Deuteronomy 4:9-24: a reflection

9Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children’s children— 10the day that you stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, when the LORD said to me, “Assemble the people to me, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.” 11You came near and stood under the mountain. The mountain burned with fire to the heart of the sky, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. 12The LORD spoke to you out of the middle of the fire: you heard the voice of words, but you saw no form; you only heard a voice. 13He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even the ten commandments. He wrote them on two stone tablets. 14The LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it. 15Be very careful, for you saw no kind of form on the day that the LORD spoke to you in Horeb out of the middle of the fire, 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; 19and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky. 20But the LORD has taken you, and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as it is today. 21Furthermore the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not go over the Jordan, and that I should not go in to that good land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance; 22but I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan, but you shall go over and possess that good land. 23Be careful, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the LORD your God has forbidden you. 24For the LORD your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.

Moses reminds Israel of the day at Sinai when God spoke to them out of the fire, and he draws a careful lesson from a striking detail: You saw no form of any kind on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire; you heard only a voice. Because they saw no form, Moses warns, they must not make any image of God, not in the likeness of any figure, animal, or heavenly body. God had deliberately not shown himself in any form, so that his people would not reduce him to an image.

Notice the reason behind the warning. God has no form we can capture; he cannot be reduced to a statue, a picture, a manageable representation. When we make an image of God, we inevitably shrink him, distort him, fashion him into something we can see, handle, and control, something less than he truly is. Because God is beyond any form, Moses warns, do not make him into one; worship the God who truly is, not an image of your own making.

That warning reaches beyond carved statues to the images of God we make in our minds. We are all tempted to reduce God to a manageable idea, to fashion a version of him we find comfortable, one that fits our preferences and stays under our control, an idol of the imagination. But such a made God is not the true God; he is our own creation, smaller and tamer than the real one. Resist the temptation to reduce God to an image, whether of wood or of thought. Worship the God who is, in his full reality and holiness, not a manageable image you have made to suit yourself. Let him be God, and do not shrink him to fit your hand.

Lord, you spoke to your people at Sinai from the fire, showing no form, so that they would not reduce you to an image. Guard me from the same temptation, not only in carved statues but in the images of you I make in my mind, a manageable, comfortable version of you that fits my preferences and stays under my control. Such a made God is not you. Help me worship you as you truly are, in your full reality and holiness, and not shrink you to fit my hand. Let you be God, beyond my imagining, and teach me to reverence you as you are.