Deuteronomy 4:16

16 Don't ruin everything and make an idol for yourself: a form of any image, any likeness—male or female—

Deuteronomy 4:16 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 4:16

Lest ye corrupt yourselves
And not themselves only, but the word and worship of God, by idolatry, than which nothing is more corrupting and defiling, nor more abominable to God:

and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure;
a graven image, in the likeness of any figure, an idea of which they had formed in their minds;

the likeness of male or female;
of a man or a woman; so some of the Heathen deities were in the likeness of men, as Jupiter, Mars, Hercules, Apollo and others in the likeness of women, as Juno, Diana, Venus Some think Osiris and Isis, Egyptian deities, the one male, the other female, are respected; but it is not certain that these were worshipped by them so early.

Deuteronomy 4:16 In-Context

14 At that time, the LORD commanded me to teach you all the regulations and the case laws that you must keep in the land that you are entering to possess.
15 So watch your conduct closely, because you didn't see any form on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the very fire itself.
16 Don't ruin everything and make an idol for yourself: a form of any image, any likeness—male or female—
17 or any likeness whatsoever, whether of a land animal, a bird that flies in the sky,
18 an insect that crawls on the earth, or a fish that lives in the sea.
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