beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
This most lively and excellent discourse is so entire, and the particulars of it are so often repeated, that we must take it altogether in the exposition of it, and endeavour to digest it into proper heads, for we cannot divide it into paragraphs. I.
Commenting on Deuteronomy 4:1-40
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...
Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image--The things are here specified of which God prohibited any image or representation to be made for the purposes of worship; and, from the variety of details entered into, an idea may be formed of the extensive prevalence of idolatry in that age.