And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only [ye heard] a voice.
Ver. 12. Ye saw no similitude.] Numa the Roman lawgiver would not permit any image, whether painted or carved, to be placed in their temples, eo quod nefas duceret praestantiora deterioribus adsimulare, because he held it unlawful to set forth a better thing by a worse, &c. Hence it was that the Roman temples had no pictures in them for a hundred and seventy years after the building of that city. Irenaeus reproves the heretics called Gnostici, for that they carried about the image of Christ, made in Pilate's time, after his own proportion; for "to whom will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?" Isa 40:18