Nathan says — "You shall not make (alongside) with Me," i

Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael Mekhilta Tractate Bachodesh 10:2

Curated by The Jewish Mythology Team · Published January 19, 2025

Rabbi Nathan interpreted the prohibition against idolatry in (Exodus 20:20) — "You shall not make alongside Me" — with striking directness. God is saying: do not think you can make any kind of image and bow down to it. Do not entertain the thought that a carved or molded representation could serve alongside the worship of the true God.

The supporting verse from Deuteronomy drives the point home. (Deuteronomy 4:15): "And you shall take great heed to your souls. For you did not see any likeness on the day that the Lord spoke to you in the midst of the fire." The reason you may not make an image of God is precisely because you never saw one. At Sinai, you heard a voice. You saw fire. But no shape, no form, no figure emerged from the flames. There was nothing to copy.

Rabbi Nathan's reading connects the prohibition against idolatry directly to the Sinai experience. The commandment is not arbitrary. It flows logically from what happened — or rather, what did not happen — at the mountain. God deliberately chose to reveal Himself without visual form. He gave Israel words and fire but withheld any image. The absence of a visible divine form at Sinai was not an accident or a limitation. It was the theological foundation for the entire prohibition against image-making. You cannot depict what was never shown to you.

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