The Second Commandment in Exodus 20:4 and Deuteronomy 5:8 prohibits making "any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath." Deuteronomy 4:16-18, 4:23, and 27:15 reinforce this as an absolute ban. But Exodus 25:18-20 has God himself commanding Moses to make two gold cherubim (winged images of heavenly beings) to cover the mercy seat, and Exodus 26:1 adds cherubim woven into the tabernacle curtains. God forbids images of heavenly beings and simultaneously commands images of heavenly beings.
Proposed answers
People have answered this in several ways; GEBible presents them as equal peers.
Yes, at least when they are designed and commissioned by God.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, ... Thou shalt make two cherubims of gold ... And the cherubims
shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with
their wings, and their faces shall look to one another. Exodus 25:1,
18-20
Thou shalt make ... with cherubims of cunning work. Exodus 26:1
18You shall make two cherubim of hammered gold. You shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat.19Make one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other end. You shall make the cherubim on its two ends of one piece with the mercy seat.20The cherubim shall spread out their wings upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces toward one another. The faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat.
1“Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, with cherubim. You shall make them with the work of a skillful workman.
4“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:
8“You shall not make a carved image for yourself—any likeness of what is in heaven above, or what is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
16lest you corrupt yourselves, and make yourself a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,17the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky,18the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth;
23Be careful, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he made with you, and make yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which Yahweh your God has forbidden you.
15‘Cursed is the man who makes an engraved or molten image, an abomination to Yahweh, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement— a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Leans toward reconciliation
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
The Second Commandment (Exod 20:4; Deut 5:8) forbids making "any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath," and Deuteronomy intensifies this (4:16-18, 4:23, 27:15) into a sweeping ban on likenesses of male, female, beast, bird, creeping thing, and fish. Yet in Exodus 25:18-20 God himself commands two golden cherubim — winged images of heavenly beings — over the mercy seat, and Exodus 26:1 has cherubim woven into the tabernacle curtains. God appears to forbid images of heavenly beings and then to command them.
The harmonization is strong and has internal biblical warrant. Its best form, defended by Sarna (JPS Exodus), Propp (AB), and Archer, reads 20:4 in light of the clause that immediately follows it: "thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them" (20:5). On this reading the prohibition is governed by cultic intent — the issue is images made as objects of worship, not iconography as such. The cherubim of the mercy seat and the curtains are theologically functional and decorative; no one bows to them, and the ark is precisely where God meets Moses rather than a worshipped object. The pattern recurs elsewhere: the bronze serpent of Numbers 21:8-9 is a divinely commanded image for healing, and when Israel later begins burning incense to it, Hezekiah destroys it (2 Kings 18:4) — confirming that the offense lay in veneration, not manufacture. Solomon's temple likewise displayed cherubim, lions, oxen, and pomegranates (1 Kings 7) without censure. On the worship-versus-making distinction, the apologetic reading is correct, and the Exodus 20 / Exodus 25 pairing genuinely resolves.
What the worship-versus-making reading does not erase is an internal diversity within the Pentateuch itself. The Deuteronomic strand, especially Deuteronomy 4:16-18, reads less like a prohibition on cultic images and more like a near-total ban on fashioning likenesses of any creature, grounded in the claim that at Horeb Israel "saw no manner of similitude" (4:15). Halbertal and Margalit (Idolatry) and Moberly (Old Testament Theology) argue that the Hebrew Bible carries at least two distinct iconic theologies: a permissive priestly strand in which divinely sanctioned images (cherubim, the bronze serpent) are unproblematic, and a stricter Deuteronomic strand tending toward thoroughgoing aniconism. Second-Temple Judaism inherited the stricter reading and radicalized it — hence the largely aniconic Hasmonean coinage, the violent removal of the golden eagle Herod set over the temple gate (Josephus, War 1.648-655), and later rabbinic unease with figural art. That the rule was never absolute even within Judaism is shown by the third-century CE synagogue at Dura-Europos, whose walls are covered with biblical figural scenes.
Weighing it: the apologetic reading wins the specific contradiction the SAB poses, because the Second Commandment, read with its own following clause and against the bronze-serpent and Solomonic precedents, plainly targets worship rather than craftsmanship. The SAB's framing — that God forbids and then commands images of heavenly beings — flattens that distinction. But the contradiction the SAB stumbles toward is real at a deeper level: the canon contains both a strand that comfortably commands cherubim and a strand that reads as a near-blanket prohibition on creaturely likenesses, and those strands are not fully harmonizable into a single consistent iconic policy.
Where the critical reading lands: partially harmonized — the worship/making distinction resolves Exod 20 vs. Exod 25, but the priestly and strict-Deuteronomic iconic theologies remain in genuine tension.
Sources for this reading
Nahum M. Sarna, Exodus (JPS Torah Commentary; JPS, 1991) on Exod 20:4Exodus 20:4
William H. C. Propp, Exodus 19-40 (AB 2A; Doubleday, 2006) on Exod 20:4 and 25:18-22Exodus 20:4, Exodus 25:18-22
Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit, Idolatry (Harvard University Press, 1992)
R. W. L. Moberly, Old Testament Theology (Baker Academic, 2013)
Michael B. Hundley, Gods in Dwellings (SBL Press, 2013)
Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary; JPS, 1996) on Deut 4:16-18Deuteronomy 4:16-18
Gleason L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Zondervan, 1982)
Examining the tension
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement — a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Leans toward reconciliation
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
The Second Commandment (Exod 20:4; Deut 5:8) forbids making "any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath," and Deuteronomy intensifies this (4:16-18, 4:23, 27:15) into a sweeping ban on likenesses of male, female, beast, bird, creeping thing, and fish. Yet in Exodus 25:18-20 God himself commands two golden cherubim — winged images of heavenly beings — over the mercy seat, and Exodus 26:1 has cherubim woven into the tabernacle curtains. God appears to forbid images of heavenly beings and then to command them.
The harmonization is strong and has internal biblical warrant. Its best form, defended by Sarna (JPS Exodus), Propp (AB), and Archer, reads 20:4 in light of the clause that immediately follows it: "thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them" (20:5). On this reading the prohibition is governed by cultic intent — the issue is images made as objects of worship, not iconography as such. The cherubim of the mercy seat and the curtains are theologically functional and decorative; no one bows to them, and the ark is precisely where God meets Moses rather than a worshipped object. The pattern recurs elsewhere: the bronze serpent of Numbers 21:8-9 is a divinely commanded image for healing, and when Israel later begins burning incense to it, Hezekiah destroys it (2 Kings 18:4) — confirming that the offense lay in veneration, not manufacture. Solomon's temple likewise displayed cherubim, lions, oxen, and pomegranates (1 Kings 7) without censure. On the worship-versus-making distinction, the apologetic reading is correct, and the Exodus 20 / Exodus 25 pairing genuinely resolves.
What the worship-versus-making reading does not erase is an internal diversity within the Pentateuch itself. The Deuteronomic strand, especially Deuteronomy 4:16-18, reads less like a prohibition on cultic images and more like a near-total ban on fashioning likenesses of any creature, grounded in the claim that at Horeb Israel "saw no manner of similitude" (4:15). Halbertal and Margalit (Idolatry) and Moberly (Old Testament Theology) argue that the Hebrew Bible carries at least two distinct iconic theologies: a permissive priestly strand in which divinely sanctioned images (cherubim, the bronze serpent) are unproblematic, and a stricter Deuteronomic strand tending toward thoroughgoing aniconism. Second-Temple Judaism inherited the stricter reading and radicalized it — hence the largely aniconic Hasmonean coinage, the violent removal of the golden eagle Herod set over the temple gate (Josephus, War 1.648-655), and later rabbinic unease with figural art. That the rule was never absolute even within Judaism is shown by the third-century CE synagogue at Dura-Europos, whose walls are covered with biblical figural scenes.
Weighing it: the apologetic reading wins the specific contradiction the SAB poses, because the Second Commandment, read with its own following clause and against the bronze-serpent and Solomonic precedents, plainly targets worship rather than craftsmanship. The SAB's framing — that God forbids and then commands images of heavenly beings — flattens that distinction. But the contradiction the SAB stumbles toward is real at a deeper level: the canon contains both a strand that comfortably commands cherubim and a strand that reads as a near-blanket prohibition on creaturely likenesses, and those strands are not fully harmonizable into a single consistent iconic policy.
Where the critical reading lands: partially harmonized — the worship/making distinction resolves Exod 20 vs. Exod 25, but the priestly and strict-Deuteronomic iconic theologies remain in genuine tension.
Sources for this reading