Deuteronomy 4:8-9

4:8 And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just ¹  as this whole law ²  that I am about to share with ³  you today?

Reminder of the Horeb Covenant

4:9 Again, however, pay very careful attention, ⁴  lest you forget the things you have seen and disregard them for the rest of your life; instead teach them to your children and grandchildren.

Exodus 20:4-5

20:4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image ⁵  or any likeness ⁶  of anything ⁷  that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water below. ⁸  20:5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, ⁹  for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous ¹⁰  God, responding to ¹¹  the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations ¹²  of those who reject me, ¹³ 

Exodus 32:7

32:7 The Lord spoke to Moses: “Go quickly, descend, ¹⁴  because your ¹⁵  people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have acted corruptly.

Psalms 106:19-20

106:19 They made an image of a calf at Horeb,

and worshiped a metal idol.

106:20 They traded their majestic God ¹⁶ 

for the image of an ox that eats grass.

Romans 1:22-24

1:22 Although they claimed ¹⁷  to be wise, they became fools 1:23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings ¹⁸  or birds or four-footed animals ¹⁹  or reptiles.

1:24 Therefore God gave them over ²⁰  in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor ²¹  their bodies among themselves. ²² 

[4:8]  ¹ tn Or “pure”; or “fair”; Heb “righteous.”

[4:8]  ² tn The Hebrew phrase הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת (hattorah hazzo’t), in this context, refers specifically to the Book of Deuteronomy. That is, it is the collection of all the חֻקִּים (khuqqim, “statutes,” 4:1) and מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishpatim, “ordinances,” 4:1) to be included in the covenant text. In a full canonical sense, of course, it pertains to the entire Pentateuch or Torah.

[4:8]  ³ tn Heb “place before.”

[4:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “watch yourself and watch your soul carefully.”

[20:4]  ⁵ tn A פֶּסֶל (pesel) is an image that was carved out of wood or stone. The Law was concerned with a statue that would be made for the purpose of worship, an idol to be venerated, and not any ordinary statue.

[20:4]  ⁶ tn The word תְּמוּנָה (tÿmunah) refers to the mental pattern from which the פֶּסֶל (pesel) is constructed; it is a real or imagined resemblance. If this is to stand as a second object to the verb, then the verb itself takes a slightly different nuance here. It would convey “you shall not make an image, neither shall you conceive a form” for worship (B. Jacob, Exodus, 547). Some simply make the second word qualify the first: “you shall not make an idol in the form of…” (NIV).

[20:4]  ⁷ tn Here the phrase “of anything” has been supplied.

[20:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “under the earth” (so KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).

[20:5]  ⁹ tn The combination of these two verbs customarily refers to the worship of pagan deities (e.g., Deut 17:3: 30:17; Jer 8:2; see J. J. Stamm and M. E. Andrew, The Ten Commandments in Recent Research [SBT], 86). The first verb is לאֹ־תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה (lo’ tishtakhaveh), now to be classified as a hishtaphel imperfect from חָוָה (khavah; BDB 1005 s.v. שׁחה), “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” It is used of the true worship of God as well. The second verb is וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם (vÿlo’ to’ovdem). The two could be taken as a hendiadys: “you will not prostrate yourself to serve them.” In an interesting side comment U. Cassuto (Exodus, 242) offers an explanation of the spelling of the second verb: he suggests that it was spelled with the qamets khatuf vowel to show contempt for pagan worship, as if their conduct does not even warrant a correct spelling of the word “serve.” Gesenius says that the forms like this are anomalous, but he wonders if they were pointed as if the verb was a Hophal with the meaning “you shall not allow yourself to be brought to worship them” (GKC 161 §60.b). But this is unlikely.

[20:5]  ¹⁰ sn The word “jealous” is the same word often translated “zeal” or “zealous.” The word describes a passionate intensity to protect or defend something that is jeopardized. The word can also have the sense of “envy,” but in that case the object is out of bounds. God’s zeal or jealousy is to protect his people or his institutions or his honor. Yahweh’s honor is bound up with the life of his people.

[20:5]  ¹¹ tn Verses 5 and 6 are very concise, and the word פָּקַד (paqad) is difficult to translate. Often rendered “visiting,” it might here be rendered “dealing with” in a negative sense or “punishing,” but it describes positive attention in 13:19. When used of God, it essentially means that God intervenes in the lives of people for blessing or for cursing. Some would simply translate the participle here as “punishing” the children for the sins of the fathers (cf. Lev 18:25; Isa 26:21; Jer 29:32; 36:31; Hos 1:4; Amos 3:2). That is workable, but may not say enough. The verse may indicate that those who hate Yahweh and do not keep his commandments will repeat the sins their fathers committed and suffer for them. Deut 24:16 says that individuals will die for their own sins and not their father’s sins (see also Deut 7:10 and Ezek 18). It may have more to do with patterns of sin being repeated from generation to generation; if the sin and the guilt were not fully developed in the one generation, then left unchecked they would develop and continue in the next. But it may also indicate that the effects of the sins of the fathers will be experienced in the following generations, especially in the case of Israel as a national entity (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 243). God is showing here that his ethical character is displayed in how he deals with sin and righteousness, all of which he describes as giving strong motivation for loyalty to him and for avoiding idolatry. There is a justice at work in the dealings of God that is not present in the pagan world.

[20:5]  ¹² tn The Hebrew word for “generations” is not found in v. 5 or 6. The numbers are short for a longer expression, which is understood as part of the description of the children already mentioned (see Deut 7:9, where “generation” [דּוֹר, dor] is present and more necessary, since “children” have not been mentioned).

[20:5]  ¹³ tn This is an important qualification to the principle. The word rendered “reject” is often translated “hate” and carries with it the idea of defiantly rejecting and opposing God and his word. Such people are doomed to carry on the sins of their ancestors and bear guilt with them.

[32:7]  ¹⁴ tn The two imperatives could also express one idea: “get down there.” In other words, “Make haste to get down.”

[32:7]  ¹⁵ sn By giving the people to Moses in this way, God is saying that they have no longer any right to claim him as their God, since they have shared his honor with another. This is God’s talionic response to their “These are your gods who brought you up.” The use of these pronoun changes also would form an appeal to Moses to respond, since Moses knew that God had brought them up from Egypt.

[106:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “their glory.” According to an ancient Hebrew scribal tradition, the text originally read “his glory” or “my glory.” In Jer 2:11 the Lord states that his people (Israel) exchanged “their glory” (a reference to the Lord) for worthless idols.

[1:22]  ¹⁷ tn The participle φάσκοντες (faskonte") is used concessively here.

[1:23]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God in likeness of an image of corruptible man.” Here there is a wordplay on the Greek terms ἄφθαρτος (afqarto", “immortal, imperishable, incorruptible”) and φθαρτός (fqarto", “mortal, corruptible, subject to decay”).

[1:23]  ¹⁹ sn Possibly an allusion to Ps 106:19-20.

[1:24]  ²⁰ sn Possibly an allusion to Ps 81:12.

[1:24]  ²¹ tn The genitive articular infinitive τοῦ ἀτιμάζεσθαι (tou atimazesqai, “to dishonor”) has been taken as (1) an infinitive of purpose; (2) an infinitive of result; or (3) an epexegetical (i.e., explanatory) infinitive, expanding the previous clause.

[1:24]  ²² tn Grk “among them.”