Lest ye corrupt yourselves,.... And not themselves only, but the word and worship of God, by idolatry, than which nothing is more corrupting and defiling, nor more abominable to God:
and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure; a graven image, in the likeness of any figure, an idea of which they had formed in their minds;
the likeness of male or female; of a man or a woman; so some of the Heathen deities were in the likeness of men, as Jupiter, Mars, Hercules, Apollo, c. and others in the likeness of women, as Juno, Diana, Venus, &c. Some think Osiris and Isis, Egyptian deities, the one male, the other female, are respected but it is not certain that these were worshipped by them so early.