How do we understand the commandment: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God” (Ex. 20:4–5)?

a. Beware of pagan worship : The spirit of this commandment is to set a boundary between idolatry and true worship — not to prohibit the use of pictures altogether. St. Yousab El Abah says, “God commanded his servant Moses to build an ark from wood and overlay it with gold and put inside the two tablets of the covenant, the golden pot which contains the manna and Aaron’s rod that blossomed. He was also commanded to place the Mercy Seat on the ark and two golden cherubim covering it, who look like two persons with stretched wings as they face one another and their faces look toward the Mercy Seat. Moses and all the people would go out and bow down before the ark. And God would speak to Moses from between the two cherubim (Ex. 25:22).”

b. In addition, the image of a cherub was embroidered on the veil between the Holy Place and the inner Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle of Meeting. There were also two massive golden Cherubim standing in the Holy of Holies of Solomon’s Temple and covering the Ark of the Covenant with their wings. Furthermore, images of Cherubim were engraved all over the walls of the temple and on the doors (1 Kings 6:27–29, 32; 2 Chron. 3:7) as a sign of the presence of God in His Holy House. God instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole in the wilderness, so that it would be a source of healing to everyone who looked at it (Num. 21:8–9).The bronze serpent is a symbol of the crucified Messiah, according to the Lord’s words: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 1:14–15). And when the people misused the bronze serpent and worshipped it as an idol, burning incense to it, Hezekiah broke it (2 Kings 18:4).

c. Distinguishing between worship and honor: John of Damascus says, “The banning of use of images in the Old Testament was based mainly on the inability of the Jewish people to distinguish between the worship ( lateria ) of God alone, and veneration ( proskynesis ), which can be offered to someone other than God. But Christians are able discern between worshiping Christ and honoring His holy icons.”

d. Through the divine incarnation God manifested Himself to the world in a visible way that can be portrayed so that the events of His life on earth can be drawn in icons or written in words.¹²¹⁶

The Fathers cited