Exodus 20:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image— The having or worshipping any kind of false gods, is absolutely forbidden in the first commandment. Here the mode of worshipping them, which generally prevailed among idolaters, and which was peculiarly offensive to Jehovah, is forbidden: the Israelites are enjoined to avoid forming not only any images of false deities, but any imaginary representations of the true GOD, See Deuteronomy 4:12. Thou shalt not make unto thee, says the Lord, thou shalt not form to thyself, or from thy own imagination, פסל pesel, a graven, or carved image; or any תמונה temunah, any delineation, similitude, or representation of any thing: the word signifies any such orderly and regular distribution of parts, lineaments, colours, or the like, as raises in the mind the idea of the thing represented. See Parkhurst on the word. They were not to make to themselves for the purpose of worshipping (as Exodus 20:5 shews) any such image or representation of any thing in heaven above, which may include not only God and his angels, the inhabitants of heaven; but, more particularly, the heavenly hosts, the sun, moon, and stars, the first and most universal objects of idolatrous worship. See Deuteronomy 4:19. Job 31:26-27. For the rest, it may be observed, that there was scarcely any creature, from the human, to the lowest reptile, which the folly of idolatry did not represent and sanctify; and, therefore, this prohibition, which extends to every creature in the heaven, or air, the earth and the sea, was by no means too general; as a knowledge of the superstitions of the Egyptians only, would prove; who deified creatures from the sun and the moon, to the ox that grazeth in the field, and the crocodile which devoureth in the waters.