It isn't hard to figure out, though it's the longest commandment for being shortened to "no graven images" it really says:
20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
20:6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
How hard is that? Don't make any images of any animals, birds, fish etc or bow down to them or God is going to punish, you, your children, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren, and your great great grandchildren. This is clearly the basis for our modern laws, for example, my great great grandfather Ole Peter Christiansen drew a picture of a goat... which is why I'm writing this in prison.
2 comments:
Jewish, Catholic, and Protestants have no differences in accepting the commandments as given in Exodus 20. The different is how the verses are divided.
The Jewish tradition, in its division, sees parallels between their first and sixth commandments, the second and seventh, and so forth as they believe God wrote them on two parallel stone tablets. The first commandment appears to be a statement, however, it is easy to see it is a commandment to recognized God for who he is. The Catholic tradition modified this division by simplifying the commandments related to worshiping the one true God (2-6) and making a distinction between respecting family rights and property rights by dividing the tenth commandment. In turn, about a thousand years later, the Protestant reformers (Lutherans excluded) changed this division to recombine the ninth and tenth commandments back to the Jewish form, and divided out the reference to graven images as a separate commandment as a protest against use of religious art in worship (again, Lutherans excluded).
None of the major Jewish or Christian groups has added or deleted anything to the meaning of the commandments.
The ten commandments are rarely displayed in full text. It is important to examine the full text of scripture to understand the full message rather than fracturing it into disjoint individual verses or snippets of verses as the commandments are usually seen in modern rendering.
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