
• But we will never find happiness focusing on ourselves. Our hearts and minds must be centered on God and on others. This is why when asked what is the greatest commandment, Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind†(Matthew 22:37). When we love the Lord and others with everything that is in us, there will be no room in our hearts for idolatry.
Contact Adam