Forged in the furnace

Deuteronomy 4:20 uses an arresting image to describe the exodus: “Yahweh has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own possession.”

The context is crucial.  Yahweh is warning about making graven images (vv. 16-18, 23) and about turning to heavenly bodies in worship (v. 19).  ”Don’t forge idols in your furnaces,” Yahweh says, but instead remember that I forged you in the factory of Egypt.

It’s not that there are no graven images of Yahweh on earth.  Israel isn’t supposed to make any images because Yahweh Himself forged an image, and it’s Israel.

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Restoring Man at Notre Dame

Carl R. Trueman

It is fascinating to be an outsider on the inside of an institution going through times of…

Deliver Us from Evil

Kari Jenson Gold

In a recent New York Times article entitled “Freedom With a Side of Guilt: How Food Delivery…

Natural Law Needs Revelation

Peter J. Leithart

Natural law theory teaches that God embedded a teleological moral order in the world, such that things…