The commandment against idols is sweeping in a way that startles when you slow down and read it carefully. "You shall not make to yourselves image or figure, or any similitude of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth" (Exodus 20:4, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan).
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan keeps the triple geography intact: sky, ground, and deep sea. Three zones of creation. Three domains where ancient peoples found their gods — the sun above, the idols of the field below, the sea-monsters and serpent-gods of the waters under the earth. The commandment forbids images of all of them.
What's striking is the phrase image or figure, or any similitude. The Targum triples the prohibition. Not just statues. Not just paintings. Anything that purports to represent a divine being. Judaism's refusal of imagery is not squeamishness — it is a theological claim about what God is. The Infinite cannot be depicted without being shrunk, and a shrunken Infinite is by definition not the Infinite.
The prohibition works in two directions. You shall not make an image of something in creation and call it God (pagan idolatry), and you shall not make an image of God and place Him within creation (the deeper metaphysical error). The Targumist's careful list — heavens, earth, waters — rules out every category of created thing as a vessel for the Divine.
The takeaway: the second commandment is not a ban on art. It is a ban on confusing the Maker with the made.