“You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
Not to make any idol or graven image
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־תַעֲשֶׂה לְךָ פֶסֶל וְכָל־תְּמוּנָה אֲשֶׁר בַּשָּׁמַיִם מִמַּעַל וַאֲשֶׁר בָּאָרֶץ מִתָּחַת וַאֲשֶׁר בַּמַּיִם מִתַּחַת לָאָרֶץ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מעשות ע"ז לעבוד, ואין חלוק בין שעשאה בידו בין שיצוה לעשותה. והוא אמרו יתברך לא תעשה לך פסל וגו'. ומי שעבר על לאו זה חייב מלקות, רוצה לומר לאו עשיית ע"ז ואף על פי שעשאה לו זולתו במצותו ואפילו לא עבד אותה. (וישמע יתרו, מדע הלכות ע"ז וחקות העכו"ם פ"ג):
That He prohibited us from making an idol to serve - and there is no difference whether one made it with his hands or commanded that it be made. And that is His, may He be blessed, saying, "You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image" (Exodus 20:4). And one who transgressed this negative commandment - meaning the negative commandment of making an idol - is liable for lashes. And [this is the case] even if someone besides him made it for him, and even if he did not worship it. (See Parashat Yitro; Mishneh Torah, Foreign Worship and Customs of the Nations 3.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a prohibition
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
- Lashes (malkot)
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative Binding
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite Binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Genesis Rabbah 38:13 expanded it homiletically
- Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Bahodesh 6 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Decalogo 66-76 rationalized it
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.21-31 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Ant. 3.91-92 affirmed it
- Against Apion 2.190-192 rationalized it
The New Testament
- Acts 17:29 expanded it homiletically Paul at the Areopagus argues the divine is not like gold, silver, or stone shaped by human craft
- Romans 1:23 expanded it homiletically Paul indicts exchanging the glory of God for images of mortal humans and animals
- 1 John 5:21 expanded it homiletically Keep yourselves from idols
The Church Fathers
- Tertullian, De Idololatria 3-5 affirmed it
- John of Damascus, Contra imaginum calumniatores oratio I (Apologia I) reinterpreted it
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 21:51-58 carried a parallel
- Q 6:74 carried a parallel
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- mesopotamian incantation series the Mesopotamian 'mouth-washing/mouth-opening' ritual transforms a manufactured statue into the living locus of the deity's presence; Exodus 20:4 categorically rejects this image-animation theology by prohibiting the manufacture of any divine representation Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast Mīs pî / pīt pî incantation tablets (Nineveh and Babylonian recensions; STT 199 and parallels) Walker and Dick, The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian Mīs Pî Ritual (State Archives of Assyria Literary Texts 1, Helsinki, 2001)
- ugaritic texts Ugaritic mythology presupposes cultic images and divine statuary as normal vehicles of divine presence; the Israelite prohibition of any carved or cast image contrasts with this West Semitic norm Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast KTU 1.3–1.4 (Baal Cycle: divine imagery and the presence of Baal in his temple) Smith and Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle (Brill, 1994, 2009); Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (SBL, 2002)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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UDHR Article 18
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
UDHR Article 18 protects the freedom to manifest religion in practice and observance; prohibiting adherents of other religions from manufacturing cult objects for their own worship restricts the physical expression of non-Israelite religious practice under a regime that enforces this norm through corporal punishment.
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Article 18
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
ICCPR Article 18(1) protects the freedom to manifest religion in worship and observance; a state-enforced prohibition on making religious images conflicts with that right when applied universally or coercively beyond the consenting religious community.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
Violation carries thirty-nine lashes (malkot); no contemporary legal system imposes corporal punishment for the manufacture of religious or artistic objects.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; inflicting thirty-nine lashes for the act of carving or casting a religious image constitutes such treatment.
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rabbinic tradition
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Malkot requires a functioning Sanhedrin; the corporal sanction is de facto suspended, though the prohibition on manufacturing images remains de jure binding in Orthodox halakha.