The Second Commandment.
By Editor
"I WISH to know how you understand the second commandment. Does not 'graven image' include statues and busts? and are not all pictures, photographs, or paintings, 'likenesses'? and does not the commandment say in plain words, 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing'? If you believe in taking the fourth commandment as it reads, why not the second?" We understand the second commandment just "as it reads." In this respect we make no difference between it and the fourth. But our correspondent has not quoted it just as it reads. He has omitted an essential part of the commandment. The prohibitory part of the commandment reads thus:— "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." Ex. 20:4, 5. If the commandment said, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing," and said no more, it would certainly prohibit paintings, photographs, etc. Not only so, but would prohibit also the hewing of timbers for houses or ships, the cutting of garments, the coining of money, the drawing of plans by architects, or the printing of books and papers from types. In fact it would prohibit nearly everything that is done for the support of civilized life. But the commandment does not prohibit these things. On the contrary, immediately after the commandment was given, God instructed Moses to build a tabernacle according to a pattern, and on the walls and curtains of the tabernacle were made, by God's order, figures of cherubim, and two images of cherubim were placed upon the ark. If the second commandment had been designed to prohibit the making of any image or likeness, God would not have immediately charged the people to do that very thing. The commandment concerning images is not complete without these words: "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." This shows under what circumstances it is wrong to make images and likenesses. It is wrong to make them for the purpose of offering them even the slightest measure of worship or reverence. It is wrong to show reverence to images that others have made. It is wrong to bow down to any image, even though the worship of the heart is directed to the true God. This the commandment plainly teaches; and no one has a right to make it teach something different, by quoting only a portion of it.