Imamat 26:1

Exhortation to Obedience

26:1 “‘You must not make for yourselves idols, ¹  so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before ²  it, for I am the Lord your God.

Ulangan 4:15-18

The Nature of Israel’s God

4:15 Be very careful, ³  then, because you saw no form at the time the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the middle of the fire. 4:16 I say this ⁴  so you will not corrupt yourselves by making an image in the form of any kind of figure. This includes the likeness of a human male or female, 4:17 any kind of land animal, any bird that flies in the sky, 4:18 anything that crawls ⁵  on the ground, or any fish in the deep waters of the earth. ⁶ 

Mazmur 78:58

78:58 They made him angry with their pagan shrines, ⁷ 

and made him jealous with their idols.

Mazmur 97:7

97:7 All who worship idols are ashamed,

those who boast about worthless idols.

All the gods bow down before him. ⁸ 

[26:1]  ¹ sn For the literature regarding the difficult etymology and meaning of the term for “idols” (אֱלִילִם, ’elilim), see the literature cited in the note on Lev 19:4. It appears to be a diminutive play on words with אֵל (’el, “god, God”) and, perhaps at the same time, recalls a common Semitic word for “worthless, weak, powerless, nothingness.” Snaith suggests a rendering of “worthless godlings.”

[26:1]  ² tn Heb “on.” The “sculpted stone” appears to be some sort of stone with images carved into (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 181, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 449).

[4:15]  ³ tn Heb “give great care to your souls.”

[4:16]  ⁴ tn The words “I say this” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text v. 16 is subordinated to “Be careful” in v. 15, but this makes for an unduly long sentence in English.

[4:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “creeping thing.”

[4:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “under the earth.”

[78:58]  ⁷ tn Traditionally, “high places.”

[97:7]  ⁸ tn The translation assumes that the prefixed verbal form in the first line is an imperfect (“are ashamed”) and that the ambiguous form in the third line is a perfect (“bow down”) because the psalmist appears to be describing the effect of the Lord’s mighty theophany on those who witness it (see vv. 5, 8). Another option is to take the prefixed form in the first line as a jussive (“let all who worship idols be ashamed”) and the ambiguous form in the third line as an imperative (“All you gods, bow down before him!”; cf. NIV).