What are Idols in the Bible?
When the Bible warns against having idols, what does it mean? Is there a difference between an idol and a statue, and what did the original writers of the bible texts mean by these ideas?
During my childhood, my strict church prohibited the presence of statues in the sanctuary due to the belief that they were considered idols. Even if the figure was of Christ, it was still considered idolatry. This belief differs from other church denominations that embrace the use of statues in their worship spaces. Idolatry is a charge that is often directed towards these denominations.
The Bible and Idols
Various biblical texts are selected to show that statues in the Church are idolatrous, the foremost being the second of the Ten Commandments:
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me..
Exodus 20:4,5 (NRSV)
Other selected texts include:
Do not turn to idols or make cast images for yourselves: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:4 (NRSV)
Isaiah is known for his strong criticism and opposition towards idols, as evidenced by his vocal parodies and polemics as seen in chapter 44:
All who make idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit; their witnesses neither see nor know. And so they will be put to shame. 10 Who would fashion a god or cast an image that can do no good? 11 Look, all its devotees shall be put to shame; the artisans too are merely human. Let them all assemble, let them stand up; they shall be terrified, they shall all be put to shame.
The blacksmith fashions it and works it over the coals, shaping it with hammers, and forging it with his strong arm; he becomes hungry and his strength fails, he drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line, marks it out with a stylus, fashions it with planes, and marks it with a compass; he makes it in human form, with human beauty, to be set up in a shrine. He cuts down cedars or chooses a holm tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it can be used as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, makes it a carved image and bows down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he roasts meat, eats it, and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, ‘Ah, I am warm, I can feel the fire!’ The rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, bows down to it, and worships it; he prays to it and says, ‘Save me, for you are my god!’
Isaiah 44:9-17
Evidently, the Israelites considered idolatry abhorrent, given that their previous and surrounding cultures were polytheistic, depicting their gods through carved images.
Carvings and Images in God’s Holy Places
Regarding the instructions for building the Tabernacle, the Temple, and the Ark of the Covenant, we can see that skilled artisans were employed to create rich and beautiful artwork. The images depicted trees, plants, fruit, and even spirit beings such as the cherubim, which were carved as statues and incorporated into these structures and objects.
On the Ark of the Covenant were two cherubim statues, sanctioned by God:
Then you shall make a mercy-seat of pure gold; two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its width. You shall make two cherubim of gold; you shall make them of hammered work, at the two ends of the mercy-seat. Make one cherub at one end, and one cherub at the other; of one piece with the mercy-seat you shall make the cherubim at its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy-seat with their wings. They shall face each other; the faces of the cherubim shall be turned towards the mercy-seat. You shall put the mercy-seat on the top of the ark; and in the ark you shall put the covenant that I shall give you. There I will meet you, and from above the mercy-seat from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the covenant
Exodus 25:17-22a (NRSV)
The curtain separating the Holy of Holies was to have cherubim embroidered into it:
You shall make a curtain of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and of fine twisted linen; it shall be made with cherubim skilfully worked into it.
Exodus 26:31
The carrying out of these commands is discussed in Exodus 36-37, so it’s clear they were not only sanctioned but also crafted and incorporated into the Tabernacle’s fixtures and fittings.
In 1 Kings 6, we read of the construction and installation of two statues of cherubim for the First Temple:
In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high.
1 Kings 6:23,27,28 (NRSV)
He put the cherubim in the innermost part of the house; the wings of the cherubim were spread out so that a wing of one was touching one wall, and a wing of the other cherub was touching the other wall; their other wings towards the centre of the house were touching wing to wing.
He also overlaid the cherubim with gold.
Furthermore, cherubim and other carvings were incorporated into the Temple
He carved the walls of the house all round about with carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, in the inner and outer rooms… He covered the two doors of olive wood with carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers; he overlaid them with gold, and spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees… on the borders that were set in the frames were lions, oxen, and cherubim. On the frames, both above and below the lions and oxen, there were wreaths of bevelled work… On the surfaces of its stays and on its borders he carved cherubim, lions, and palm trees, where each had space, with wreaths all round… Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the most holy place, underneath the wings of the cherubim.
1 Kings 6:29,32; 7:29,36; 8:6 (NRSV)
The words of 1 Kings are echoed in 2 Chronicles 3 and 5.
All the above imagery of cherubim and other carvings in the Tabernacle and Temple seems contradictory to God’s prohibition against idolatry. However, we are looking at this from a particular mindset that was not present in biblical times. The Israelites viewed statues differently from idols.
God even told Moses to create a bronze snake and lift it up so the nation could look at it and live, if bitten by one of the fiery snakes that were amongst them.
And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent [Hebrew: seraph], and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’ So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
Numbers 21:8-9
The bronze seraph was meant to be observed for its protective, healing properties, not worshipped, reminding the people of the seraphim – God’s ‘bodyguards’ with flaming swords that would deal out instant death to those who attempted unauthorised access into the Holy of Holies.
Unfortunately, over time, the bronze seraph transformed into cultic worship object that was placed in the temple, until it was removed and destroyed during the reign of King Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4).
The Differences between Idols and Statues
So what are idols according to the Bible and how did they compare with understanding an idol in contemporary literature?
First, we should note that the second part of the Second Commandment reads:
You shall not bow down to them or worship them
Exodus 20:4 (NRSV)
Therefore, the intentional act of worship is the single intended purpose of an idol, similar to when Aaron made the golden calf and the Israelites worshipped it (Exodus 32). However, the carvings and statues within God’s holy places were not items to be worshipped, despite being covered in gold. This is precisely why such statues and images were permitted by a God whose creative power is seen in the vast diversity within the creation.
Idols and the Opening the Mouth Ritual
The Hebrews lived along the trade routes connecting Egypt and Mesopotamia, giving them exposure to the customs, beliefs, and rituals of neighbouring civilizations. As such, we must look at their literature in order to answer our original question of what are idols in the Bible.
When it came to the creation of the object that was to be consecrated and become an idol, even the act of crafting it was ritualistic in and of itself, as Blackman[1] describes, which took up to three stages, each with several steps before being taken to the place where it would finally become an idol. This entire process would take two days.[2]
Among the remaining seven stages were two rituals which needed to be performed before the final enthronement of the idol as a god:
- The Washing of the Mouth (Egyptian wpt-r, Akkadian mīs-pî) – a purification ritual in which the vessel (object or person) was to be placed on a reed mat, in front of an altar to Ea or Marduk, with the craftsmen’s tools around it and a libation poured out to the aforementioned gods. Here the intended idol was ritually cleansed and made fit for the god’s indwelling through censing and a sacrificial animal. Its lips would be washed three times with the various liquids from these stages, including butter and / or milk.
- The Opening of the Mouth (Akkadian pīt-pî) – further libations were performed for the inanimate object where its lips were washed a fourth time, including touching them with a one of the crafter’s tools. This was the animation step which was believed to turn a lifeless statue into a living, breathing, eating being capable of accepting sacrifices of food and incense etc. Clothing, anointing and feeding the object would be performed at this stage, and the various elder gods would have sacrifices performed to them at sunrise.
These transformed statues or living beings into manifestations of fully functional divine beings, after which the object/person was placed into its place of use, whether a family home or the high temple of that divine being, and enthroned there.
As you can see, there’s a huge difference between the purpose, intent and ritual acts required in transforming a statue into an idol.
It was never believed in ancient times that the idol itself was the god(dess) that it represented, save for some interpretations in later Classical times.[4] Ancient Mesopotamian texts may suggest the statue was a god, but they also state that a god could call for their idol to be remade if damaged or destroyed, and that making an idol was a combination of human effort and divine inspiration.[5]
There was understood to be a distinction between the physical material that the idol was crafted from, and the spiritual nature of the one alleged to inhabit it. This is shown when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines and placed in the temple of their god, Dagon, before his idol (1 Samuel 5:2-7). Although the idol was decapitated and its hands cut off, the priests of Dagon didn’t believe Dagon himself was destroyed, merely that he was subordinate to the God of Israel; as the passage tells us, Dagon worship continued, though the priests of Dagon were especially careful around the idol afterwards.
The later prophets particularly pick on the idea that a physical object was never considered a ‘true god’ in their polemics.[6] Lundberg and Matson discuss in their papers instances in which these prophets ridicule the Opening of the Mouth ritual[7] using parody to mock the supposed opening of a human or creature’s mouth. Two examples are:
What use is an idol
Habakkuk 2:18-19 (NRSV)
once its maker has shaped it—
a cast image, a teacher of lies?
For its maker trusts in what has been made,
though the product is only an idol that cannot speak!
Alas for you who say to the wood, ‘Wake up!’
to silent stone, ‘Rouse yourself!’
Can it teach?
See, it is plated with gold and silver,
and there is no breath in it at all.
For the customs of the peoples are false:
Jeremiah 10:3-5 (NRSV)
a tree from the forest is cut down,
and worked with an axe by the hands of an artisan;
people deck it with silver and gold;[8]
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so that it cannot move.
Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field,
and they cannot speak;
they have to be carried,
for they cannot walk.
Do not be afraid of them,
for they cannot do evil,
nor is it in them to do good.
What are some specific idols in the Bible?
When we look at the idols in the Bible, we find two very famous ones:
- The golden calf of Aaron (Exodus 32)
- The golden statue of Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 3)
We also find another type of statue mentioned – the teraphim – which are now understood to be ancestral figurines which were consulted for divinatory purposes (Judges 17:5; 18:14,17,18,20; 2 Kings 23:24; Ezekiel 21:21; Hosea 3:4; Zechariah 10:2). [9] These would have been the family idols that Rachel stole from her father, Laban (Genesis 31:34).
All of these were originally statues that were given divine status by rituals that would have been performed in order to transform them from an ordinary statue (such as the cherubim in the temple) to a cultic image of worship.
Summary
When answering the question of what idols are in the Bible, we see clearly that they were not merely statues, but were understood to be physical representations of various gods. In the polemics of the prophets, they are not called ‘true gods’ because those gods cannot be made by human hands. The spiritual nature gods of the nations is discussed further in our articles on Fallen Angels and the Bulls of Bashan, where these were understood to be true gods, created as sons of God originally, but not the eternal, uncreated God, known as Yahweh to the Israelites.
Bibliography
DDD – Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible
Blackman, A. M. (1924), ‘The Rite of Opening the Mouth in Ancient Egypt and Babylonia’, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Apr. 1924), pp. 47-59. Online here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3853998
Lundberg, M. J. (2007), ‘The Mis-Pi Rituals and Incantations and Jeremiah 10:1-16′ in Goldingay, J. (Ed.) Uprooting and Planting: Essays on Jeremiah for Leslie Allen, NY, New York: T & T Clark International, pp. 210-227. Available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uprooting-Planting-Jeremiah-Library-Testament/dp/0567029522
Matson, J. M. (2013), ‘Idol Remains: Remnants of the Opening of the Mouth Ritual in the Hebrew Bible’, Studia Antiqua, 12:1, pp. 30-50. Online here: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1204&context=studiaantiqua
Van der Toorn, K., Van der Horst, P. W., et al (1998), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Lieden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers. Available Here: https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/dictionary-of-deities-and-demons-online
Footnotes
[1] Blackman, 49-51. ^
[2] Lundberg, 211. ^
[3] Blackman, 55. ^
[4] Lundberg, 212. ^
[5] Lundberg, 213. ^
[6] Lundberg, 216-217. ^
[7] Matson, 40-49; Lundberg. ^
[8] Note, this is a favourite proof text for those who hate Christmas and want to label Christmas trees as idols. As we have seen in this article, nobody fashions a Christmas tree (real or plastic) into an idol by performing any Opening of the Mouth ritual upon it. Such ideas are anti-contextual understanding of Scripture in nature and are flights of fancy. ^
[9] DDD, Teraphim, 844-850. ^
