Ver. 17-19. The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, &c.— It is justly observed by Dr. Chandler, in his Vindication, p. 480 that this is the very picture of Egypt, which had gods of all sorts; dead persons deified, male and female, and numerous images of them; and which worshipped as deities, bulls, cows, sheep, goats, dogs, cats, birds, the ibis and hawk, serpents, crocodiles, river-horses, together with the sun, moon, and stars of heaven; and, therefore, Moses adds, ver. 20 but the Lord hath taken, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day: plainly intimating their redemption from these Egyptian idolatries to be the establishment of a peculiar kingdom to himself. And, in truth, that worship of almost all sorts of brute beasts, birds, fishes, reptiles, was so horribly absurd and stupid, that it could never enter into the heart of a legislator to forbid it, unless he had been himself a witness to these mean and monstrous absurdities. See Exodus 20:4. Concerning these false gods of Egypt, we refer the reader to the incomparable Pantheon of Egypt by Jablonski.
Related Commentaries of Deuteronomy 4:17
Deuteronomy 4:17-19
17 The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air,
18 The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth:
19 And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath dividedc unto all nations under the whole heaven.