Here the spirituality of God is asserted, and, in the prohibition of the use of images in the worship of the Deity, all idolatry is denounced, and all deification of the powers of nature in any sense is prohibited.
By the Jews, this commandment was not always regarded, for they were not infrequently seduced into following the idolatrous usages of the nations around them. It does not appear, however, that, though they set up images of the idol-gods whom they were thus led to worship, they ever attempted to represent by image or picture the great God whom their fathers worshipped—Jehovah—by whom this command was given; and at a later period, when they had long renounced all idolatry, they became noted as the one nation that adored the Deity as a spirit, without any sensible representation of him: "Judaei mente sola unumque Numen intelligunt … igitur nulla simulacra urbibus suis, nedum temples sinunt" (Tacit; 'Hist.
,' 5.5). It appears that, by many of them at least, the commandment was regarded as prohibiting absolutely the graphic and plastic arts. This may account for the low state of these arts among the Jews, and for the fact that they alone of the civilized nations of antiquity have left no monuments of art for the instruction or admiration of posterity.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them; LXX; προσκυνήσιες αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ μή λατρεύσης αὐτοῖς. Every kind of worship of images is forbidden, alike that of proskunesis and that of latria.
And showing mercy unto thousands; i.e. to the thousandth generation (cf.