God’s Image Study • Commandment 2: Idols and Images
When we read the instructions for the cherubim in Exodus 25, we must keep their purpose in view. God gives Moses a pattern, specifies its arrangement, and explains where He will meet with him.
These details belong within our continuing examination of archetypes and shadows: what God establishes, how its parts relate, and what Scripture reveals about the reality toward which they point.
In Exodus 25:8–9, YHWH (יהוה) instructs the people to make a sanctuary so that He may dwell among them. Its construction and furnishings must follow the pattern He shows Moses.
The cherubim belong within that instruction. There are two, one at each end of the mercy seat. Their wings extend upward over it. Their faces are toward one another and toward the mercy seat. The testimony is placed inside the ark.
God then identifies where He will meet with Moses and speak: above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim. The figures occupy their appointed places; God is the one giving the instruction. Read Exodus 25:8–22, LSB.
Number, position, relationship, and purpose all deserve attention. Reducing this passage to permission to make religious objects would leave much of its instruction unexplored.
Hebrews explicitly directs us toward the meaning of the pattern. Those serving under the Law serve:
“a copy and shadow of the heavenly things”
— Hebrews 8:5, LSB, excerpt
The passage connects this description to the instruction Moses received to follow the pattern shown on the mountain. It also describes the high priest’s ministry in the true tabernacle established by the Lord. The earthly arrangement therefore directs our attention beyond its materials and craftsmanship. Read Hebrews 8:1–6, LSB.
Hebrews 9 then names the furnishings. Verse 4 includes the golden jar of manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the covenant tablets. Verse 5 places the cherubim of Glory above the mercy seat.
It adds:
“Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.”
— Hebrews 9:5, LSB, excerpt
That statement leaves the detailed discussion undeveloped at that point. We should preserve the details for further examination rather than treat their mention as incidental.
The chapter proceeds to explain how the sanctuary arrangement communicates something through the Holy Spirit. It develops the relationship between priestly access, blood, cleansing, and Christ’s ministry. Verse 14 describes Christ offering himself to God through the eternal Spirit, with cleansing directed toward serving the living God. The furnishings belong within this larger account of approach to God. Read Hebrews 9:6–14, LSB.
The manna helps us follow this movement from provision to meaning.
In Exodus 16, God feeds the people and gives instructions governing how they gather. The sixth day brings a double portion for the Sabbath. Later, an omer of manna is preserved so that subsequent generations may see the bread with which God fed them in the wilderness. Its preservation has an explicitly stated purpose. Read Exodus 16:22–34, LSB.
John 6 returns to the manna in a discussion about bread from heaven. Jesus identifies the Father as the giver of the true bread and identifies himself as the bread of life. He distinguishes the wilderness provision, whose recipients died, from the life associated with the bread he gives. Read John 6:31–35, 48–51, LSB.
Notice how the roles remain clear: the Father gives; Jesus is the bread he identifies in that explanation. Following the connection requires us to preserve both.
This is why we continue asking what an object, arrangement, or event points toward. God’s provision teaches us something about Him and His purpose.
It also brings us back to the second commandment. A commanded representation must be understood according to the purpose God gives it. Its existence does not establish permission to assign sacred authority or devotion to whatever representation we choose.
As we saw with the bronze serpent, even an object with an authorized beginning can later receive a use God did not authorize.
The question therefore reaches beyond whether an object has a biblical association: am I following God’s instruction concerning it, and am I attending to what He is revealing through it?
Threads to Follow
The paired cherubim: Preserve their number, placement, and relation to the mercy seat as we compare other passages.
The rod that budded: What does Numbers 17 explain about God’s choice and the purpose of preserving Aaron’s rod?
The double portion and rest: Keep Exodus 16:22–30 alongside the manna discussion as we approach the Sabbath commandment.
The books were opened…
🌿 By Maria Emilia
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