“You shall make no cast idols for yourselves.
Not to make idols even for others
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
אֱלֹהֵי מַסֵּכָה לֹא תַעֲשֶׂה־לָּךְ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מעשות ע"ז לזולתנו כדי שיעבוד אותה ואפילו היה מי שיצוה אותו לעשותה עכו"ם. והוא אמרו יתעלה אלהי מסכה לא תעשה לך. ולשון ספרי לא תעשה אפילו לאחרים ושם נאמר העושה ע"ז לעצמו עובר משום שני לאוין רוצה לומר שהוא עובר על עשותה בידו ואפילו עשאה לזולתו באשר התבאר בזאת המצוה השלישית, ועובר גם כן משום שקנה ע"ז ושהה אצלו ואפילו עשאה לו זולתו כמו שקדם במצוה השנית ולכן ילקה שתי מלקיות. וכבר התבאר דין מצוה זו עם מה שלפניה במסכת ע"ז. (קדושים תהיו, מדע הלכות ע"ז שם):
That He prohibited us from making an idol for those besides us, in order that they serve it - and even if the one who commanded [us] to make it was a gentile. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "do not make molten gods for yourselves" (Leviticus 19:4). And the language of the [Sifra] (Sifra, Kedoshim, Section 1:12) is, "'Do not make' - even for others." And there it says, "One who makes an idol for himself transgresses on account of two negative commandments." [This] means to say that he transgresses on making it with his hands - even if he made it for someone besides himself - as is explained in this third commandment; and he also transgresses on account of acquiring an idol and keeping it with him, even if someone besides him made it for him, as that which came before in the second commandment. And hence, he receives two [sets of] lashes. And the law of this commandment and the one before it has already been explained in Tractate Avodah Zarah. (See Parashat Kedoshim; 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
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.21-31 rationalized it
- De Decalogo 66-76 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Antiquities 3.91 affirmed it
- Against Apion 2.190-192 rationalized it
The New Testament
- Acts 19:23-27 carried a parallel Demetrius the silversmith and the trade in Artemis shrines provide a thematic illustration of the idol-production economy, not a direct reception of the Exod 34:17 molten-gods prohibition; Acts frames Christian preaching as threatening that craft
- 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 carried a parallel Paul affirms 'an idol is nothing' and confesses monotheism while addressing participation in idol-related food/commerce; not a reinterpretation of an image-manufacture prohibition but a parallel affirmation of idol-nullity
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 21:51-67 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 conviction that a cast or carved divine image, once consecrated, becomes the embodied presence of the deity; Exodus 34:17's ban on molten gods (elohei massekhah) targets participation in precisely this image-production-and-animation economy, even as craftsman for others Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast Mesopotamian mīs pî / pīt pî ('washing/opening of the mouth') ritual, by which a newly manufactured cult statue was ritually animated as the locus of divine presence Walker & Dick, The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian Mīs Pî Ritual (State Archives of Assyria Literary Texts 1, 2001)
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 freedom to manifest religion through observance and practice; extending the image prohibition to making idols for third parties restricts artisans' ability to serve the religious practices of others and encroaches on those others' own freedom of religious expression.
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Article 18
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
ICCPR Article 18(1) protects freedom to manifest religion in practice and worship; prohibiting the manufacture of cult objects for adherents of other religions, and enforcing that prohibition with corporal punishment, conflicts with both the manufacturer's and the recipient's rights under this article.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
Violation is subject to lashes (disputed); no contemporary legal system imposes corporal punishment for crafting religious objects intended for another person's use.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; applying lashes for supplying another person with a religious artifact 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 crafting idols for others remains de jure in Orthodox legal discourse.